It would not be a surprise for anyone that Google Search, in all fairness, dominates this segment, even in 2020. With a crushing 76% share in the Search Engine market and its nearest global competitor Bing, once touted as one of the best alternatives to Google Search, at just a meager 4%, it seems fairly unlikely we will get out of this monopoly any time soon.
But there is a silver lining to this. The complete dominance of Google Search in its field and the utter decimation of its rivals, like Yahoo and Bing, who were once global players in this segment, has resulted in a vacuum for an alternative to Google Search. And there are promising signs in this regard. Several search engines have popped out in recent years, and they are showing real promise. But most of all, it is the plummeting trust people now have in major tech companies with regard to their private data, which is primarily the benefactor of these new players in town.
Google has shown in the past few years its willingness the bend over to please authoritarian regimes all over the globe and restrict free speech; which is actually what Internet so attractive to its average user, and with the rumored Dragonfly project all set to go in the coming years, there is no escaping this fact that people are worried about respect to their privacy.
So here are some of the best alternatives to Google Search Engine present in the market right now.
Top Alternatives to Google Search
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is one the most prominent search engines alternative out there, primarily due to its emphasis on privacy and data sharing. Its tagline – ‘Privacy, Simplified.’, quite simply reflects that statement.
Founder in 2008, DuckDuckGo started gaining popularity by 2012, numbering up to 45 million hits per month in October 2012. Many analysts relate this substantial rise to the exposure of PRISM and other programs operated by the National Security Agency(NSA).
Weinberg’s non-ambitious goals make him a particularly odd and dangerous competitor online. He can do almost everything that Google or Bing can’t because it could damage their business models, and if users figure out that they like the DuckDuckGo way better, Weinberg could damage the big boys without even really trying. It’s asymmetrical digital warfare, and his backers at Union Square Ventures say Google is vulnerable.
DuckDuckGo has gained quite a prominence in recent years, particularly to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which has eroded people’s faith in the big-tech giants, and as of April 2020, is receiving over 60 million hits daily.
Qwant
Qwant is a web search engine launched in 2013 by Qwant SAS and is operated in Paris, France. It is another privacy-centric search engine and is one of the few EU-based search engines with its own indexing engine. Qwant is one of the popular alternatives to Google Search.
Qwant processes over 10 million searches per day and over 50 million unique users across the globe per month and is one of the fastest-growing search engines in the world right now.
Qwant is available in 26 languages and has three main variants for its site; the normal homepage, a “light version”, and the “Qwant Junior” portal for children.
The French government in 2018 decreed that all government searches be done using Qwant.
swisscows
Swisscows, as the name suggests, is a search engine based out of Egnach, Switzerland, and is one of the more popular search engines when it comes to privacy protection.
Swisscows doesn’t store any personal data, search queries, IP addresses, or other identifiers, but it utilizes Bing for search indexes other than in the German language.
Swisscows has a strong commitment to privacy, amplified by the fact that it is based in Switzerland, one of the nations with the strictest privacy laws. As of 2018, there are 20 million monthly search queries.
Swisscows is particularly famous for pornographic-censored content, making it suitable for kids.
GIBIRU
Gibiru, launched in 2009, is another alternative search engine particularly concerned with Privacy issues. It also deals with censorship issues and has been known to provide censored content to its users.
Gibiru claims to never store your search query on its servers, as well as other information that can be used to track you, and the records are wiped clean within seconds of performing the search.
search encrypt
Search Encrypt is designed with keeping user privacy as its core tenant and uses local encryption so that your searches remain private.
It utilizes a combination of encryption methods, including Secure Socket Layer encryption (SSL) and AES-256.
The search results are retrieved from its network of internet partners, and your local browsing history gets deleted after every 15 minutes of inactivity. Search Encrypt is a relatively new alternative to Google Search and is clocking over 23 million visitors every day.
giveWater
GiveWater is a self-described “social impact search engine” that aims to do good and have a positive impact by empowering users to solve the issue of sanitation and poor-quality water across the developing world.
Its revenue model is based on its advertisers placing ads on its search page. Its search engine is powered by Bing.
ECOSIA
It will come as a bit of a surprise that any Google Search contributes to the creation of quite a bit of CO2, which obviously is harmful to our environment. According to Quartz, Google Search I responsible for about 40% of the Internet’s carbon footprint.
Ecosia, established in 2009, aims to counteract that. Ecosia donates around 80% of its profit to tree-planting projects across the globe, which roughly translates to around 45 searches per tree planted.
Ecosia results are powered by Bing and enhanced by its own algorithm. Privacy is a core concern for Ecosia but not the primary; your search data will only get deleted after seven days.
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