Alternative Search Engines: top in Privacy and Specialized search

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Search engines have become an integral part of our lives – a basic tool that allows you not to search for answers in books, newspapers, on the radio and while watching TV programs, but to solve the question here and now, taking out your smartphone from your pocket.

Each country has its own top popular search engines, but in Russia, as in the world, Google is always in the lead. The second most popular search engine among our compatriots is Yandex. Google's search market share in Russia is 73.93% for February 2023, while Yandex's share is 11.14%. Other search engines account for a small remaining share. Users are not often interested in what search engines are available on the Internet other than Yandex and Google.

Sergey Polunin
Head of the Infrastructure IT Protection Group at Gazinformservis

When it comes to search engines, people can usually name 2-3 of the most popular solutions, plus something that was popular in the past. Remember AltaVista or SearchMe? This is very understandable, given that almost 2/3 of search queries are now processed by Google. But besides it, Microsoft's Bing, China's Baidu, and even Russia's Yandex usually get to the top."

There are alternative search engines that deserve attention, not only because they are not worse than the usual solutions, but also better for certain tasks. So, the right alternative search engine will help you solve the problem of privacy or annoying advertising, and a specialized version will help you choose a visualization for your project without risking violating anyone's copyright.

How to choose a search engine​

To select a search engine, you need to define:
  • do you need privacy, i.e. how important is it that data about your requests is not stored by the system;
  • what you'll be looking for. Perhaps you need specific materials, such as scientific articles, images, or it will be everyday requests;
  • whether you need a search based on preferences or, on the contrary, a more objective picture that does not take into account the experience of past requests.

Sergey Polunin
Head of the Infrastructure IT Protection Group at Gazinformservis

First of all, you need to answer the question: why exactly did you decide to use an alternative search engine? And already proceed from the answer. If you are concerned about privacy, then look at the appropriate solutions. Or, for example, if you need a search engine for some narrow topic or direction, then most likely you will find something for yourself.

When thinking about what alternative Internet search engines exist, users often ask queries like "8 search engines that are better than Google" or "what search engines are there other than Google and Yandex?", but first of all it is necessary to determine for what purposes you are going to use the system: for classic, everyday search or for specialized (sounds, people, maybe on forums or in Wikipedia), and perhaps in the first place for the ASM.

What other search engines are there besides Google and Yandex​

Marat Zalotdinov
Technical Director of IMBA IT

There are quite a lot of interesting and specialized search engines. If you take it for convenience, then I will highlight Bing, DuckDuckGo, Startpage.

One of the new trends of search engines is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). For example, you can already use the ChatGPT functions in the Microsoft search engine – Bing. Google is also considering the possibility of integration into the system AI.

Bing​

The latest feature of Bing is Microsoft's recently announced search engine update with the implemented GPT language model. Microsoft calls it a completely new AI-based search engine that should provide improved search, more complete responses, a new chat interface, and the ability to create content.

In early February, Microsoft, together with OpenAI, presented a new version of Bing with AI based on the chat bot ChatGPT. Microsoft says about the innovation: "the second pilot for the AI-based Internet."

Bing added an option to the "chat" option, the icon of which will appear in the menu bar next to the standard search, clicking on it will take the user to a chat bot with AI.

Evgeny Grechenok
XLA, Tech Lead

The search engine found a second wind and began to quickly gain new users, what is not a reason to try it for your tasks? Search results were consistent with a more objective picture of the world, it has become very different from Google or Yandex. No wonder Google has already announced its answer.

As for the security and anonymity of search – this is a typical product of Microsoft, which has never hidden that it does not mind collecting user preferences and data in any available way.

Baidu​

Baidu - provides the user with search results for web pages, images, videos, audio, and other content formats. In addition, Baidu provides a wide range of services, including online maps, music, video, and online shopping.

Evgeny Grechenok
XLA, Tech Lead

In general, it is obvious that if you want to find something in China or about China, your best choice is Baidu, although it is better to know Chinese, since the search engine is poorly adapted to search in English or any other language.

As for anonymity, Baidu doesn't have it. But this does not make this search engine not worthy of attention and makes it the best choice for fans to find anything in China.

One of the main features of Baidu is its innovative artificial intelligence technology, which includes voice search queries, machine translation and other services. Baidu also offers a mobile app, which is the most popular mobile app in China.

You.com​

You.com – a relatively new search engine developed by a well-known businessman Eric Schmidt, who previously worked for Google.

Basic idea You.com -providing personalized search for each user. This is achieved by integrating with the user's personal accounts in various social networks and services, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. After connecting all your accounts You.com it starts analyzing data and creates a unique user profile, which allows you to provide more accurate search results.

Evgeny Grechenok
XLA, Tech Lead

Interesting feature You.com it is possible to perform actions directly from the search results. For example, if a user is looking for a restaurant, you can not only get a list of recommendations, but also immediately book a table or view the menu. It seems that anonymity in You can be forgotten, but maybe this is its main feature?

The feature of the service is that it literally searches for a user and one click allows you to see a complete selection of results that are immediately displayed on the search page. In other words, you can view results from multiple sources at once without clicking on the link.

In addition, the engine provides the ability to manage personal information and protect privacy. Users can control what data is stored about them and how it is used.

The safest search engines​

Popular search engines, namely the top 5 of Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu, Yandex transfer personal information to advertisers for ad targeting and identifying the preferences of the audience. Although many of them claim that they" depersonalize " the user's information, but in fact it is worth entering the name of the product/service in the search, as in a moment they will haunt you on all websites and social networks.

According to infobez market experts, the safest search engines are DuckDuckGo, Startpage, and Swisscows. They do not collect any data and care about the user's privacy.

DuckDuckGo​

The most popular of this list is DuckDuckGo, which is based on open source code, does not collect query data, and is positioned as a search engine that creates an objective picture.

The most important thing is that DuckDuckGo does not fictitiously, but truly depersonalizes user information. In addition, the browser allows you to install free extensions that block the action of unwanted scripts, thereby protecting you from spyware trackers.

DuckDuckGo provides search results from a variety of sources, including Wikipedia, Bing, and Yahoo. In addition, it has additional features, such as the ability to search by images, videos, and news.

Today, DuckDuckGo is one of the most popular alternative search engines in the world, and it is used by users who care about privacy and security on the Internet.

Swisscows​

Another search engine that also maintains privacy and doesn't store cookies Swisscows (formerly Hulbee). This is a Swiss search engine based on AI and machine learning.

The browser does not record or store the user's personal data or search queries, and its servers are located in Switzerland, a country with fairly strict privacy laws.

Swisscows has a built-in filter, which is popular with parents because of the ability to restrict "forbidden" content.

Startpage​

Startpage - the search engine uses its own engine, but the main output is taken from Google search, so you can use it to find "everything", but the browser depersonalizes requests and preserves confidentiality, and the output is not based on past requests and user preferences.

Specialized search engines​

It is difficult to determine the best search engine, as it is impossible to search effectively for online courses, images, and scientific articles at the same time. But you can tell which search engine is the best for a specific task. There are alternative Internet search engines that perfectly cope with their own category.

For example, for searching for audio, music, or sounds, there is an ideal solution of its kind: Findsounds. Which also allows you to select the desired sound and melody by using various tags.

WolframAlpha​

The WolframAlpha computational search engine uses knowledge from various fields of science and technology to answer user questions. It was created by Wolfram Research and was launched in 2009.

A special feature of the system is that it does not provide search results in the form of a list of links to web pages, but instead provides accurate answers to questions using its own mathematical algorithms and knowledge bases. WolframAlpha can solve complex mathematical problems, provide statistics, and provide information from various fields, such as physics, chemistry, astronomy, history, and so on.

Evgeny Grechenok
XLA, Tech Lead

Today, WolframAlpha is one of the most popular tools for research, education, and professional use. It is used by many scientists, students, teachers, and professionals in various fields, and helps them get accurate and reliable answers to their questions.

Given the specifics of this search engine, you don't have to worry about the collected data. Who cares how many times you have requested this or that formula?

WolframAlpha provides answers to questions in various languages, including English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, French, German and many others. It also provides an API for developers who can use its functionality in applications.

Openverse.org​

An open source search engine openverse.org, designed for open source content. An interesting solution that you need to search for materials that do not violate copyright. It is very convenient if you are looking for materials for a project.

This is a redesigned WordPress label that provides more than 600 million creative works. Anyone can use materials from the library of photos, images, and audio for free. All images are licensed by Creative Commons (flexibly licensed) or are in the public domain.

Secret search engine​

A separate topic is Darknet. Over the past few years, when some useful resources on the web are blocked, people are increasingly resorting to the help of the shadow Internet, which is why the number of search engine offers on this market is growing.

In the darknet, search is performed through the Tor system. Its main feature is multi – layer traffic encryption based on the Onion principle. It provides access to the closed Internet and absolute privacy, but the ability to access some regular websites will be closed.

The most popular Tor search engine is Not evil search tor. But there are other search engines, such as Torch. This system is one of the very first and, accordingly, popular. Not evil is an ad-free search engine (formerly TorSearch) that strongly resembles Google's interface. This is where users search for data that is not available on the regular Internet.

Conclusions​

More and more often we hear the phrase "Data is the second oil". Most popular search engines live by collecting data about users-from preferences and queries to personal data. Advertising activities are built on this basis.

If earlier browsers were constantly improving for the user-making the interface more convenient and search results more objective, now the situation has turned in the direction of personalization and maximum data collection for advertisers.

If we want to get an objective picture, when making a request, for example in Google, we get the answer that is most suitable for us according to the system's preferences, and information about our request – its time, what we did before and after, and how old we are-is sent to analysts to improve ads.

That is why it is reasonable to ask yourself what search engines are available on the Internet other than Yandex and Google. Today, there are many alternatives that not only do not store data, but also allow you to see a more complete picture or, conversely, narrow it as much as possible to your personal preferences. The main thing is to decide on what task you are pursuing and choose the best search engine for yourself.
 
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