Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Search engines: Stop using Google and move to one of these instead
Jasmine Birtles
14th Mar 2022
,Google is undoubtedly one of the world’s most popular search engines, if not the biggest. original strapline was ‘Don’t be evil’, but oh boy have they gone a long way away from that mantra in the 21st century!
Google is a massive advertising company. It exists purely to make as much money as it can out of us. It seems like it is a free service but it is taking from us every time we use it by taking our data.
Every time you do anything through Google search, they follow every move, every keystroke you make and then they use that information to make money out of you and, potentially, to manipulate you to buy and do things you wouldn’t otherwise think of.
The vast majority of us use Google to search online, but a growing minority has realised the harmfulness of allowing this biggest of Big Tech into our thoughts and desires and they are using different search engines on purpose. Read on to find the ones I recommend.
Why you should not use Google
There are a few reasons why Google is bad for your health and wellbeing.
surveillance
Google’s main income comes from watching everything you do. Every keystroke and every click, and compiling that information into a personal dossier about you which is then sold to advertisers, Governments and agencies that want to manipulate your thoughts and behaviour.
By information I mean employment status, medical conditions, political beliefs, financial information, and other personal information. Are you happy for all of this personal data to be collected and given out to just anyone? I’m not.
The Alphabet corporation owns Google and is also owns a number of surveillance companies. This is the future of power struggles – those that have the in-depth knowledge of citizens will be able to rule. Surveillance of all types is where current and future income lies and Alphabet is particularly well-placed to profit from it.
Do remember that personal data is now more valuable than oil. The more ‘they’ know about you and the more granular that knowledge, the more valuable it is.
Some of the data that they’re capturing on you includes what is called ‘pre-crime’ information. This is shared with the police to see if you’re likely to commit a crime in the future. It will look at who you’re hanging out with, for example, and could mean that police will pull you over in your car to put the thumb on you even though you haven’t done anything….yet.
That’s the kind of company Alphabet is, and every time you use a Google product you’re helping it gather ever more data on the citizens of the world.
manipulating search
Most of us assume that in using a search engine it’s like going into a library where everyone looking at the card index sees the same thing.
Wrong.
Google manipulates the search results you get depending on your search history.
It also manipulates it depending on its own interests. So, for example, as Alphabet has financial interests in Big Pharma, if you put medical questions into ‘Dr Google’ it’s unlikely that you would find much in the way of alternative medicines. You would mostly get responses that promote chemical remedies that have the backing of pharmaceutical giants.
go past the first page
One of the ways that it manipulates you is that, as it knows that almost nobody ever goes beyond the first page of search, the results they want you to see are there. So if you do continue to use Google, make sure you hit the second or third page to see alternative ideas when you put something in the search bar.
The best alternative search engines
The only way to keep your search and personal data somewhat secure is to use a private search engine – one that does not collect your data and offer it to others for their use.
A genuinely secure and private search engine will not track your data. It returns results with extra protection and data privacy levels. In fact they offer a range of methods and features for keeping your searches secure.
Here are the ones that I suggest you use instead of Google:
mojeek
Mojeek is the only true private search engine (as opposed to a metasearch engine) that has its own crawler and index
It claims to have indexed 4 billion pages, with the goal of doubling that by the end of the year.
Currently their results are a little hit and miss, but it is early days. Soon, their search should be good enough to pull people away from Big Tech monoliths like Google, Bing and Yahoo. Certainly the fact that they are going it alone and trying to do search their own way, rather than use the big boys – like the other search engines above are doing – is something that we should support.
Mojeek claims to be the “first ever no tracking/privacy orientated search engine”that tried to be private from the start.
privacy levels
Mojeek is based in the UK. Decide for yourself whether that is more or less secure than the US or the rest of Europe. Personally I think it’s more secure than the US but less so than the EU area but you might disagree.
Its privacy policy includes the following: “Mojeek doesn’t implement any kind of specific user tracking, whether that be at the time of visit or subsequently via standard logs, which Mojeek does keep. These logs contain the time of visit, page requested, possibly referral data, and browser information. IP addresses are not recorded (except in rare circumstances[1]), instead the IP address is replaced with a simple two letter code indicating the visitors country of origin. By doing this, Mojeek removes any possibility of tracking or identifying any particular user.”
duckduckgo
Duckduckgo is the most popular of the alternative search engines but it has started to lose followers as it announced in March 2022 that it would clamp down on what it called ‘disinformation.
It has over 40 million queries daily but, like most of the rest in this list, it basically regurgitates Google search, without quite so many ads.
Originally it returned just American sites but it has expanded greatly and now offers a UK version which is very helpful and better than Google’s search results as it offers genuine findings rather than ones manipulated to what they think you should see.
It has a metasearch engine (i.e not its own search) that gathers results from more than 400 sources, including Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, and Wikipedia. To finance operations, DuckDuckGo generates money through ads and affiliate relationships, which is explained on the site. Similar to Google and other search engines, DuckDuckGo has ads at the top of your searches. Amazon and eBay are two of its affiliates.
it lacks a few functions such as image filtering by license tailored ads, but that is a good thing!.It also offers an extremely transparent and detailed privacy policy.
privacy levels
Although Duckduckgo is the go-to search engine for the majority of privacy-lovers, it’s not 100% secure. For example, they do save all the search queries of users, although they don’t record your User-agent strings or IP address. So, although the data is collected, it’s not done in a personally identifiable manner.
It is also based in the US which is not generally considered a country with proper pro-consumer privacy laws, and it is hosted on Amazon’s servers, which is a shame.
Interestingly, according to the Patriot Act, all internet servers and search engines physically located in the jurisdiction of the United States are obliged to disclose any information to the intelligence services. Hmm.
swisscows
Swisscows is based in Switzerland and offers total privacy for both your search terms and your location history while making sure it does not record or store any of the data that can identify you.
It uses encryption which stops information being leaked. Swisscows also lets you select a region for more relevant results. It has a semantic map which enables you to have an interactive research experience.
It is ideal for families too as its search results never include sexual or pornographic content.
As Swisscows does not pass on user data from search requests, it can’t properly monetize its service through ad partners (unlike Google!), so it largely relies on donations and sponsorships to keep going. Sponsors can get a banner ad at the top of results.
privacy levels
According to SwissCows’ own privacy statement: “We do not collect any of our visitors’ personal information. None whatsoever. When using Swisscows neither your IP address is recorded nor is the browser you are using (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) collected. No analyses are made, which operating system our users use (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.); your search are not recorded either. We record absolutely no data from our visitors. The only information we store is the number of search requests entered daily at Swisscows, to measure the total overall traffic on our website and to evaluate a breakdown of this traffic by language and mere overall statistics.
Swisscows completely does away with statistics and analyses on its visitors in order to protect your privacy. Given that we do not collect any information on our visitors, we are also not able to identify your place of residence. Swisscows does not conduct any geo targeting.”
Metager
Metager is an open source metasearch engine with good features, based in Germany.
It gets its search results from Bing, Yandex, Yahoo and others, but it does also have its own web crawler.
It is operated by a non-profit foundation in Germany called SUMA-EV (Association for Free Access to Knowledge).
Helpfully, MetaGer converts search requests into anonymous queries through a proxy server, which also provides the anonymous viewing option with all results. It does not use cookies or any other tracking methods and is completely open source.
All user IP addresses are truncated for privacy, although user agent information is passed to their search partners.
privacy levels
MetaGer runs on servers in Germany, which is a jurisdiction with strict data protection laws.
QWANT
Qwant was developed in France, and they make it clear to their users from the get-go that they do not track or collect data. This search engine provides their users with an overview of the entire web, as well as guaranteeing unbiased and unfiltered search results. When using Qwant, users can rest assured that their browsing history isn’t stored anywhere, they aren’t profiled, and best of all, you won’t be targeted through personalised ads. Every single new web search is a new beginning.
The great thing about Qwant is that they believe strongly that the Internet should remain a space of freedom. They want to keep ethics, fairness, and humanity at the heart of the internet. Through their products and services, they aim to build a more responsible and sustainable web.
Privacy levels
Qwant’s pwn privacy statement reads:
“At Qwant, privacy is a universal right. Article 12 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. At Qwant, we believe that the Internet should not be a lawless space. That’s why we want to preserve and apply this principle for all internet users and citizens of the globe.”
if you still want to use Google
You’re used to using Google and you’d like to stay there. When it comes to search engines, it’s easy to stick with what you know.
Fair enough. If you want to do that, but still retain some sort of privacy and autonomy, then at least mess with their heads!
diversify
For a start, diversify your browser search. Sometimes use Chrome (owned by Google), and at other times use Safari or Firefox. Use Google at times and then at other times, mix it up. Use DuckDuckGo, then try SwissCows and Mojeek.
Another fun thing to do is do some searches in ‘incognito’ mode. This means part of your information is not picked up.
Data is most valuable and saleable to Google if they can connect it to a person. If you scatter your fire so that they know less about you, you will be nicely messing up their records.
change your details
It’s also important to mess with their idea of your behaviour. Do what you can not to give away your identity. For example, any time you’re asked to give personal details for stores or other organisations, change your gender, use a different birth data, tell them you have kids if you don’t…etc. The more false information you put into the system the harder they have to work to find out about you.
They already know WAY more about us than we could dream. Don’t make it easy for them to find out more!
I struggle with the whole digital thing but above all don’t want the big tech or the Government snooping , I am doing nothing wrong so why should I be monitored ? can you advise on these secure platforms?
I was aware of Google’s nefarious activities but hadn’t heard of most of the alternatives. Thank you!
I use Ecosia.org who use the profits you make on each search to plant trees where they are needed.
That sounds really good. But do they use Google as their basis? I know there are a few charity search engines and I will look into them next, but I have a nasty feeling that they basically work with Google and are still taking your details.
Sound advice, and Duckduckgo was the only one I’d heard of, good to know there’s a few different options
Yes I agree. I’m now going to move to SwissCows I think!