I’m little ones in front of a giant like Google, but alternative search engines to Big G continue to grow. Underlying this emerging phenomenon is the demand for more freedom of choice and of increased privacy protection from users: we know that Google collects data and records our online activity in a capillary way click after click, while many new search engines give up invasive control of the people who surf online to protect their privacy.
DuckDuckGo, which passed the milestone of 100 million searches a day, does not collect or share personal information with third parties; Furthermore, does not store the IP address, does not profile the user and excludes tracking for targeted advertising.
Also StartPage, born in the Netherlands in 1998, rejects tracking and does not collect or sell data navigation, however, based on Google search, which screens ensuring the user’s anonymity. Along the same lines it is Qwant, a European search engine that employs Microsoft’s Bing technology such as MetaGer, but prevents the identification of those who surf and the IP address: available in Italy since 2017, has no tracking systems to sell data for advertising purposes, does not place cookies on the browser for localization, it has no personalized profiling of the individual user and is committed to providing impartial search results.
SearXinstead, it is an open-source meta engine that it can exploit 82 different search engines, including Bing, Google, Yahoo and Yandex, to which, however, it does not provide user data, also blocking tracking.
Less known they are Mojeek, Gibiru, Peekier ed Ecosia, strongly oriented to respect for privacy and the environment as well. More recently, it has also appeared online Neva, creature of Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan: they are former Google executives who have abandoned the business model of Big G proposing the subscription formula as a means of safeguarding privacy.
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Brave and paired browser and search engine
Brave’s operation was more complex, which alongside the browser, famous for its attention to people’s privacy, also launched an anti-Google search engine, which is now available in beta for anyone who surfs online. The new search engine, called Brave Search, has been tested by over 100,000 people before being introduced and made accessible to everyone from any browser in the various versions for desktop, Android and iOS.
In order to carry out the project, the company founded by Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript programming language and co-founder of Mozilla, acquired the open search engine platform Tailcat, built by Cliqz: it is thanks to the technology of this Munich-based company, whose goal is to achieve European digital sovereignty, that it has been possible to develop and refine the search engine.
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Challenge Google on privacy and autonomous search algorithms
Brave Search is a direct challenge to Google, which controls over 90% of the market, proposing itself as more transparent and reliable alternative in defense of privacy: as opposed to Big G, the new search engine does not profile, does not collect personal data or track clicks and searches. In addition, it aims for independent indexing of sites to produce independent search results according to its own criteria without resorting to external providers.
In menu Info top right, it is possible to check and view at any time the percentage of the results generated by the Brave index and possibly by third parties. When searching for images, however, Brave Search uses Bing, and for more in-depth searches, also of Google, provided that users have authorized this specific activity and in any case always promising to exclude tracking and protect privacy.
Currently, the beta version does not include advertising, which may soon appear, however, leaving people to choose between a free model with paid listings and a premium option with no ads.
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