The first step is often the hardest, and such is the case with ditching Google search. The number two search engine in the United States is Bing, but if you’re concerned about privacy, jumping from Google to Microsoft may not get you far. Fortunately there is DuckDuckGo, whose privacy policy is simple: it does not collect or share any private information.
duckduckgo

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine that does not track user data.

Much of the way DuckDuckGo looks and functions reminds me of the early days of Google search, when the startup from Mountain View was cutting through the clutter of sites like AltaVista. It recently underwent a redesign and now has search for specific categories like images, local, weather, recipes, and others. It also now performs an autosuggest.

Whereas Google will adjust what you see based on location and various other factors, The DuckDuckGo search results you get from California are supposed to be the same as someone searching from New Jersey. It’s interesting to see how the results turn out when not tied to a specific account. You can also use a “bang” command to search a specific site. For example, if you wanted to find a particular image on Pinterest you would type, “!Pinterest” in the search bar, along with what you’re trying to find.

DuckDuckGo’s search results come from its own crawler (named DuckDuckBot, of course) and over 100 different sources, such as Yandex, Wolfram Alpha, and Bing. You can also take the search engine mobile with its apps for iOS and Android.