Alternative Search Engines: What Changes for Your Privacy

Additional resource for the lesson “Alternative Search Engines” — Online Privacy course

Alternative search engines are not only a different box to type into. Several are built around a different answer to one question: what happens to your searches after you press Enter. This resource explains what some of them say they do differently, what you may give up in exchange, and how to change the default search engine in your browser so you can try one for a week.

A. Why this matters

Your searches are some of the most candid things you write online: a symptom, a money worry, a question about a flat, a place you are going tonight. Over time, a list of searches can say a lot about your interests, plans and routines.

Your search engine may never have been your choice: it may have come with the browser or the phone, and stayed. That is not a mistake, but it means a decision about who receives your questions was made for you. You can make it again, knowingly.

The aim is not to tell you which search engine to use, but to help you read the differences and make a choice you understand, including the choice to stay where you are.

What the sources say

Defaults matter, and public authorities have said so. In June 2025 the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the body that oversees competition between businesses, noted that Google search “accounts for more than 90% of all general search queries in the UK”. Among the first measures it proposed were choice screens “to help people easily select and switch between search services”.

In the European Economic Area, a similar idea already appears on phones. Google explains that, to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act, new Android devices show a choice screen during setup, where you pick a search provider and a browser.

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reminds consumers that companies may track you to “remember the things you searched for online”, and suggests clearing your browsing and search history among the ways to limit adverts based on past activity. And the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital rights organisation, offers a useful test for any privacy promise: prefer language saying a company “cannot access private data” over promises that it “will not”.

B. Key concepts

Five ideas for comparing search engines on your own terms, then four services in their own words.

Search history and profile

A search history is the list of what you have searched for. A profile is what can be built when that history is linked to you, for example to your account, your device or your IP address (the number that identifies your internet connection).

Why it matters to you: The privacy question is not only “is my search recorded?” but “is it linked to me, and for how long?”. The four services described below each make claims about this.

Index: whose results you are seeing

An index is the huge catalogue of web pages a search engine has collected so that it can answer you. Some search engines build their own; others obtain most results from a larger partner.

Why it matters to you: Two search engines with different privacy rules can still show similar results if they draw on the same index. Knowing where results come from helps you understand both the privacy picture and the results you get.

Contextual adverts

Adverts are one of the ways search engines pay for themselves: DuckDuckGo, Brave Search and Ecosia all describe the adverts they show. A contextual advert is chosen from what you are searching for right now, not from a profile of who you are.

Why it matters to you: Adverts do not disappear when you change search engine. What can change is what the advert is based on: this search, or you.

Local results and location

“Near me” searches work better when the service knows roughly where you are. Privacy-focused services describe different ways of handling this, from an approximate location that is not stored to only a country-level signal.

Why it matters to you: Less location shared can mean less precise local results. It is a trade-off worth noticing, not a flaw to fix.

Reading the promise

Each search engine describes its practices in its privacy policy or help pages. This resource takes its information from those pages, and they can change.

Why it matters to you: Check the date of the policy and look for clear limits (“we do not retain IP addresses”) rather than vague reassurance.

Four alternatives, in their own words

Listed in alphabetical order. This is not a ranking, and other services exist.

• Brave Search says that “the index we create is independent of other search engines”, that search queries “are not grouped based on the user, device or IP address”, and that it does not retain IP addresses. It also records clicks and views of the adverts it shows.
• DuckDuckGo says it does not save or share your search history, and that its adverts are “not based on you as a person”: if you search for cars, you see adverts about cars. It runs its own crawler but largely sources traditional links from Bing. For local results it uses “a random location nearish to you”.
• Ecosia works with Microsoft Bing or Google to provide results and adverts, and states that your IP address and search terms are shared with these partners. It says it anonymises your IP address “after a maximum of 7 days”, does not build a personal profile, shows adverts that are “not personalized”, and reinvests ad revenue in climate action.
• Mojeek, registered in England, describes its search technology as built “from the ground-up”. Its policy says “we don’t track our users” and that the IP address is replaced with a two-letter code for the visitor’s country.

Why it matters to you: Each makes a different trade between privacy, results and how it pays for itself. Side by side, they show which questions matter to you.

C. A practical example: Marco tries something different

Marco is 22, a university student and a keen gamer. He searches all day: walkthroughs for a game he is stuck on, laptop specifications, a part-time job near campus. His browser came with a search engine and he never thought about it.

One evening he looked back at a week of his searches. Nothing was embarrassing, but together they described his course, his budget, the area he lives in and when he is usually awake. He was curious, not worried, so he decided on an experiment rather than a verdict.

What changed after his week

• He read the privacy pages of two alternative search engines, ten minutes in all, and chose one whose way of handling location and adverts made sense to him.
• He changed the default search engine in his laptop browser and left his phone as it was, so that he could compare.
• He kept a note on his phone with two columns: “found it” and “went back to the old one”.
• By the end of the week the “went back” column had a few entries, mostly local searches, such as opening hours of a shop near campus. The “found it” column was much longer.

Marco kept the alternative as his default on the laptop and now uses the old search engine on purpose, for local questions. Not a perfect search engine: a choice he understands.

D. Try it yourself: a one-week search engine trial (15 minutes to set up)

Four steps today, then a week of ordinary searching. You can switch back in a minute.

Step 1 — Notice what you search (3 minutes)

• Look at your browser’s history and list five kinds of thing you search for: study, shopping, places near you, hobbies.
• Mark the ones where local results matter to you.

Step 2 — Read two privacy pages (5 minutes)

• Choose two alternative search engines, from section B or elsewhere, and open each one’s privacy policy or help pages.
• For each, look for three answers: is my search history kept? Is it linked to my IP address or an account? Where do the results come from?
• Note the date of each policy. A missing or vague answer is information too.

Step 3 — Change your default search engine (3 minutes)

• In Firefox, Mozilla’s help page describes the path: menu › Settings › Search, then choose from the drop-down under “Default search engine”. “Find more search engines” adds others.
• In Chrome on a computer, Google’s help page describes: More (three dots) › Settings › Search engine, then “Change” to pick your default.
• In other browsers, look in the settings for a section called Search or Address bar. On some Android phones in Europe you may also have picked a search provider when you set the phone up.

Step 4 — Plan the week and the review (4 minutes)

• Create a note with two columns: “found it” and “went back”.
• Add a reminder for seven days from now: “Search engine review”.
• On that day, read the note and choose one of three options: keep the new default, switch back, or use each one for what it does best.

Every outcome is a good one if you chose it knowingly.

Already covered in the Online Security course

Privacy Focused Browser: The Setting You Use All Day
It covers the browser itself, with the settings that limit trackers, cookies and fingerprinting on every site you visit, while this resource looks only at the search engine you type your questions into.

E. Videos, articles and further resources

Institutional and digital rights sources first, then the search engines’ own documentation and a browser help page. All in English.

Institutional and digital rights sources

Competition and Markets Authority (UK) — CMA takes first steps to improve competition in search services in the UK
The June 2025 announcement, with the share of UK searches and the proposed choice screens.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-takes-first-steps-to-improve-competition-in-search-services-in-the-uk

FTC (US) — How Websites and Apps Collect and Use Your Information
How your searches and browsing can be tracked, and what your browser settings let you control.
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-websites-and-apps-collect-and-use-your-information

Electronic Frontier Foundation — Choosing Your Tools
How to judge the privacy claims of any tool, including what to look for in a privacy policy.
https://ssd.eff.org/module/choosing-your-tools

Search engines’ own documentation

Brave — Brave Search privacy notice
Its independent index, how queries are kept apart from users and IP addresses, and how adverts are measured.
https://search.brave.com/help/privacy-policy

DuckDuckGo — DuckDuckGo Privacy Policy
What it does and does not save, how its adverts are chosen, and how it handles location for local results.
https://duckduckgo.com/privacy

Ecosia — Privacy policy (Ecosia: the search engine that plants trees)
Which partners provide its results and adverts, what is shared with them, and how long IP addresses are kept.
https://www.ecosia.org/privacy

Mojeek — Mojeek Privacy Policy
Its no-tracking policy and how IP addresses are replaced with a country code.
https://www.mojeek.com/about/privacy

Browser help

Mozilla Support — Manage Firefox search settings
How to change the default search engine in Firefox and add new ones.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-your-default-search-settings-firefox

Links checked in October 2026. If an address changes, searching for the title on the organisation’s site usually finds it.

F. The Cyber Welfare Framework: Skills, Awareness, Secure Behaviour

This resource sits on the Skills pillar at level FL2 – Beginner: turning an inherited default into a setting you have chosen and tested.

Skills

• Finding and reading the privacy page of a search engine, and answering three questions from it.
• Changing the default search engine in your browser, and changing it back.
• Running a short, honest trial and reviewing it.

Awareness

• Understanding that searches can describe your interests and routines, especially when linked to you.
• Knowing that privacy rules and the source of results are two different things.
• Recognising that sharing less location can mean less precise local results.

Secure Behaviour

• Choosing your search engine knowingly, rather than by default.
• Using different tools for different needs, on purpose.
• Rereading a service’s privacy page from time to time, because policies change.

G. Questions to sit with

• Which of your recent searches would you least like to see linked to your name?
• How much do local results matter in your day, and how much location are you willing to share for them?
• When a service makes a privacy promise, what would convince you that it keeps it?

H. What to do now

The recommendations (R) and security measures (MS) from the Cyber Welfare database that apply most directly here.

1. Your browser

• MS5 — Use a privacy-respecting browser such as Firefox or Brave. Browser and search engine are separate choices: one limits tracking on every site, the other decides what happens to your questions.

Minimum commitment: open your browser’s settings today and find where your default search engine is set, even if you do not change it.

2. Your searches

No single code covers the search engine itself. Start the one-week trial from section D and, on review day, make a decision you can explain in one sentence. Keeping your current search engine is a legitimate choice too.

Minimum commitment: set a reminder for seven days from now called “Search engine review”.

In short

• Alternative search engines differ mainly in what they keep about your searches, whether they link searches to you, where their results come from and how adverts are chosen.
• Adverts remain; what can change is whether they are based on this search or on you.
• Sharing less location can mean less precise local results: a trade-off to weigh, not a flaw.
• Changing your default search engine takes minutes and can be undone, so a one-week trial is a low-risk way to decide.

Related resources in this course

• Search Engine Privacy: What Your Search History Says About You
• AI Search Privacy: What Changes When You Ask Instead of Search

Discover more companion resources from the online courses of the Protect Your Digital Privacy programme.