Search Engine Comparison

WIP

We will be ranking various search engines, for that purpose we will take into account the following aspects: Search results quality, having their own index, sharing data with third parties, ads, requiring javascript, onion site, IP storage, blocks Tor/VPN, censorship, license, spyware level and the overall rating.

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Engine / Feature Duckduckgo Startpage Ecosia SearX Metager Qwant Yacy Swisscows Neeva Whoogle Brave Search Alexandria Right Dao Gigablast PrivacyWall FindX Mojeek
JavaScript Required For Images For captcha For images No No No No Yes Yes No For Images and disabling telemetry No No Yes No No No
Own Index No No No No Partial Partial Yes No Partial No Partial Yes Yes Yes No No Yes
Search Results Quality Average Average Average Depends on the instance, probably ok Good Average Poor Average Unkown (registration needed, fuck off) Average Average Surprisingly Average Lacking Poor Probably ok Good Lacking
Ads yes yes yes no yes yes no yes no no no? no yes, as "top results" no yes yes no
Shares data with third parties no no yes Depends on the instance, mostly no no yes no yes Unknown no no no no Unknown yes yes no
IP storage No No Yes Depends on the instance, mostly no Yes Yes Not applicable No Yes Depends on the instance, mostly no No No yes Unknown, possible yes Unknown, possible No
Blocks Tor/VPN No Annoying captcha (JS) Yes Depends on the instance, mostly no no no Not applicable Yes Unknown Depends on the instance, mostly no No No No No No No No
Onion Site Yes No No Onion instances Yes No Not applicable No No Onion instances No No No No No No No
License Proprietary Proprietary Proprietary AGPL AGPL Proprietary LGPL Proprietary Proprietary MIT Proprietary MIT Proprietary Apache Proprietary Proprietary Proprietary
Spyware Level Average Probably Very High High Depends on the instance, mostly not spyware Average Average Not spyware High Very High, requires registration Depends on the instance, mostly not spyware Average Very low, can be disabled Low? Average Very High High? Low?
Verdict Very Low tier Do not use Do not use Good if on a decent instance Decent if using the onion Low tier Not spyware, but poor results Do not use Do not use Decent on a good instance Very Low tier Probably good Ok, bad results Very Low tier Do not use Do not use Decent, not the best results