Private and Secure Web Search Engines: DuckDuckGo, Brave, Kagi, Startpage

When it comes to looking something up on the web, most of us default to “googling” it—Google’s search engine has become so dominant that it’s now a verb, in the same way that Photoshop is. But using Google for your searches comes with a privacy trade-off.

Google’s business is, of course, based on advertising, and every search you make feeds into the profile of you that it uses to target the ads you see around the web. While Google isn’t telling marketing firms what searches you’re running, it is using those queries to build up a picture of you that ads can be sold against. As such, Google can be a real snoop about collecting all your data and using it to personalize your ads and the search results you get.

There are ways to increase your privacy on Google’s platforms, like using privacy-focused browsers, using privacy-focused alternatives to Google Maps, auto-deleting your web history after a certain time period, or simply limiting the amount of data the company collects in the first place, by opting out of features like web-based email and location awareness. (And you should know that using your browser’s incognito mode isn’t as sneaky as you think it is.) If you’re serious about getting off the data collection grid, there’s a bevy of other privacy-focused search options at your disposal. So if you want to use a search engine that doesn’t keep track of your queries, serve your data to advertisers, or change your search results based on what it thinks you’ll like, you’ve got some options.

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is simple, secure, and private.

DuckDuckGo via David Nield

The granddaddy of Google alternatives, DuckDuckGo has made private search its raison d’être for more than 15 years. The service is a little harder to recommend these days, after a kerfuffle in 2022 where the company was caught in an apparent partnership with Microsoft that allowed the tech behemoth’s tracking scripts to run unimpeded on the DuckDuckGo browser. After outcry from privacy advocates, DuckDuckGo walked back that stance a few months later, and it now says it does indeed block Microsoft’s trackers.

If you can move past that particular ugly duckling, the service is still far more private than Google. DuckDuckGo says it collates information in search results from over 400 sources. It doesn’t draw from Google, but it does pull from places like Bing and Wikipedia. What it doesn’t do is personalize search results based on data it collects from users. Like Google, DuckDuckGo displays ads, but they’re not tailored to what it thinks you’ll like based on your search history.

DuckDuckGo can be installed into just about any browser via a browser extension. It also has a full browser available on desktop for Mac and Windows. There are also mobile apps on both iOS and Android that work as browsers while incorporating DuckDuckGo’s search engine.

On the browser and app alike, the service automatically tracks and blocks all the data-scraping efforts from the websites you visit. Press the shield button in the browser bar to see what sites have tried to collect your data or track your travels across the web. Another feature blocks trackers and data requests in other apps on your phone. DuckDuckGo says it can’t block certain scripts and trackers on the websites that run them (like Facebook, for example), but tapping that little button quickly lets you know what’s being blocked and what’s not.

Brave Search

Brave isn’t going to keep track of what you’re looking for.

Brave via David Nield

The privacy-focused browser extension provider Brave has its own dedicated search engine. The company launched the service in 2021. Like the other services on this list, Brave says its Search product doesn’t track your searches or log your data. It’s impressively comprehensive—as much for its security and privacy as for the results you get.

Simply put, no logs of your queries are kept by the search engine. While that might make for a slightly less convenient user experience—Google might automatically know you’re more interested in the Miami Dolphins than actual dolphins, for instance—it does mean that you can search without worrying that you’re going to see any related advertising.

“It’s impossible for us to share, sell, or lose your data, because we don’t collect it in the first place,” says Brave. While the service might eventually become ad-supported, those adverts won’t know anything about you or what you’ve been looking for on the web, making it distinctly different from Google’s offering.

Brave also has a service in beta called Goggles that lets users customize their own page rankings to make search results more relevant to each person. It can have some issues, such as being a bit complicated and also could lead to people creating their own little filter bubbles—inadvertently or otherwise.

You can download the Brave Browser for desktop, or get its mobile apps on Android and iOS. You can also access the Brave search engine from any web browser and any device. You don’t have to use the Brave browser to use it.

Kagi

The prospect of paying for a search engine might seem odd if you’re used to unlimited Googling on a whim. But that’s exactly the service Kagi is offering.

If you’re willing to pay for yet another subscription, Kagi is a premium search experience worth trying. You can customize how search results are displayed and how links are organized and accessed. There’s also a robust array of search operators and keyboard shortcuts to use. Kagi’s privacy policy is similar to the other services on this list, in that it doesn’t track your online movements or collect your data. It also doesn’t show ads, which feels like such a relief in the era of endless pop ups and sponsored posts.

The pricing plan is simple. There is a free tier, which allots you 100 searches per month before cutting you off. From there you can pay $5 per month for 500 searches, or get unlimited searches $10 a month. All plans, even the free ones, require you to make an account.

Kagi is available as a browser extension for Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari. Kagi’s Orion browser is available on the Mac, and it also has an iOS app.

Startpage

Want Google’s search results but without Google? Startpage may be the answer. The company serves up Google’s search results without you being tracked. “Startpage submits your query to Google anonymously, then returns Google results to you privately,” the company says on its website. It adds that Google “never sees you and does not know who made the request”.

Startpage, which was founded in the Netherlands in 2006, says that it doesn’t store people’s personal data or search history, and your IP address is removed by its servers. The company also says it blocks price trackers and prevents advertisers from showing you ads based on your online history. (It does show ads from Google’s search results). Its search results also let you click to open an anonymous view of them, which it claims works like a VPN.

The experience isn’t exactly the same as Google search, but the results are. For instance, if you search for something in the news—maybe Elon Musk, if you must—Google will show you a carousel of the latest news stories before its search results. Google also includes Musk’s latest tweets, videos of him, and photos. When you’re using Startpage, the clutter is removed and you just get URLs.

Mojeek

Mojeek doesn’t use search results from other search engines. Instead, the British search engine, which launched in 2006, is building its own index of the web. It’s doing this in the same way as Google and Bing. The company’s crawlers, which trawl the web and collect information about pages, have indexed more than six billion web pages.

This crawling isn’t as extensive as Google’s—back in 2013 Google said it was indexing 30 trillion web pages, 100 billion times a month—but Mojeek says its approach means it is fully in control of the search results it shows. The company argues there should be alternative indexes to those controlled by Big Tech. “Making and altering our own algorithm from scratch to display high quality and unbiased results is essential,” the company said in 2018.

But that’s not the only difference to Google. Mojeek also says it doesn’t track people. The search results you see are based entirely on the words that you type in, the company says, and it doesn’t collect IP addresses, search history or the clicks that you make.

Limiting Google

You can break the connection between Google Chrome and your Google account.

Google via David Nield

It’s worth bearing in mind that if you’re using Google Chrome and you’re signed into Google, you may well be syncing your DuckDuckGo or Brave searches back to your Google account. Your Google web history and your Chrome browsing history (if you’re signed into Google) will match up most of the time, because Google keeps them in sync by default, partly to make it easier to use Google across multiple devices.

To stop this from happening in Chrome, click the three dots in the top right-hand corner, then choose Settings. If you see that you’re signed into your Google account at the very top, click Turn off—this will break the connection between Google and your browser, and you’ll be given the option to delete all the data that’s stored locally on your device (including your browsing history, bookmarks, and stored passwords).

Perhaps an easier option is to simply switch to another browser altogether—as we’ve already mentioned, Brave, DuckDuckGo, and Kagi all have them. Other good cross-platform alternatives to Chrome are Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Safari from Apple—but whichever one you switch to, be sure to check out the settings for deleting your browsing history as you go. (All of these browsers have simple-to-use options for this.)

Whichever browser you decide to use, opening up a private or incognito window while you’re searching will prevent those searches from being logged inside the browser—as soon as you close the window, the search is gone forever. Bear in mind that these modes don’t necessarily stop online companies from tracking your queries though. (If you sign into your Google account while in private mode, Google will still be able to track you.)

If you can’t bring yourself to be parted from the search results that Google serves up, you can at least make sure that they’re not remembered for too long. Open up your Google account settings page on the web, then click Data & Privacy and scroll down to Web & App Activity. You can choose either Manage activity to remove history and searches manually, or select the Auto-delete option to have this data wiped automatically once it’s been stored for a certain amount of time.