DuckDuckGo since it’s inception, has positioned itself as a “privacy” respecting alternative to Google search. Why then, are millions of internet users searching for alternative search engines to what is now being called DuckDuckGone?

Generally, users who consider the importance of “privacy”, also naturally consider the importance of free speech and censorship resistance when it comes to finding good information, for making clear decisions.

Privacy and censorship resistance go hand in hand, and since DuckDuckGo decided to position itself an arbiter of truth rather than a privacy respecting search engine, many are looking for alternative search engines.

Why was DuckDuckGone trending on Twitter?

Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of DuckDuckGo recently disavowed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while simultaneously claiming to be “transcending” politics through the decision to enable the censorship of Russian media.

The hypocritical political decision has left thousands of search engine users looking for alternatives, and disavowing the search engine with the hashtag #duckduckgone

To help in this effort, I have compiled a list of alternative search engines that do not (as far as I am aware) engage in political censorship.

Here are some alternatives to DuckDuckGone:

Searx
Open source, private and uncensored
Needs some setting up before searching safely (do not use public instances)
https://www.searx.me (gives info about the project and list of instances)

MetaGer
Open source and private search engine based in Germany
Contains Ads (i.e. from Bing), Ad free is available with membership
https://metager.org/

Mojeek
Uses its own crawlers and its private – Based in UK
https://www.mojeek.com/

Swisscows
Private search engine based in Switzerland
https://swisscows.com

Qwant
Private search engine based in France
https://www.qwant.com/

Brave Search
Private search engine based in US
https://search.brave.com/

And as requested by a reader;

Presearch
A privacy respecting, decentralized search engine, powered by blockchain.
https://presearch.com/

Noiz devices come with two great privacy respecting browsers. We set either Brave Search, or Swisscows as the default search engines within the browser on each device.

Be sure to check out our online store for privacy respecting deGoogled smartphones.