I used startpage a long time and often was angered about the quality of the results in complexer searches. Also if you use Google-Proxys like this, you still take part in einriching Googles big data.
I tried some privacy-friendly enginges and have to admit that they are quite good:
Quant, elaon (searx-instance) and Meta-Ger in particually…
Also please stop promoting duck-duck-go as they are under us-jurisdiction…
There is also Ecosia, which is not privacy-related (it uses Google), but the company plants trees with the money gained from advertisements.
However, I can’t understand why I should stop using and promoting DuckDuckGo. It’s like Startpage or Ixquick. They do not collect personal information so they can’t share it, even if the US-Government or pick your favourite agency requests it. #ComeToTheDuckSide
According to Ecosia they use Bing and not Google. It says ‘Powered by Bing’ at the right bottom when you use their search.
Just wanted to mention this since there are google-averse people here (like me), which would be turned-off on Ecosia when they think it uses google
@Ianto I wouldn’t recommend Startpage tbh. Why? Because this:
How we made search private
You can’t beat Google when it comes to online search. So we’re paying them to use their brilliant search results in order to remove all trackers and logs. […] Taken from startpage.com
I wouldn’t consider Startpage as an alternative to G00gle as they’re literally paying them.