Search engine privacy ratings

Web search services.

21 search engines are rated against 12 public criteria, and 21 have enough evidence for a letter grade. Our pick is DuckDuckGo. Of the 16 with a known jurisdiction, 8 are based in a Five Eyes country, and 13 in the wider Fourteen Eyes.

Open-source search engines only · Criteria for this category · Suggest an addition · Markdown

Search engines privacy ratings, sorted by pick and then by grade
Name	Grade	Score	Data	Jurisdiction	Open source	No trackers or telemetry	No ads or data sales	Independent audit	Transparency report	Tells users about requests	No search history logs	No profile-based ads	No account needed	TLS configuration	Security headers	Modern web standards
DuckDuckGo Our pick Search engine that does not save search history or tie searches to IP addresses. Ads are based on the search terms instead of a profile.	Grade C	73	100%	United States Five Eyes	Partial	Yes	Partial	No	Partial	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial	Not tested yet
4get Open-source metasearch engine and proxy that fetches results from other search engines and strips tracking, usable at 4get.ca or other public instances or self-hosted.	Grade B	88	100%	–	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Not applicable	Not applicable	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
SearXNG Free, open-source metasearch engine that combines results from many search services without storing information about its users. It can be self-hosted or used through public instances.	Grade B	88	100%	–	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Not applicable	Not applicable	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
YaCy Free search engine software that users run themselves, either as a personal or intranet search portal with its own crawler, or as a peer in a decentralized network that shares a web index.	Grade B	88	100%	–	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Not applicable	Not applicable	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
PriEco Open-source web search engine written in Rust that combines its own index with results from other sources and supports result customization through Goggles.	Grade B	75	100%	–	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial	Not tested yet
MetaGer Open-source metasearch engine run by the German non-profit SUMA-EV that combines results from several search providers, paid for with a prepaid anonymous key, and includes an anonymizing proxy for opening results.	Grade C	73	100%	Germany Fourteen Eyes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	Partial	Not tested yet
Marginalia Search Independent open-source search engine from Sweden with its own crawler and index, focused on finding small, non-commercial and text-heavy websites.	Grade C	70	100%	Sweden Fourteen Eyes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Partial	No	Partial	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Not tested yet
Mwmbl Non-profit, open-source search engine with its own community-crawled index, where signed-in users can help curate search results.	Grade C	70	100%	–	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	No	Not tested yet
Uruky Paid, ad-free search engine from Portugal that combines results from European and UK search providers such as Mojeek, and lets each user customize sources and domains.	Grade D	57	100%	Portugal Outside Eyes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Partial	Not tested yet
Brave Search Search engine from Brave Software built on its own independent web index, designed not to store searches with identifiers or build user profiles.	Grade D	55	100%	United States Five Eyes	Partial	Partial	Partial	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	Not tested yet	Not tested yet
Mojeek British search engine that uses its own crawler and index and states that it does not track users.	Grade D	55	100%	United Kingdom Five Eyes	No	Yes	Partial	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Not tested yet
Kagi Paid, ad-free search engine from Kagi Inc. that combines its own index with results from other providers and lets users rank, block or boost websites.	Grade D	50	100%	United States Five Eyes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Partial	No	Partial	Yes	No	Partial	Partial	Not tested yet
Swisscows Search engine from the Swiss company Swisscows AG that filters out adult content, does not use tracking cookies or build user profiles, and offers an ad-free paid tier.	Grade D	50	100%	Switzerland Outside Eyes	No	Partial	Partial	No	Partial	No	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	No	Not tested yet
Startpage Dutch search engine returning primarily Google results, proxied to strip IP and identifiers. Includes an "Anonymous View" proxy for previewing results privately.	Grade D	45	100%	Netherlands Nine Eyes	No	No	Partial	No	Partial	No	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	Partial	Not tested yet
Presearch Search engine from the Canadian company Presearch that serves queries through a network of community-run nodes and rewards searchers and node operators with its PRE crypto token.	Grade D	43	100%	Canada Five Eyes	No	Partial	Partial	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Partial	Partial	Not tested yet	Not tested yet
Ecosia Search engine from the Berlin company Ecosia that shows results and ads from Microsoft Bing or Google and uses its profits for tree planting and climate projects.	Grade D	41	100%	Germany Fourteen Eyes	Partial	No	Partial	No	No	No	Partial	Yes	Partial	Yes	Partial	Not tested yet
Bing Microsoft's search engine, which also supplies results to several other search engines. Searches are linked to cookies and Microsoft accounts to personalize results and ads.	Grade F	32	100%	United States Five Eyes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Partial	Partial	Yes	Partial	Not tested yet
Yahoo Search Yahoo's web search engine. Searches are collected with cookie, device and account identifiers, shared with search partners, and used to personalize results and ads.	Grade F	32	100%	United States Five Eyes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Partial	Partial	Yes	Partial	Not tested yet
Yandex Search Web search engine from the Russian company Yandex. Searches are linked to cookies, IP addresses and Yandex ID accounts to personalize results and ads.	Grade F	27	100%	Russia Outside Eyes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	Partial	Partial	Yes	Partial	Not tested yet
Google Search Google's web search engine. Searches are linked to accounts, cookies and devices to personalize results and ads.	Grade F	25	100%	United States Five Eyes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Partial	Partial	Partial	No	Not tested yet
Qwant French search engine that combines results from Microsoft Bing with its own European index, shown with contextual ads by default.	Grade F	23	100%	France Nine Eyes	No	No	Partial	No	No	No	No	Partial	Partial	Yes	Partial	Not tested yet

Questions

What is the most private option among search engines?

Our pick is DuckDuckGo. Results good enough to replace Google for most searches, no search history, no profile-based ads, and no account needed. Apps and browser extensions are open source.

How are search engines rated?

Each entry answers 12 questions: open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales, independent audit, transparency report, tells users about requests, TLS configuration, security headers, modern web standards, no search history logs, no profile-based ads and no account needed. Answers need links to evidence. See the full criteria.

Does jurisdiction matter?

Jurisdiction decides which laws can compel a provider to hand over data. Each entry shows its country and whether it is in the Five, Nine or Fourteen Eyes. The data a provider can hand over depends mostly on what it stores and who holds the keys. Read about jurisdictions and the CLOUD Act.