Most of the big search engines are just data collection tools for ad companies. Things like IP address, location, and device history, are sold to the highest bidder. Let's look at some alternatives.
Searx
Searx is an open-source search engine that gathers results from other engines but still keeps things private.
You control what search engines Searx pulls from, and what specific categories.
You can also adjust the settings to choose which sources to include links from, and which ones to delete.
The private service uses dozens of indexes from different Searx users. Each of these users has multiple sources and different search results.
And if you wanted to, you could even create your instance and set it up as a private search engine.
YaCy
YaCy is a peer-to-peer, open-source search engine. It is a private company that does not have a central server or proprietary software.
The software YaCy uses is a network of private computers controlled by the community.
YaCy just provides the open-source code, and the community does all the work.
Since this search engine is distributed by the community, YaCy does not belong to any legal jurisdictions. The laws only apply to the users, not the whole YaCy network.
This is a software-based search engine, and it will need to be installed.
Swisscows
Swisscows uses a “semantic map” to give helpful search suggestions on the right side of the page.
This private search engine takes family-friendly searching seriously and removes all adult and violent content by default.
Since they are in Switzerland, Swisscows is outside of the jurisdiction of the US and the EU.
This means they are less likely to be required to give data to the authorities if asked.
Wrapping Up
If you want to build a private search engine that's exclusive to you, consider Searx or YaCy.
These are both maintained by the people, so you can always use the pre-made engines in the open-source community.
And Swisscows is a private, family-friendly option that even comes with its own VPN.
