TL;DR - which privacy-focused search engine do people recommend, preferably one that can also easily be used as a default option in Safari?

I ditched Google in about 2016ish I would guess, and since then have used DDG as my default search engine.

As someone entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, it’s always seemed like a sound choice, as it’s one of the search engines built in to Safari on both iOS and macOS.

After spending a bit more time recently playing around with and updating my Docker containers, I started hosting a Whoogle container, which seemed to work pretty well, but I don’t see many out there talking about it, so not sure how good it actually is. I then tried a SearXNG container, but either had it misconfigured or just wasn’t getting many search results back.

At the moment I’m trying out Startpage, but I know there are potential privacy concerns since they were part-bought in 2019 by a US ad-tech company.

I’m also playing around with different browsers at the moment, flicking between Safari, Firefox and Brave. At which point I stumbled across Brave Search, which seems pretty promising.

So, which search engines do you all recommend?

UPDATE: Probably should’ve done a poll! But latest (if I’ve captured everything correctly) is:

  • DuckDuckGo - 10
  • Qwant / SearXNG / Kagi / Brave - 4
  • Startpage / Ecosia - 2
  • Google - 1

As to my other questions around browsers:

  • Majority seem to use Firefox
  • Some mentions of Brave
  • One mention of Arc
  • Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz
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    1 year ago

    I’ve been using DuckDuckGo for years now and recommend it all the time.

    I get decent, reliable results so haven’t shopped around.

    • EpicFailGuy@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      @Viper_NZ

      @schmurnan

      Been a duckie for years now but I find myself going back to google for things like maps and shopping (that nearby search is a godsend) have you found any privacy mindfull alternatives?

      • Fireplant@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        On Android you can install Organic Maps, but the downside is that it’s 100% offline so you’ll need to download the maps for each area you want to have a map of (which, takes storage)

        OsmAnd+ seems to be a good alternative recommended often, but I just haven’t used it.

        On PC, OpenStreetMaps is your friend

        • Fireplant@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          On Android you can install Organic Maps, but the downside is that it’s offline so you’ll need to download the maps for each area you want to have a map of (which, takes storage)

          OsmAnd+ seems to be a good alternative recommended often, but I just haven’t used it.

          On PC, OpenStreetMaps is your friend

    • Skyline@lemmy.cafe
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      1 year ago

      Do you find DDG to be slower than Bing or Google? A few years ago I thought there was a noticeable delay with DDG, but not with Google.