Secure search engine. Startpage: The World's Most Discrete Search Engine
At first glance it may seem that there is better than Google maybe only Yandex, and even that is not a fact. These companies invest huge amounts of money in innovation and development. Does anyone really have a chance not only to compete with the leaders, but also to win? Lifehacker's answer: “Yes!” There are several search engines that have succeeded. Let's look at our heroes.
What is this
This is a fairly well-known search engine with open source code. Servers are located in the USA. In addition to its own robot, the search engine uses results from other sources: Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wikipedia, Wolfram|Alpha.
The better
DuckDuckGo positions itself as a search engine that provides maximum privacy and confidentiality. The system does not collect any data about the user, does not store logs (no search history), use cookies as limited as possible.
DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information from users. This is our privacy policy.
Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo
Why do you need this
All major search engines are trying to personalize search results based on data about the person in front of the monitor. This phenomenon is called the “filter bubble”: the user sees only those results that are consistent with his preferences or that the system deems as such.
DuckDuckGo creates an objective picture that does not depend on your past behavior on the Internet, and eliminates thematic Google advertising and Yandex, based on your requests. With DuckDuckGo, it’s easy to search for information in foreign languages: Google and Yandex by default give preference to Russian-language sites, even if the query is entered in another language.
What is this
"" is a Russian metasearch system developed by Moscow State University graduates Viktor Lavrenko and Vladimir Chernyshov. It searches through the indexes of Google, Bing, Yandex and others, and also has its own search algorithm.
The better
Searching through the indexes of all major search engines allows you to generate relevant results. In addition, Nigma breaks the results into several thematic groups(clusters) and prompts the user to narrow the search field by discarding unnecessary ones or highlighting priority ones. Thanks to the Mathematics and Chemistry modules, you can solve mathematical problems and request the results of chemical reactions directly in the search bar.
Why do you need this
Eliminates the need to search for the same query in different search engines. The cluster system makes it easy to manipulate search results. For example, Nigma collects results from online stores into a separate cluster. If you do not intend to buy anything, then simply exclude this group. By selecting the “English-language sites” cluster, you will receive results only in English. The Mathematics and Chemistry modules will help schoolchildren.
Unfortunately, the project is not currently being developed, as the developers have transferred their activity to the Vietnamese market. Nevertheless, “Nigma” is not only not outdated yet, but in some things it still gives Google a head start. Let's hope development resumes.
What is this
not Evil is a system that searches the anonymous Tor network. To use, you need to log into this network, for example by running specialized browser with the same name. not Evil is not the only search engine of its kind. There is LOOK (default search in the Tor browser, accessible from regular internet) or TORCH (one of the oldest search engines on the Tor network) and others. We settled on not Evil because of the clear allusion to Google itself (just look at the start page).
The better
It searches where Google, Yandex and other search engines are generally closed.
Why do you need this
The Tor network contains many resources that cannot be found on the law-abiding Internet. And as government control over the content of the Internet tightens, their number will grow. Tor is a kind of Network within the Network: with its own social networks, torrent trackers, media, trading platforms, blogs, libraries, and so on.
YaCy
What is this
YaCy is a decentralized search engine that works on the principle of P2P networks. Each computer on which the main one is installed software module, scans the Internet independently, that is, it is an analogue of a search robot. The results obtained are collected in common base, which is used by all YaCy members.
The better
It’s difficult to say whether this is better or worse, since YaCy is a completely different approach to organizing search. The absence of a single server and owner company makes the results completely independent of anyone's preferences. The autonomy of each node eliminates censorship. YaCy is capable of searching the deep web and non-indexed public networks.
Why do you need this
If you are a supporter of open source software and a free internet, not subject to influence government agencies and large corporations, then YaCy is your choice. It can also be used to organize a search within a corporate or other autonomous network. And even though YaCy is not very useful in everyday life, it is a worthy alternative Google from a search process perspective.
Pipl
What is this
Pipl is a system designed to search for information about a specific person.
The better
The authors of Pipl claim that their specialized algorithms search more efficiently than “regular” search engines. In particular, priority sources of information include social network profiles, comments, member lists, and various databases that publish information about people, such as court decisions. Pipl's leadership in this area is confirmed by assessments from Lifehacker.com, TechCrunch and other publications.
Why do you need this
If you need to find information about a person living in the US, then Pipl will be much more effective than Google. The databases of Russian courts are apparently inaccessible to the search engine. Therefore, he does not cope so well with Russian citizens.
What is this
Another specialized search engine. Looking for various sounds(house, nature, cars, people, etc.) in open sources. The service does not support queries in Russian, but there is an impressive list of Russian-language tags that you can search for.
The better
The output contains only sounds and nothing extra. In the search settings you can set the desired format and sound quality. All sounds found are available for download. There is a search for sounds by pattern.
Why do you need this
If you need to quickly find the sound of a musket shot, the blows of a suckling woodpecker, or the cry of Homer Simpson, then this service is for you. And I chose this only from the available Russian-language queries. On English language the spectrum is even wider. But seriously, a specialized service requires a specialized audience. But what if it comes in handy for you too?
The life of alternative search engines is often fleeting. Lifehacker asked the former general director of the Ukrainian branch of Yandex, Sergei Petrenko, about the long-term prospects of such projects.
As for the fate of alternative search engines, it is simple: to be very niche projects with a small audience, therefore without clear commercial prospects or, conversely, with complete clarity of their absence.
If you look at the examples in the article, you can see that such search engines either specialize in a narrow but popular niche, which, perhaps, has not yet grown enough to be noticeable on the radars of Google or Yandex, or they are testing an original hypothesis in ranking, which is not yet applicable in regular search.
For example, if a search on Tor suddenly turns out to be in demand, that is, results from there are needed by at least a percentage of Google’s audience, then, of course, ordinary search engines will begin to solve the problem of how to find them and show them to the user. If the behavior of the audience shows that for a significant proportion of users in a significant number of queries, results given without taking into account factors depending on the user seem more relevant, then Yandex or Google will begin to produce such results.
“Be better” in the context of this article does not mean “be better at everything.” Yes, in many aspects our heroes are far from Google and Yandex (even far from Bing). But each of these services gives the user something that the search industry giants cannot offer.
What is this
DuckDuckGo is a fairly well-known open source search engine. Servers are located in the USA. In addition to its own robot, the search engine uses results from other sources: Yahoo, Bing, Wikipedia.
The better
DuckDuckGo positions itself as a search engine that provides maximum privacy and confidentiality. The system does not collect any data about the user, does not store logs (no search history), and the use of cookies is as limited as possible.
DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information from users. This is our privacy policy.
Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo
Why do you need this
All major search engines try to personalize based on data about the person in front of the monitor. This phenomenon is called the “filter bubble”: the user sees only those results that are consistent with his preferences or that the system deems as such.
DuckDuckGo creates an objective picture that does not depend on your past behavior on the Internet, and eliminates thematic advertising from Google and Yandex based on your queries. With DuckDuckGo, it’s easy to search for information in foreign languages: Google and Yandex by default give preference to Russian-language sites, even if the query is entered in another language.
What is this
not Evil is a system that searches the anonymous Tor network. To use it, you need to go to this network, for example, by launching a specialized one with the same name.
not Evil is not the only search engine of its kind. There is LOOK (the default search in the Tor browser, accessible from the regular Internet) or TORCH (one of the oldest search engines on the Tor network) and others. We settled on not Evil because of the clear hint from Google (just look at the start page).
The better
It searches where Google, Yandex and other search engines are generally closed.
Why do you need this
The Tor network contains many resources that cannot be found on the law-abiding Internet. And their number will grow as government control over the content of the Internet tightens. Tor is a kind of network within the Internet with its own social networks, torrent trackers, media, trading platforms, blogs, libraries, and so on.
3. YaCy
What is this
YaCy is a decentralized search engine that works on the principle of P2P networks. Each computer on which the main software module is installed scans the Internet independently, that is, it is analogous to a search robot. The results obtained are collected into a common database that is used by all YaCy participants.
The better
It’s difficult to say whether this is better or worse, since YaCy is a completely different approach to organizing search. The absence of a single server and owner company makes the results completely independent of anyone's preferences. The autonomy of each node eliminates censorship. YaCy is capable of searching the deep web and non-indexed public networks.
Why do you need this
If you are a supporter of open source software and a free Internet, not subject to the influence of government agencies and large corporations, then YaCy is your choice. It can also be used to organize a search within a corporate or other autonomous network. And even though YaCy is not very useful in everyday life, it is worthy alternative to Google in terms of the search process.
4. Pipl
What is this
Pipl is a system designed to search for information about a specific person.
The better
The authors of Pipl claim that their specialized algorithms search more efficiently than “regular” search engines. In particular, priority sources of information include social network profiles, comments, member lists, and various databases that publish information about people, such as court decisions. Pipl's leadership in this area is confirmed by assessments from Lifehacker.com, TechCrunch and other publications.
Why do you need this
If you need to find information about a person living in the US, then Pipl will be much more effective than Google. The databases of Russian courts are apparently inaccessible to the search engine. Therefore, he does not cope so well with Russian citizens.
What is this
FindSounds is another specialized search engine. Searches for various sounds (house, nature, cars, people, etc.) in open sources. The service does not support queries in Russian, but there is an impressive list of Russian-language tags that you can search for.
The better
The output contains only sounds and nothing extra. In the search settings you can set the desired format and sound quality. All sounds found are available for download. There is a search for sounds by pattern.
Why do you need this
If you need to quickly find the sound of a musket shot, the blows of a suckling woodpecker, or the cry of Homer Simpson, then this service is for you. And we chose this only from the available Russian-language queries. In English the spectrum is even wider.
But seriously, a specialized service requires a specialized audience. But what if it comes in handy for you too?
What is this
Wolfram|Alpha is a computational search engine. Instead of links to articles that contain keywords, it provides a ready-made answer to the user’s request. For example, if you enter “compare the populations of New York and San Francisco” into the search form in English, Wolfram|Alpha will immediately display tables and graphs with the comparison.
The better
This service is better than others for finding facts and calculating data. Wolfram|Alpha collects and organizes knowledge available on the Web from a variety of fields, including science, culture and entertainment. If this database contains a ready-made answer to search query, the system shows it, if not, it calculates and displays the result. In this case, the user only sees necessary information and nothing extra.
Why do you need this
If you're a student, analyst, journalist, or researcher, for example, you can use Wolfram|Alpha to find and calculate data related to your work. The service does not understand all requests, but it is constantly developing and becoming smarter.
What is this
Metasearch engine Dogpile displays a combined list of results from search engines Google results, Yahoo and other popular systems.
The better
First, Dogpile displays fewer ads. Secondly, the service uses a special algorithm to find and show top scores from different search engines. According to the Dogpile developers, their systems generate the most complete search results on the entire Internet.
Why do you need this
If you can't find information on Google or another standard search engine, look for it in several search engines at once using Dogpile.
What is this
BoardReader is a system for text search in forums, question and answer services and other communities.
The better
The service allows you to narrow your search field to social platforms. Thanks to special filters, you can quickly find posts and user comments that match your criteria: language, publication date and site name.
Why do you need this
BoardReader can be useful for PR people and other media specialists who are interested in the opinion of a mass audience on certain issues.
Finally
The life of alternative search engines is often fleeting. Lifehacker asked the former general director of the Ukrainian branch of Yandex, Sergei Petrenko, about the long-term prospects of such projects.
Sergey Petrenko
Former CEO"Yandex.Ukraine".
As for the fate of alternative search engines, it is simple: to be very niche projects with a small audience, therefore without clear commercial prospects or, conversely, with complete clarity of their absence.
If you look at the examples in the article, you can see that such search engines either specialize in a narrow but popular niche, which, perhaps, has not yet grown enough to be noticeable on the radars of Google or Yandex, or they are testing an original hypothesis in ranking, which is not yet applicable in regular search.
For example, if a search on Tor suddenly turns out to be in demand, that is, results from there are needed by at least a percentage of Google’s audience, then, of course, ordinary search engines will begin to solve the problem of how to find them and show them to the user. If the behavior of the audience shows that for a significant proportion of users in a significant number of queries, results given without taking into account factors depending on the user seem more relevant, then Yandex or Google will begin to produce such results.
“Be better” in the context of this article does not mean “be better at everything.” Yes, in many aspects our heroes are far from Google and Yandex (even far from Bing). But each of these services gives the user something that the search industry giants cannot offer. Surely you also know similar projects. Share with us - let's discuss.
Are you looking for search engines without censorship or restrictions? In this article I will present you a selection the best search engines without any restrictions. The Internet is an excellent way to transmit and disseminate information. However popular search engines not only use their own filtering, but also analyze the user’s history, selecting search results to suit their area of interest, and also use targeted advertising.
Sometimes this feature really helps. However, in most cases we see what the search engine considers most relevant, but in fact helpful information may be on page 5-10 in the search results.
Is it possible to get rid of censorship in popular search engines?
If Yandex or Google suits you, but you would like to expand the list of available sites, then just change the filter setting. By default, popular search engines choose moderate filtering of search queries. You can change this parameter in the settings window for a specific search engine to use it without censorship or restrictions.
Please note that material designed for an adult audience with a stable psyche will be found more often, and it will be easier to find a suitable site, for example, with a “strawberry”. But if we are talking about resources blocked by a search engine or authorities, then this manipulation will not change anything. By the way, it is quite likely that in contextual advertising Some not-so-pleasant advertisements will appear, but there is no need to be especially afraid of this, because advertising platforms and agencies still set certain limits.
Tor - anonymous browser
Many advanced users have long been using the TOR network and the browser of the same name with increased confidentiality. This is not just an anonymous search engine, but a whole parallel world of the Internet! Of course, the number of sites is not so large, and among them great amount offers illegal activities or goods. But nevertheless, here you can find pirated copies of films, games and much more.
Tor Search is truly uncensored. It is used for searching on the darknet. There are no restrictions for the user and resource owner. At the same time, it remains complete anonymity both sides. The search engine uses Nutch, built on Apache. “The system was originally developed for Yahoo,” says creator Chris McNaghten.
Duck search - no limits
YaCy is a search robot on every computer
This free system, which works on the principles of decentralization https://yacy.net/en/index.html. Each participating computer independently conducts a search, expanding the common base - the classic P2P operating scheme. The request itself is processed directly on the computer, which prevents data leakage about visited pages and search history. It is simply unrealistic to introduce any censorship or impose sites on YaCy! It can even scan a corporate network.
What is the disadvantage of anonymous search engines?
Why are giants using multi-level filters still thriving? It's all about speed. Often, the search engine uses encryption and a VPN service without restrictions to hide the user’s real information. This significantly slows down request processing. However, this is a small price to pay for privacy and data protection.
Internet without censorship or high processing of requests with an abundance of advertising? The choice is yours!
In contact with
A search engine is a database of specific information on the Internet. Many users believe that as soon as they enter a query into a search engine, the entire Internet is immediately crawled, but this is not at all true. The Internet is scanned constantly, by many programs, data about sites is entered into a database, where, according to certain criteria, all sites and all their pages are distributed into various types of lists and databases. That is, it is a kind of file cabinet of data, and the search takes place not on the Internet, but on this file cabinet.
Popular search engines
Yandex is the largest search engine in RuNet.
In addition to the search engine, the Yandex company offers 77 additional services, the most popular of which are the Yandex mail service, Yandex browser, Yandex disk, traffic and weather information, Yandex money and much more. The search engine takes your location into account when displaying search results. The search program is also constantly being modernized to produce more correct results, designed to be as informative as possible for the user.
Google is the most popular search engine in the world.
In addition to the search engine, Google offers many additional services, programs and hardware, including an email service, the Google Chrome browser, the largest YouTube video library and many other projects. Google is confidently buying up many projects that bring large profits. Most of the services are not aimed at the direct user, but at making money on the Internet and are integrated with a focus on the interests of European and American users.
Mail is a search engine that is popular mainly because of its email service.
There are many additional services, the key of which is Mail, on this moment Mail company owns the social network Odnoklassniki, own network“My World”, Money-mail service, many online games, three almost identical browsers with different names. All applications and services contain a lot of advertising content. The social network VKonatkte blocks direct transitions to Mail services, aggravating with a large number of viruses.
Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is a search reference system.
The non-profit search engine, which operates on private donations, therefore does not fill its pages with advertising. A multilingual project whose goal is to create a complete reference encyclopedia in all languages of the world. It has no specific authors and is populated and run by volunteers from all over the world. Each user can both write and edit an article.
Official page- www.wikipedia.org.
Youtube is the largest library of video files.
Video hosting with elements social network, where each user can add a video. From the moment of purchase by Google Ink, separate registration for YouTube is not required, just register in the Google mail service.
Official page - youtube.com.
Yahoo! is the second most important search engine in the world.
Available additional services, the most famous of which is Yahoo mail. As part of improving the quality of the search engine, Yahoo transfers data about users and their queries to Microsoft company. From this data, an idea of the interests of users is formed, and a market for advertising content is formed. The Yahoo search engine, like , is engaged in the acquisition of other companies, for example, Yahoo belongs to search service Altavista and website ecommerce Alibaba.
Official page - www.yahoo.com.
WDL is a digital library.
The library collects books of cultural value in digital form. The main goal is to increase the level of cultural content of the Internet. Access to the library is free.
Official page - www.wdl.org/ru/.
Bing is a search engine from Microsoft.
Official page - www.baidu.com.
Search engines Russia
Rambler is a “pro-American” search engine.
Initially it was created as an Internet media portal. Like many other search engines, it has search services for images, video files, maps, weather forecasts, a news section and much more. Publishers also offer a free browser, Rambler-Nichrome.
Official page - www.rambler.ru.
Nigma is an intelligent search engine.
A more convenient search engine due to the presence of many filters and settings. The interface allows you to include or exclude suggested similar values in the search to obtain better results. Also, when receiving a search result, it allows you to use information from other major search engines.
Official page - www.nigma.ru.
Aport - online product catalog.
In the past, a search engine, but after development and innovation were stopped, it quickly lost ground and . IN currently Aport is trading platform, where the products of more than 1,500 companies are presented.
Official page - www.aport.ru.
Sputnik is a national search engine and Internet portal.
Created by Rostelecom. Currently in testing stage.
Official page - www.sputnik.ru.
Metabot is a growing search engine.
Metabot's tasks are to create a search engine for all other search engines, creating results positions taking into account data from the entire list of search engines. That is, it is a search engine for search engines.
Official page - www.metabot.ru.
The search engine has been suspended.
Official page - www.turtle.ru.
KM is a multiportal.
Initially, the site was a multiportal with the subsequent introduction of a search engine. The search can be carried out both within the site and across all monitored RuNet sites.
Official page - www.km.ru.
Gogo - does not work, redirects to a search engine.
Official page - www.gogo.ru.
The Russian multiportal, not very popular, requires improvement. The search engine includes news, television, games, and a map.
Official page - www.zoneru.org.
The search engine does not work, the developers suggest using the search engine.
Official page - www.au.ru.
Whenever you browse a website, your IP and MAC address are logged to track your activity. To protect yourself, you need to browse various sites anonymously. In this regard, we provide a list of anonymous search engines that will not track your queries.
1. Wolfram Alpha
It is one of the best search engines and is well known among security experts. WolframAlpha provides fundamentally new way obtaining knowledge and answers - through dynamic calculations based on a large volume of built-in data, algorithms and methods.
2.Privatelee
This is a search engine on HTTPS based, which uses SSL encryption and does not record user requests.
3.DuckDuckGo
This is a well-known search engine that you may have already used. The anonymous search engine DuckDuckGo does not collect or share users' personal information. This is the privacy policy used by this service.
4 Yippy
This is one of the search engines through which you can easily filter the results and sort the list as per your desire. Moreover, this search engine works with proper user searches to provide its users with the best results and never saves search history.
5. GIBIRU
Gibiru does not link to any personal data and does not track cookies. The search engine provides uncensored and impersonal anonymous network, so you can surf the internet safely.
6.Startpage
It is a powerful search engine that displays Google results while protecting user queries and avoiding your steps being tracked. It provides browsing through a proxy server that prevents IP address or location from being tracked.
7. Hulbee
Hulbee.com is a rational alternative for those who give great importance data integrity and confidentiality. Unlike regular search engines, Hulbee.com users leave no traces. Hulbee.com doesn't even count the number of its visitors. Their requests, IP addresses and personal information are not saved.
8. Disconnect Search
This service uses Google, Bing and Yahoo to search for content. But it never tracks your requests or IP address. It even allows the user to select their location before starting the search.
9.Lukol
Lukol is one of the best search engines that protects users from online scammers and spammers. Uses Google to display search results. But a proxy server is used to provide search results.
We've reviewed the best anonymous search engines, which do not track user requests. Using them, you can easily carry out anonymous searches without worrying about your safety.
Translation of the article " Top 10 Private Search Engines That Do Not Track You» was prepared by the friendly project team Website building from A to Z.
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