Many “alternative” search engines are better for privacy, but they are still vulnerable to censorship, because they rely on g**gle and m*crosoft’s indices for their search results. This isn’t a deep-hidden secret either, many of them disclose what search index they use on the “about” page, for example:
- https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/
- https://support.startpage.com/hc/en-us/articles/5138782571796-Why-isn-t-a-particular-site-appearing-in-the-results
- https://www.ecosia.org/privacy
There are still search engines that (claim to) maintain their own index. Most surprisingly, br*ve:
They claim that no information on searches is a saved to an individual for now.
Companies claim a lot of things. Let’s see how the first legal issue plays out
I will say part of the reason I find them more trustworthy is that their business model hinges on some sort of ounce of privacy. Google’s hinges on exactly the opposite.
I strongly encourage reading up on the various VPNs and the like that charge people while still monitoring and tracking everything they do.