Search engines

Own index or metasearch

An own-index engine runs a crawler, a program that downloads and catalogues web pages, and answers your query from its own copy of the web. Independent indexes are rare: besides Google and Microsoft Bing, examples include Brave Search, Mojeek and the European EUSP project, and small specialised ones such as Marginalia. Building an index is expensive, so smaller ones miss more rare and very recent pages.

A metasearch engine has no index of its own, or only a small one. It forwards your query from its own servers to one or more other engines and shows you their results. The upstream engine sees the query but not your IP address or cookies; the metasearch operator sees your IP address and the query. SearXNG, 4get, MetaGer and Startpage work this way, and DuckDuckGo takes most of its web results from Bing.

• Google requires JavaScript (January 2025). Google began refusing searches from browsers with JavaScript turned off, citing bots and spam (TechCrunch). Metasearch engines that fetch Google results now depend on workarounds, such as requesting a simpler page layout (SearXNG docs).
• Bing Search APIs retired (11 August 2025). Microsoft shut down its public search APIs and pointed customers to an AI agent product instead (Microsoft). DuckDuckGo said only the self-serve version was being retired (Privacy Guides discussion); smaller engines lost their simplest way to buy Bing results.
• US court orders Google to share (September 2025). In the US antitrust case the judge ordered Google to give qualified competitors access to search index and interaction data and to offer result syndication, but did not order a sale of Chrome (AEI summary). In January 2026 Kagi reported that the details were still being worked out (Kagi).
• Google sues a scraping service (December 2025). Google sued SerpApi, which resells scraped Google results, for circumventing its anti-bot system (IPWatchdog). Kagi says it buys Google results from third-party providers of this kind as a stopgap, because Google offers no search API (Kagi).
• A European index (2025-2026). EUSP, a joint venture of Ecosia and Qwant, began serving results from its own index in France in August 2025 and in Germany in July 2026, and sells access to other services through an API called Staan (heise, 2025; heise, 2026).
• AI answers everywhere. Google AI Mode, DuckDuckGo Search Assist and Duck.ai, Ask Brave and Kagi Assistant all send your words to a language model. See AI answers in search.

The common thread: access to Google and Bing results is getting harder and more expensive for small engines. Metasearch services break more often, and independent indexes matter more than they did.

These engines collect the least about you and, in most cases, publish their code or let you run them yourself. Each still has trade-offs, listed with each entry.

Metasearch and proxies

Independent indexes

Their results do not come from Google or Bing. Use them on their own or as a second opinion next to a metasearch engine; 4get can query both.

Better than Google for privacy, but each comes with a real trade-off: dependence on Bing or Google, an advertising business in the background, data collection switched on by default, or a paid account.

Onion services are sites reachable only through the Tor network, with addresses ending in .onion. Normal search engines do not index them, so specialised engines exist. You need Tor Browser to open the results (see the browser guide).

Most engines now put an AI-generated answer above or beside the results. That adds one more party that processes your words: whoever runs the language model. Where the prompt goes and how long it is kept depends on the engine.

• Google AI Mode and AI Overviews. With Search history switched on, AI Mode searches are saved to your Google account. Google says it uses what people search for and their feedback to improve its AI features, and that the data its human reviewers see is disconnected from accounts (Google help).
• DuckDuckGo. Search Assist and Duck.ai can be switched off under Search Settings, AI Features, or you can use noai.duckduckgo.com. Duck.ai removes your IP address before forwarding a prompt and says its model providers agreed to delete prompts after replying, with exceptions such as up to one hour of prompt caching (Duck.ai privacy).
• Brave Search. Ask Brave conversations are erased after 24 hours of inactivity, and shared conversations are kept for up to seven days (privacy notice).
• Kagi. Assistant threads are deleted after one day unless reported (privacy policy).

A prompt is usually longer and more personal than a search query. Treat it the same way: leave out names and details that identify you. The AI guide covers chat assistants in more depth.

Running your own SearXNG or 4get instance means you no longer have to trust a stranger's server, and you decide what is logged. The SearXNG documentation puts it plainly: users of a public instance cannot know whether their requests are logged, aggregated or passed on.

• Share the instance with family or friends so that queries mix together.
• Route its outgoing requests through Tor or a proxy. SearXNG supports this with the proxies and using_tor_proxy settings (docs); expect more CAPTCHAs and blocks from upstream engines.
• Rent the server with as little personal data as possible; see server hosting.
• Keep it updated. 4get, for example, fixed a potential cross-site scripting bug involving scraper-supplied data on 27 October 2026 (source).
• If you use a public instance instead, pick one from searx.space whose hosting network and country you are comfortable with. The list also shows TLS grades and uptime.

• Set your chosen engine as the default in your browser, and check private windows too: some browsers set their default separately.
• Turn off search suggestions if you do not want every keystroke sent to the engine while you type (see the browser guide).
• Do not sign in to a search engine. One account ties all your queries together.
• Private or incognito mode only stops your own device from keeping history and cookies after you close the window. It hides nothing from the search engine, your network or your internet provider.
• For sensitive searches, use Tor Browser. DuckDuckGo, Kagi, MetaGer and 4get publish onion addresses; other engines may show CAPTCHAs or block Tor.
• A VPN hides your IP address from the search engine but shows your traffic to the VPN provider instead. Choose one with care (VPN guide).
• Avoid clicking ads. On DuckDuckGo the click is handled by Microsoft Advertising; Startpage's sponsored links come from Google.
• Shortcuts such as DuckDuckGo "bangs" (!w, !g) send your query straight to another site, which then sees both the query and your IP address.
• Leave identifying details out of queries: search for the condition, not your name plus the condition.
• Re-check privacy policies and ownership from time to time. Several engines on this page changed sources, owners or defaults in the past two years.

• SearXNG: why use a private instancedocs.searxng.orgWhat a public instance operator can see, and what self-hosting changes.
• Kagi: Waiting for dawn in search (January 2026)blog.kagi.comA small engine explains which indexes it licenses, why Google results are hard to obtain, and the US antitrust remedies.
• heise: Ecosia and Qwant launch German web index (July 2026)heise.deStatus of the European EUSP index and its Staan API.
• Microsoft: Bing Search APIs retired on 11 August 2025learn.microsoft.comThe announcement that ended self-serve access to Bing results.