Due to the issues with Google Gemini, I have been reconsidering which search engine I can trust the most. There have been many reports about Google manipulating search results, and it is a well-known fact that during election years, Google adjusts results in favor of their preferred candidate. For instance, if you try to search for Donald Trump’s Presidential website, you will notice that it appears way down the page and that there are a lot of negative press links preceding the link.
I have been using the internet since the Wombat Net days before browsers existed, and it was all telnet, newsrooms, and bulletin boards. The first browser was Netscape; the first search engine I used and liked was Altavista. It’s fascinating to think about how far we’ve come since the days of telnet and text-based interfaces. Netscape was a game-changer, and Altavista was a search engine many people loved before Google came along and conquered the world. It’s like comparing a flip phone to a smartphone – both have charm, but one is a bit more advanced. Unfortunately, I think the time has come to revisit some of the other options out there for internet searching.
Google is a marketing company now, and they sell ALL of your search data and personal information; they get a horrible privacy rating because they are not in the privacy business. Their goal is to sell ads. Google has the most data indexed, so depending on your search, you might get slightly better results with Google.
With DuckDuckGo or Startpage, you’re getting companies that care about your privacy, which is excellent. From there, it will be up to you to find the search engine that’s right for you.
DuckDuckGo and Startpage are both search and privacy-focused. There is a slight difference in how these tools treat your search queries as DuckDuckGo logs search queries without connecting them to you to improve results and track general trends. Startpage collects nothing, so it is slightly better from a privacy standpoint.
What sets each search engine apart is its results. Google is the top search engine because it has the largest search index. Thus, it’s a huge bonus to get Google results with Startpage.
Ultimately, my choice from now on will be to use the right tool for the job at the time. I can simply open Google in a new tab if I am not getting the desired results. I no longer need to have Google as the default. From now on, my default is going to be Startpage. I know, I know, Startpage uses Google results, but that is an advantage, and the results have been very good. I have not needed to go directly to Google, so my privacy is protected, which is great.
