DuckDuckGo offers a privacy-focused search engine and a mobile browser with built-in tracker blocking, private search, and forced encrypted connections where available. Some of its code is free software, but the core is proprietary. Launched in 2008, based in the US.
DuckDuckGo
duckduckgo.com
Our take
The realistic on-ramp for most people leaving Google, because it works out of the box and the browser extension and app block trackers without any tinkering. The honest caveats: results lean heavily on Bing, the company is US-based, and only some of the code is open. None of that disqualifies it as a sensible default. Recommend it to friends who want a real privacy upgrade with zero learning curve, and point purists toward an independent index when Bing-derived results aren’t enough.
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DuckDuckGo alternatives
SearXNG The actively maintained successor to Searx. Self-hostable, open source metasearch engine. Users can access existing public instances.
Brave Search Blog post about the new Brave Search beta . Based in the US. Launched in June 2021.
Mojeek A crawler-based search engine that provides independent search results using its own index of web pages, rather than using results from other search engines. Based in the UK.…
MetaGer Link: MetaGer on GitLab . Based in Germany. Launched in 1996.
Startpage Obtains Google search results while protecting users' privacy. Based in the Netherlands. Launched in 1998.
Qwant French private search engine, EU-hosted, no personal data stored, blending its own index with Bing results.