Private Search Engines
For every searches you perform using Google or Bing those companies store your IP and fill your computer with tracking cookies, to understand what you search, how much time you spend on the given websites and to track your surfing habits. All of that info will be conveniently packed and used for commercial purposes.
As of 2009, the big three search engines currently hold on to user data for three months (Yahoo), nine months (Google), and 18 months (Microsoft/Bing). Google has turned over user search data to the U.S. Government upon request. Google has also cooperated with the country of China in censoring their citizens.
A private search engine is one that does not track you specifically. Everyone has a right to privacy and your search data should be logged of you don't want it to be.
The term "private search engine" is NOT the same as "secure search engine." A secure search engine uses https secure SSL while private refers to the search engine parent company not tracking you and saving information about your searches and online activity. Here we are more concerned about privacy. Encrypting your search only relates to privacy if your data transmissions are being intercepted, such as what is possible in a public WiFi hotspot. See our page on Secure Search Engines for further discussion of encrypting the search query itself, which does NOT shield you from being tracked.
Ask.com
- URL: http://www.ask.com/
In 2007, CNet Deemed Ask.com The Most Private Search Engine in the Land because that year Ask.com made a change to its policy on retaining information. Unlike Google and Bing, Ask.com does not record what users type into the search engine, nor does it use behavioral targeting. Ask.com was formerly known as Ask Jeeves.
Ask.com does do some tracking and data retention, so it is not 100% private. However, with the AskEraser feature enabled you can tell when your search activity will be 'erased' from Ask.com servers. You have to manually enable AskEraser.
IxQuick
IxQuick doesn’t log your surfing habits and it doesn’t store your IP. It uses some cookies but does not assign you a unique-id cookie. The cookies collect data anonymously to help your search experience, according to the authors. Ixquick search engine provides search results from over ten best search engines with more privacy.
In January of 2009 IxQuick/Startpage stopped recording IP addresses completely and began offering secure searching via the https protocol. Using https makes it one of the Secure Search Engines as well as being a Private Search Engine.
Startpage
Just like IxQuick, Startpage doesn’t log your surfing habits and it doesn’t store your IP. It uses some cookies but does not assign you a unique-id cookie. The cookies collect data anonymously to help your search experience, according to the authors. Startpage acts a proxy to google giving you basically the same quality of search results.
Startpage uses Google results, but anonymously using proxy.
A well known publication announced in July 2009, IxQuick changed its name to the much-easier-to-remember Startpage. However, Startpage and IxQuick do NOT return the same results. Startpage returns Google search results while IxQuick provides search results from over ten best search engines.
