It’s not just you: Google search is getting worse. It’s more than the annoying new AI box at the top of the results page, which takes a long time to load and tends to spout nonsense. It’s also that the overall quality of search results seems to have declined over time, even as promoted results and ads take up more of the user interface.
But despite the search giant’s omnipresence, you aren’t stuck with Google. There are a number of alternative search engines out there. None are perfect, but each has positives that make them worth considering. Here are five alternatives that will satisfy most people. And remember: You don’t need to switch to relying entirely on one of them. In fact, it’s probably best to try out a few different options, and even continue use different search engines for different purposes going forward.
DuckDuckGo
Credit: Justin Pot
DuckDuckGo is the longest standing privacy-oriented alternative to Google, and it remains one of the best in terms of features. The service is free, relying on ad revenue, but that ads are based entirely on what you’re searching right at this moment—that is, there’s no long-term tracking following you between search sessions.
I, a huge nerd, love that you can browse your search results entirely using the keyboard—just type something in the search bar, use the up and down arrow keys to jump to any selection on the results page, and hit “Enter” to open it. Then there are bangs, which allow you to search other sites directly from the DuckDuckGo search bar—for example, typing “!w” at the beginning of a query will launch the search in Wikipedia, bypassing DuckDuckGo entirely. There are over 13,000 of these shortcuts, useful for directly searching everything from Reddit to WolframAlpha.
The service has maintained a good reputation on the privacy front, at least in terms of the search engine itself; there has been some controversy involving the DuckDuckGo browser, which blocks most tracking but specifically not Microsoft’s, because of an agreement between the two companies. Some users likewise aren’t thrilled about the “Chat” tab, which integrates with OpenAI. Notably, though, AI recommendations don’t come through in standard searches on DuckDuckGo.
Kagi
Credit: Justin Pot
Kagi is a paid search engine with no ads whatsover. The subscription model, the theory goes, allows it to offer quality search results without any temptation on the part of the developers to water them down with ads. The engine has earned praise from the likes of Cory Doctorow and 404 Media’s Jason Koebler, which isn’t too shabby.
One feature people love is the ability to block matches from URLs you don’t like from ever showing up in your search results, which is useful if you notice a particular website is consistently trash. There’s also a tool for searching podcasts, which I haven’t seen anywhere else. The main downside is that you have to pay. Plans start at $5/month, though that only gives you 300 searches. Unlimited search starts at $10/month. You can try the service for yourself and decide whether it’s worth paying for—there’s a free version, but it’s limited to 100 total searches total.
There has been a bit of controversy around the company that’s worth nothing, mostly related to how the it is run, the around $2 million of investment money it recently took on after bragging about bootstrapping. Also, the CEO is being annoying about any criticism the company receives. That aside, the search engine itself seems to work well, so give it a shot if you’re willing to pony up.
Brave
Credit: Justin Pot
Brave Search is the search engine from the team behind the Brave browser, which is famous for coming with built-in ad blocking. It sets itself apart from DuckDuckGo by having its own search index, built from scratch (DuckDuckGo combines its own index with data from Bing and numerous other companies).
Brave also offers a Goggles feature, which allows you to use custom filters that boost or downgrade outlets based on factors like topic and political persuasion. I found some of this overly simplistic—most websites are not uniformly one thing—but you can check the code to see what’s being factored into any Goggle, so it’s all very transparent at least. There’s also a built-in AI engine that’s opt-in—just press up after typing your search query to enable the feature for a specific search. The main shortcoming, in my opinion, is that there’s no maps feature whatsoever.
Brave’s reputation is decent, though the CEO has a controversial history and the company has been accused of selling copyrighted data to train AI, so take all of that into account.
Ecosia
Credit: Justin Pot
Ecosia is a free, ad-supported search engine that donates all of its profits toward climate action. They are very transparent about this—you can read through the financial reports yourself. The search itself is powered by Bing, and works fairly well.
Perplexity.ai
Credit: Justin Pot
Perplexity is completely different beast. Instead of putting AI generated text at the top of results, it pretty much only offers AI generated text, with links serving as citations for all of the points made. You can ask a question and then a followup, which can be useful to refine your results, and clicking the citation gives you a few interesting links. I find that Perplexity seems to be better at spotting and understanding satire and jokes than Google’s AI bot, though obviously you should test it out for yourself and see what comes back.
Obviously anyone who is concerned about AI shouldn’t use Perplexity, and there are no doubt going to be privacy concerns for this browser in the long term—it has raised $165 million in venture capital, which isn’t something that happens unless investors are expecting a massive return, and we all know where that kind of thing generally leads. For now, though, it’s an interesting tool that doesn’t have any ads, and it can be useful for some queries.
Or, use Google differently
If you don’t want to give up on Google’s search results but hate what the service has become, there are a few options. Startpage is a privacy-oriented service that uses Google’s search index to deliver results without the tracking. There’s also UDM14.com, a simple site that re-directs you to Google’s web view. Both are URLs worth keeping bookmarking for those times when you still feel compelled to Google.
