Ask Lemmy

startpage.com or DuckDuckGo

I'm fine with DuckDuckGo. Very catchy name, too. Sounds like something straight out of CBeebies.

I might try out Kagi and Qwant sometime to see if they're really that great.

You are wise not to just use one search engine. I use them all to grant maximum results. Ecosia comes close though, it would be my favorite if the thing about planting trees worked, but it's just another Established Titles, minus the ability to say you're a Scottish lord or lady. DuckDuckGo would get an honorary mention too, but as I've said very often before for years, its claims of not tracking you show suggestions of being false, as someone with slow internet used to be able to see the tracking links change a few times when you hover your mouse over a link and look at the bottom of your browser. I use them both for their search differences, but in terms of government, they're red flags.

Startpage. I know there’s been criticism of the company that acquired them but I believe they gave satisfactory responses to privacyguide’s queries about how they handle user data. Obviously it doesn’t automatically mean they’re telling the truth.

I see a lot of duck duck go responses in this thread, my understanding was that ddg is just front ending bing search, it's not a native search itself. Is that right? Is the same true of any of the other ones mentioned here?

Does Wikipedia count?

I'm using the French search engine Qwant a lot. It's just straightforward and I can muddle through enough French to navigate. I like DDG but the results are middling at best.