Search engines
Marginalia Search privacy rating
Independent open-source search engine from Sweden with its own crawler and index, focused on finding small, non-commercial and text-heavy websites.
Summary
Marginalia Search scores 70 out of 100 (grade C) on the search engines criteria. It meets 6 of 11 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales, TLS configuration, no profile-based ads and no account needed. It partly meets transparency report and no search history logs. It does not meet independent audit, tells users about requests and security headers. It is based in Sweden: Fourteen Eyes member; EU member (GDPR). Automated tests: SSL Labs grade A and Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade D.
Score 70 out of 100. How scoring works
Criteria
- Yes
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Yes
No trackers or telemetry Weight 3 of 3
Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?
No tracking pixels, third-party requests or click tracking; cookies only store settings.
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Yes
No ads or data sales Weight 2 of 3
Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?
Funded by donations, grants and API deals, with no ads.
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No
Independent audit Weight 2 of 3
Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?
No independent audit is published.
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Partial
Transparency report Weight 2 of 3
Does the provider regularly publish how many government and legal requests it receives and how it responds?
The privacy policy explains that minimal retention limits what can be handed over in response to legal requests, but no request counts are published.
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No
Tells users about requests Weight 1 of 3
Does the provider promise to tell users about requests for their data, unless a court forbids it?
No published policy on notifying users about data requests.
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Partial
No search history logs Weight 3 of 3
Are searches stored without IP addresses or other identifiers?
Access logs with IP addresses are kept for up to 24 hours, and click data is not collected.
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Yes
No profile-based ads Weight 2 of 3
Are ads (if any) based only on the current search, not a profile?
No ads are shown.
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Yes
No account needed Weight 1 of 3
Can every feature be used without an account?
Search needs no account; settings are stored in a cookie.
Automated tests
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Yes
TLS configuration Weight 2 of 3
Does the website pass the Qualys SSL Labs test with a grade of A or better?
Grade A
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No
Security headers Weight 1 of 3
Does the website pass the Mozilla HTTP Observatory test with a grade of A or better?
Grade D (30/100+)
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Not tested yet
Modern web standards Weight 1 of 3
Does the website score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl website test?
Not tested yet.