Search engines that aren't Google

[firecat]

Here is a list of possibly lesser-known search engines that aren't Google, Yahoo, or Bing and seem to have reasonable privacy options. The list is in alphabetical order.

If you know anything more about these search engines or if you know of other good ones, please comment.

Blekko https://blekko.com/
Sort of curated. Uses "slashtags" to refine search. Various privacy options. It has ads (so they say. I have ad blockers that seem to be filtering out the ads) but you can choose not to see them.

Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com/
Metasearch engine, includes Google, Yahoo, and Bing results
Includes sponsored listings in results. Also has ads. Includes web, images, videos, news, yellow pages, and white pages search modes.

DuckDuckGo http://duckduckgo.com/
Positions itself as a search engine that doesn't "bubble" you (filter your search results based on search history) and doesn't track you. Has an option of a "red box result" at the top of the page that includes a definition of your search term. Has an ad at the right side of the page. Gives 10% of its income to Open Source projects.

Scroogle SSL https://ssl.scroogle.org/
This is not so much a search engine as a few privacy guys (e.g., Daniel Brandt, who runs google-watch.org and namebase.org) thumbing their nose at Google, scraping its results and delivering them without ads. The name comes from a Cory Doctorow story. It's a non-profit and contributions are tax deductible in the US. The interface is ugly as sin. Something about it warms my prickly geeky heart. No ads. "no cookies, no search-term records, access log deleted within 48 hours"

Ixquick https://www.ixquick.com/
Startpage https://startpage.com/
Ixquick is a metasearch engine based in Europe. Startpage is affiliated with Ixquick, but returns results from Google only.
Both have https option. Both allow you to generate a URL that stores your settings instead of
using a cookie. They have ads at the top and bottom of the result page (so they say. I have ad blockers that seem to be filtering out the ads). Web, image, video, and phone search modes.

Edited to add I crossposted this to googleplus and a commenter there pointed me to a couple of wikis that list alternatives to various Google services:
http://nyms.wikispaces.com/Google+Alternatives
https://googlealternatives.wiki.zoho.com/

Comments

[jazzfish]

I've been using DuckDuckGo for several months now. I'm pretty happy with it. It'll also search tracking numbers for (at least) USPS, UPS, FedEx, and Canada Post. I like the redbox, as well.

[elainegrey]

Oh, cool! I've been using duckduckgo myself, happy with the results, but didn't think to try duck for that.

(Also: You can change the color of the red box in preferences).

[zeborah]

I'm trying out DuckDuckGo on recommendation from people who are moving away from the Google. Then I promptly needed to search for some logos, and lazily defaulted back to image.google.com.

[firecat]

You can search image.google.com from DuckDuckGo by typing !gi in front of your search term.

[zeborah]

<3 Thank you!

[jumpuphigh]

Also, if you've searched on something, then want images, click the blue down arrow to the right of the search box and you can select images from Google or Bing.

[zeborah]

Handy, thanks! (Ooh, and "I'm feeling ducky" makes me smile so much!) Have now returned DuckDuckGo to the default search engine on both work and home computers.

[eggcrack]

Awesome, thanks for sharing these!

[gramina]

I've been using Ixquick preferentially for a fair while now; I seem to get good results, and I like what they have to say about themselves.

[sqbr]

Wow, thanks! I am definitely going to use these.

[supermouse]

I chose Duck Duck Go and it's now my homepage and toolbar. So long, Google.

[firecat]

Yay! (PS: May I friend you?)

[supermouse]

Absolutely! I hope you like reading about migraines, racisms and cats, is all...

[firecat]

I like reading about racisms and cats. And if you write about migraines 'cos you have a lot of them, I'm sorry. I know lots of people who do. :(

[supermouse]

Just a check - you seem to have granted access to me rather than subscribing. It strikes me that this may not have been what you wanted to do.

[firecat]

I granted access so you could check out my journal.

[supermouse]

Aw, thanks. Having read you a bit, I think I'll do the same back...

[marahmarie]

Scroogle (http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm) is another option. I don't use it myself because I spend so much time in Image, Blog, and other off-the-path result sets that its usefulness is limited to me, but if you're just a basic point-and-clicker who doesn't need to search more extraneous paths, Scroogle will probably be enough (aside: thinking of pointing Firefox's built-in Google search box - the one you see in the top-right corner of the browser - at the ssl version of Google through about:config, just to tighten things up without losing paths to those extraneous results altogether).

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