this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2026
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Privacy

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What search engine y'all are using? (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 hours ago by zerozaku@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.world
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I am kinda fed up off trying all these privacy focused search engines which provide lesser quality service. Here's what I've tried so far:

  1. Duckduckgo: bad results when you search something that piracy related
  2. Searx: I'm not geeky enough to host mine own searx so I just jump from one instance to another and the uptimes have been bad.
  3. Startpage: Idk why it's down most of the time
  4. Ecosia: Not very private, but I just tried it for the sake of it. It's bad when it comes to the results.

Honestly I feel Brave search is the best when it comes to results. But the sketchy practices kept me away from it. Kagi is paid so I haven't tried it.

What have you been using?

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[–] CorvusCornix@piefed.social 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

I know you mentioned having tried it but my experience with DDG has been pretty good and it's what I use (edit to add that I'm not doubting your experience with it has been poor and this isn't intended to sound flippant).

I see Kagi come up a lot. I don't trust engines like Kagi not to link my payment data with my search history, personally. They're a US company, so consider what that means in the current state of the world and privacy. I haven't deeply investigated the validity of it, but the Kagi CEO allegedly harassed a journalist (minor edit, a blogger) who had a critical take on their service, and supposedly they were founded as - you guessed it - an AI company.

And sure, DDG is a US company, too. But they don't really have anything personally identifying to link my searches back to me. I can accept the ads (though I have uBlock), which are only contextually targeted based on search keywords. I don't think I'd use their browser or extensions, which would have a much more privileged place in my "tech stack", but for search it does well enough.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

You can completely decouple your payment data from your search history with Kagi, something no other search engine allows. https://help.kagi.com/kagi/privacy/privacy-pass.html

[–] CorvusCornix@piefed.social 1 points 5 hours ago

Ah, that's good information - thanks!