Best Search Engines for Privacy in 2020

Contents

DuckDuckGo
StartPage
Swisscows

Nowadays, third-party websites such as Facebook and even the search engines that you are using are revealing your private information. Therefore, it is essential to keep your Internet searches private while you are looking for answers on the Internet. Here are the best search engines for privacy in 2020. You should start surfing the Internet safely with a private search engine.

DuckDuckGo

Introduction

Gabriel Weinberg, an MIT graduate, founded DuckDuckGo in 2008. Talking of the strange name of this website, Weinberg said it was inspired by the children’s chase game “duck, duck, goose.” It doesn’t have any other meaning or metaphor.

Price

DuckDuckGo is a free search engine for privacy.

DuckDuckGo displays untargeted ads that are based on some more general facts. For example, you will receive English ads because you do searches in English. Besides, it enables users to choose whether or not to see ads by adjusting the settings.

Language

DuckDuckGo supports more than 90 languages. By default, it displays your browser preferred language. You can go to the settings page to change the language across the whole website.

Compatibility

DuckDuckGo can be set as the default search engine for the major browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Chrome and Opera. You can also install its browser extension if you are using Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari.

Besides, many other browsers offer users the option to use DuckDuckGo as a search engine.

Adblock Browser
Brave
Chromium Portable
Conkeror
Dillo
Dooble
GNU Icecat
K-Meleon
Konqueror
Midori
Min
OmniWeb
openWeb
Pale Moon
SeaMonkey
Slimjet
SRWare Iron
Torbutton (captcha default)
Vimprobable
Vivaldi
Waterfox

In addition, DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser is available in the App Store and Google Play Store for mobile users.

Search result

When you use DuckDuckGo to do a search, you will receive results from 400+ resources, including its crawler DuckDuckBot, crowdsourced sites like Wikipedia and its partners such as Yahoo and Bing.

Privacy features

DuckDuckGo is one of the most popular search engines because of its privacy policies.

It does not record information such as your user agent (user identifier, used to identify the browser you use), IP address, search terms, etc.. By default, it won’t identify you through cookies and other mechanisms.

When it forwards your request, it will process the request so that the third party website cannot know that you are jumping from its search results page. So, the third-party website will see that you pay a visit by entering its URL in the address bar.

To further increase your security online, DuckDuckGo also automatically modifies the URLs of some major site indexes to direct you to their HTTPS addresses when you click on their websites.

In addition, for those who seek the ultimate privacy protection, DuckDuckGo also offers a Tor exit enclave. Its end-to-end encryption will keep you anonymous on the Internet.

StartPage

Introduction

StartPage is a search engine service launched by Ixquick. In 1998, Ixquick metasearch engine was developed by David Bodnick in New York City. Ixquick and StartPage were officially combined in 2016.

StartPage provides Google search and image search results through a free anonymous proxy. It claims to be the most secure and private search engine in the world to protect users’ personal privacy and won’t collect and share users’ personal information.

Price

StartPage is another private search engine that is completely free.

When using StartPage to perform searches, you will receive untargeted ads. They are only related to your current search. That is to say, these ads have nothing to do with your previous searches.

Language

StartPage enables you to search in over 80 languages. Tips and messages on its official website are also available in 10 languages. You can choose a language by yourself in the settings.

Compatibility

You can add StartPage to the mainstream browsers as the default search engine or the homepage, including Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Besides, there is also the browser extension of StartPage for you to use.

For mobile users, you can find StartPage Private Search in Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Search result

StartPage pays for Google to give you search results from Google. And you will only receive results from Google when you do searches on StartPage.

Privacy features

Much like DuckDuckGo, StartPage doesn’t record your IP address, search queries, any tracking or identifying cookies. Since it has no records of your private information, your private data won’t be exposed to or stolen by others. You can rest assured to look for answers to various questions with StartPage.

It is located in the Netherlands where there are very strong privacy laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). So, you can trust StartPage with your privacy.

What’s more, StartPage even allows you to stay anonymous on the Internet and protect you from potential cyber threats while you are using public WiFi. Anonymous View, the proxy service of StartPage, achieves this by redirecting your traffic data through its proxy servers and mask your IP address.

Nevertheless, RitaVPN strongly recommends you use the best VPN to hide your IP address and encrypt your traffic data. A good VPN service will protect you from being hacked or monitored online.

Swisscows

Introduction

Swisscows was created by Hulbee AG in 2014. It is a semantic search engine, which is different from the above-mentioned search engines.

Price

Swisscows is a free search engine that protects user privacy.

Swisscows also show ads according to your search terms. But it doesn’t refer to your browsing history and search history.

Language

Searches performed in Swisscows are available in 9 languages. Go to its settings to choose a language for yourself.

Compatibility

Swisscows allows you to set it as the default search engine of Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. You can also set Swisscows as the start page of Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge.