How Big Tech is eating into your privacy and selling your data to whomsoever have been well documented. Personally, I could never make myself comfortable with data tracking. I have been skeptic to the point that I used incognito searches, seldom saved a password and preferred web versions of many popular apps till very recently. I remember taking a lot of heat for writing a 10-point guideline on how to beat the tracking way back in 2012. The post was removed and my accounts were suspended for posting those guidelines.

Cut to 2020, persistent opposition and legal battles from concerned activists world over have resulted in several internet privacy laws such as GDPR, CCPA and PIPEDA. While it is good that the governments are finally looking into this, these laws only offer a limited protection, users still don’t have much of a choice. It’s just that users are having to agree to a lot more tracking. Well, let’s change that! One step at a time. Today we’d look into alternatives of search engines, because this is often our first point of interaction with the internet in our daily lives. Currently, the top-5 search engines in the world are Google, YouTube, Amazon, Facebook and Bing. Noticed Big Tech?

Below are 10 of the most useful, clean and privacy friendly alternatives to these search engines. Pay attention to the details, as some of these search engines are going to the point of reforestation and providing clean waters to communities.

1. DuckDuckGo – This unconventional named search engine can be your perfect choice if you consider your personal info and your browsing habits as private. DuckDuckGo doesn’t track these and currently is a favorite of many privacy advocates.

2. StartPage – StartPage is a solid choice for those who still want search answers served from Google without any tracking creepiness. Besides, it includes a URL generator, a proxy service, and HTTPS support.

3. CC Search – This should be your go-to search engine for copyright free content, be it a video, an image, or an art piece. This feature keeps things clean and respectful between content owners and you.

4. Swisscows – privacy is fine, but what about the AI? If you found yourself asking this question, this search engine is the answer for you. Swisscows doesn’t collect, store or track your data, but their algorithm uses artificial intelligence to determine the context of your query and provides surprisingly accurate results.

5. OneSearch – To start with a disclaimer, this is a recently launched search engine from Verizon. Verizon Media promises no cookie tracking, retargeting, personal profiling, no sharing of personal data with advertisers, no storing of search history, unbiased/unfiltered results, encryption. So while this comes from a Big company, it is worth checking out for as long as it delivers on the promises.

6. Wiki.com – Who doesn’t love wikipedia, the original champion of community led information and ethical internet browsing. Wiki.com goes a step further and pulls its results from thousands of wikis on the internet.

7. Ecosia.org – As the snippet ‘Eco’ in the name of this search engine would suggest, this search engine promises to be environment friendly. Believe it or not, google searches contribute to the creation of quite a bit of CO2. Ecosia uses the a fair part of the revenues generated from search queries to plant trees. Neat, no?

8. Ekoru.org – Another ‘Eko’ champion, Ekoru promises to donate 60% of their monthly revenue to several partner charities, supporting causes ranging from reforestation to animal welfare to renewable energy. To emphasize your civil rights, they don’t store any user or search related data on their servers.

9. Boardreader – Ever wondered what the different boards have to say about something? Boardreader looks into online forum and message boards about specific subjects. Check this out before you go on that 100-mile bike ride!

10. SlideShare.net – This was a popular engine to search for slideshow presentations, popular enough for Linkedin to acquire it with a handsome offer. Linkedin still offers this to the users.

So there’s the list of 10 alternative, reliable, socially conscious and very useful search engines. Here’s to the search liberation!

And before you go, below is your bonus 11th.

11. giveWater.com – giveWater presents itself as a social impact search engine which empowers its users to help solve poor water quality and ineffective sanitation problems across the world via their searches. The search results are powered by Bing. Company generates revenues when the users click on an ads. Though it’s a for profit company, part of the profits are shared with charitable partners who use the funding to provide better water and sanitation facilities in their service areas.

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