DuckDuckGo, Privacy, but terrible for searches

[edhopper]

Looking for knowledgeable advice. Switched to DuckDuckGo from Google about a year ago. It offers good privacy protection, but the search engine is not good. And the use of AI has made it worse. The results are often unusable, making me add more and more words and re-ording them to get any sort of useful results. I find I still have to use Google at times just to find what I need. DDG's map and image searches are particularly bad.

My question is; Is there another Search Engine that offers privacy, while still giving results close to what I would get with Google.

[moondust]

1. Here's one.

https://www.startpage.com/

From their About Us page:

Startpage is a global privacy technology company built around the principle of always putting privacy first...
~
We were founded and remain headquartered in the Netherlands, which means that our users are protected by stringent European consumer privacy laws, including the GDPR. These are widely regarded as the strongest privacy protections in the world. Every search performed on Startpage is processed through our proprietary personal data protection technology.
~
Startpage is owned by a Dutch company which is operated from its headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands, and is a part of System1, a publicly traded company based in the United States.
~

I believe the EU is somewhat more conscientious about privacy and regulating big tech.

[Frank D. Lincoln]

2. Thanks for that. I really do appreciate it. nt

[NJCher]

3. I like startpage

but I also like Duck and have few if any problems with it.

[justaprogressive]

4. DuckDuck uses Google

Google search is now AI fucked... ergo DuckDuck is fucked.

dogpile.com

[edhopper]

6. I get very different results from the same search

on DDG and Google.

[Angleae]

13. DuckDuckGo stopped using Google a few years ago.

They did when they started up then switched. It was quite noticeable when they did.

[HAB911]

5. I understand Duck Duck Go uses Bing

so, there it is

[justaprogressive]

7. No, google. nt

[edhopper]

9. Every source I founds says

it does not use Google.

[justaprogressive]

11. NOW DuckDuckGo's results are a compilation of "over 400" sources

DuckDuckGo's results are a compilation of "over 400" sources according to itself, including Bing, Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wolfram Alpha, Yandex, and its own web crawler (the DuckDuckBot); but none from Google.[67][4][68][69][70] It also uses data from crowdsourced sites such as Wikipedia, to populate knowledge panel boxes to the right of the search results.[69][71]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo#Donations

...used to be they sucked and cleaned google search results...

[edhopper]

12. Well

Those results suck.
Going to try Startpage

[LeftInTX]

8. Yes, they do

[NameAlreadyTaken]

10. I've always found what I was searching for

using DuckDuckGo. I've had it set as my default search engine for 6 or 7 years now. I just ignore the AI response at the top and dig through the search results. I don't like Google any more.

[BannonsLiver]

14. Give Webcrawler and Lycos a try.