The biggest elephant in the room or the biggest search engine by far is Google with 92.13% of all searches across the world. Second with a much smaller 8.04% is Bing, owned by Microsoft.
Not only do these giant search engines dominate the search engine market, they also determine what search results you see. They present results they think you want to see based upon your search history, and your personal information. People searching the same term may well get widely different search engine results.
Furthermore, they also store and keep your personal data, your search data and even your location data. In fact, they store that data forever, that's right forever.
But luckily there are alternatives. There are search engines out there that are not controlled by big technology firms and there are search engines that do not store any of your information, personal data or search history. Some of them even donate to charitable causes such as helping out in Haiti and planting trees.
Here are some of the alternative search engines that you may like to look at.
DuckDuckGo. An Amercian based search engine that is all about privacy. They protect your information when you search and also have browser extensions you can add to your browser to protect your privacy when you browse. They do not store your data nor share it, period.
Ecosia. Another privacy based search engine that protects your data and doesn't share it with others. They also fund tree planting projects all over the world. This is funded by all the searches that are done on their search engine. Maybe give them a try and help plant a couple of trees in the process?
Swiss Cows Search. A Swiss based privacy focussed search engine that also has a Telegram style app, a VPN and privacy focussed email. They do not store any of your data and are very keen to point out that they respect privacy and believe that the internet and internet search should be private. They use some of the funds earned by your searches to fund meals for needy kids and programs in Haiti and Columbia.
Give them a try, perhaps if a few more people can use these small but first rate search engines, we can break the dominance of Google and Bing, protect our information and privacy, and help a few charitable projects along the way. A win, win, win really :)
