5+ Top Search Engine Alternatives to Google [2021]

A product of Microsoft, Bing is the second most widely used search engine. Many users prefer using Bing because they feel that its additional visual features offer a superior experience.

Bing gets its search results from Yahoo!. The homepage has a dynamic background that displays stunning pictures of people, sports, places, and animals, among other things.

Bing's video search presents a grid of large thumbnails that let you preview the video when you hover over them. Clicking videos open them on the same page. Like Google, Bing displays ads and features such as translation, spellcheck, flight tracking, and sports scores. The search engine has apps for iOS and Android.

If your top priority is online privacy, the best Google alternative for you is DuckDuckGo. Its high level of user privacy has spurred its popularity. DuckDuckGo doesn't keep your data or monitor your activities online, so you don't need to be worried about ads. It features a minimalist user interface that gets search results from other search engines like Yahoo and Yandex.

DuckDuckGo's browser extension helps you maintain your online privacy. This search engine comes with all the standard search engine features. Its unique feature, Bangs, lets you make direct private searches on other sites such as YouTube, Wikipedia, and Amazon.

Yahoo is older than Google, and some internet users still rely upon it as their primary search engine for everyday use. It's the third most widely used search engine after Google and Bing. Yahoo offers many other features in addition to basic searching.

It serves as an email service, news aggregator, games center, online shopping hub, and travel directory, among other things. With support from about 38 languages, Yahoo is a formidable alternative to Google. It's even the default search engine in Mozilla Firefox. Instead of offering a standalone search engine, Yahoo provides a vast portal of services ranging from travel to food to sports, among other things.

After acquiring Flickr, Yahoo's image search results improved greatly, and with sections such as Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Answers, it offers a goldmine of information on many topics. Most importantly, Yahoo is superior to Google when it comes to putting privacy on the top.

Originating in France, Qwant is another privacy-centered search engine worth mentioning. According to the website, it never gathers your data for ad-tailoring purposes, nor does it keep a record of your searches. Qwant is focused on privacy; so, many of its features are similar to those offered by DuckDuckGo. One of these features, Quick Search Shortcuts, is the Qwant version of DuckDuckGo's Bangs.

This Google alternative has a pleasing user interface that highlights news stories and trending topics on its homepage in a well-organized format. Qwant displays search results under the categories of Web, News, and Social Media platforms. This lets you filter your results more efficiently.

If you're a music fan, the search engine has a section dedicated to discovering new music and an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool that generates the lyrics to songs.

Yandex is considered to be the fifth-largest search engine in the world. The Russian-based search engine has a similar layout to that of Google. The company also offers numerous services including a browser app, mobile apps, analytics tools, a mailing service, and cloud storage.

Yandex allows you to search for images, web results, audio, maps, and news. Overall, Yandex has a similar interface and operates the same way as Google. Aside from Russia, Yandex has gained popularity in other European countries. However, since it is based in Russia, Yandex is not the best option when it comes to privacy.

If you are looking for a Google alternative search engine that is focused on privacy, Gibiru is a brilliant option. The search engine allows people to search for content privately and they claim that they don’t save their user’s search queries.

To enhance the use of this uncensored private search engine even further, Gibiru recommends you add an extra layer of security by using a VPN (it recommends ExpressVPN) and downloading its proxy browser app for mobile devices.

Similar to Gibiru, Swisscows is a privacy-focused search engine. The search engine allows people to search the web anonymously. In addition to that, Swisscows doesn’t keep a log of its users' search queries, personal data, IP addresses, or other personal information. The Swiss-based company has a strict privacy policy.

Swiss cows have an in-built filter for explicit and violent content which cannot be bypassed, making it a favorite search engine for parents. Another excellent feature of Swisscows is the suggestion tags that pop up whenever a user enters a search query.