Private Search Engines that Do Not Track

Private Search Engines are boon to users for keeping them & their data safe. Private browsing or incognito modes in a browser does not give you the level of privacy you think of.

The most discouraging fact in using the Internet is low privacy, due to which Internet suffers a lot. Users with bad intentions turn out to misuse the information which might harm the users or organizations.

Technology is playing a vital role in providing ease and comfort to the people. On the same hand, it also provides security.

You might not want to be tracked, but that’s not the case when ads that are related to your recent searches turn up on Google search, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and a lot more.

Here Private Search Engines comes handy which do not store your queries, nor track your steps & provide complete safety for using the Internet.

“Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like arguing that you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” ~ Edward Snowden

There are many Private Search Engines with a range of features and methods to keep you and your searches safe. Most of them do not much attractive UI but they’re here to give you a safe way to search for things that matter to you.

Below are some private search engines which follow different mechanisms and ways to make the searches clean.

DuckDuckGo

  • DuckDuckGo is a general purpose and one of the most secure search engine that never tracks your searches while providing you an enhanced search experience.
  • It delivers results without ads and purposely built for people who love to remain private.
  • Its privacy page specifies that they don’t log any personally identifiable information nor uses cookies to identify you, it discards user agents and IP addresses from its server logs.
  • It has no way of knowing whether two searches even came from the same computer. It serves 10M+ searches per day.
Screenshot for DuckDuckGo - Search Engine
DuckDuckGo - Search Engine

Startpage

  • Startpage is enhanced by Google and acts as an intermediary between you and Google.
  • When you search with Startpage, they remove all identifying information from your query and submit it anonymously to Google.
  • Google only sees that StartPage is searching for something.
  • StartPage gets the result, strip out the tracking cookies, targeted ads and deliver completely private, anonymous search results to you.
  • StartPage never stores your IP address or other personal information, nor hand it off to Google. You remain completely invisible.
  • Every search offers a Proxy feature, which lets you visit websites anonymously by next to the search result.
  • It offers to browse through a proxy server to help protect you from website’s tracking your IP address or location.
Screenshot for Startpage - Search Engine
Startpage - Search Engine

WolframAlpha

  • WolframAlpha is a computable search engine that provides accurate answers and offers open knowledge.
  • Wolfram|Alpha introduces a fundamentally new way to get knowledge and answers not by searching the web, but by doing dynamic computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms, and methods.
  • It is one of the private search engines which allow users to compute answers and provide knowledge.
  • A quite secure search engine which assures 100% security and does not track what you search for.
  • The one who provides a complete package of knowledge related to different subjects.
Screenshot Wolframalpha - Search Engine 79
Wolframalpha - Search Engine Updates
  • It performs dynamic calculations using algorithms and delivers expert knowledge about Mathematics, People & History, Dates & Times, Chemistry calculations, health & medicines, Money & Finance, Music & Movies, Shopping and much more.
  • Ask it to calculate any data or about any fact and it will give you the answer.

Ixquick

  • Ixquick is the main search engine from the company that runs Startpage.
  • It pulls results from different sources instead of only Google.
  • Startpage and Ixquick have a similar design as well as includes the same privacy features, including the proxy links in the search results.
Screenshot for Ixquick - Search Engine
Ixquick - Search Engine

Yippy

  • Yippy uses a clustering engine to group search results.
  • Many libraries, elementary schools, and universities use as it provides safe searching mainly helpful for searching educational content.
  • It is a research-oriented search engine, perfect for education or the family PC.
Screenshot for Yippy - Search Engine
Yippy - Search Engine

Privatelee

  • Privatelee itself is an explanatory private search engine.
  • It does not have much UI but enables secure searches and strict filters if you need to get more in-depth protection.
  • It doesn’t track your search keywords to be used for ads or surveillance.
Screenshot for Privatelee - Search Engine
Privatelee - Search Engine

Hulbee

  • Hulbee is based on semantic information recognition and offers users safe & secure search experience as it does not track your activity nor your location.
  • It offers security against middleman attacks and data leaks by encrypting your searches.
Screenshot for Hulbee - Search Engine
Hulbee - Search Engine
  • Hulbee.com, created by leading Swiss software company.
  • All the servers are located in Switzerland, so other data snoopers cannot get their hands on this information. Intelligent Data Cloud technology helps reduce search time.
  • It also has its own ad system, rather than bolting on a third party ad network.

MetaGer

  • MetaGer is primarily a meta search engine.
  • They query up to multiple search engines around 50’s.
  • Thus they do not prefer results that are clicked more often, thus gives you a variety of results, instead of mainstream.
Screenshot for MetaGer - Search Engine
MetaGer - Search Engine

Gigablast

  • Gigablast was created to index hundreds of billions of pages with the least amount of hardware possible.
  • It provides real time info without tracking your online presence or browsing history.
  • It keeps you safe and hidden from marketers and spammers
Screenshot for Gigablast - Search Engine
Gigablast - Search Engine

Lukol

  • Lukol uses Google custom search.
  • They do NOT collect any personally identifiable information instead use cookies to personalize content and ads and to analyze traffic and also share information about your use of their site with their advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information you’ve provided to them or they’ve collected from your use of their services.
Screenshot for Lukol - Search Engine
Lukol - Search Engine
  • Disconnect Search uses content search assistance from major search engines like DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Yahoo but never tracks your online searches or activities or IP address.
  • They let you surf by location so that you can get location specific relevant results based on the location of your choice.
  • It clearly informs about the tools that which are protected and unprotected, letting you choose which one to use.
Screenshot for Disconnect - Search Engine
Disconnect - Search Engine

Gibiru

  • Gibiru is the preferred Search Engine for Patriots.
  • It offers HTTPS 128 bit encrypted secure search & many free international proxy IP Addresses for making you & your search more safe and secure.
Screenshot for Gibiru - Search Engine
Gibiru - Search Engine

Oscobo

  • “Scobo” in Latin means “to look into”, “to probe” or “to discover”.
  • The letter “O” in Swedish, means “not” or “non”.
  • So, Oscobo, to us, means “not to probe, not to track”.
  • It does not store your searches, IP addresses or any other personal data.
  • The ads displayed on Oscobo are based on search terms only.
  • None of your data is stored or shared unless you choose to click on a sponsored link where only your IP address and search words are shared.
Screenshot for Oscobo - Search Engine
Oscobo - Search Engine
Vishnu Damwala
Vishnu Damwala

A web geek, an industry experienced web developer & tutor/instructor residing in India 🇮🇳