Freedom Is For Me - Search Engines
Introduction
Search engines are what allow us to find things on the web. They are the actual service that indexes webpages using spiders and other crawlers and provides an interface to search through them. Allowing us to find websites, content, images, etc. There are many search engines, some for more general searching, others tailored to a specific purpose, or to search for one specific thing. I will be discussing some privacy focused search engines, and a couple of other helpful tips I have discovered after experimentation.
Searx
Searx is an incredibly advanced and highly private search engine, and my personal choice. It functions as a privacy-friendly proxy for other search engines, so you can get the best results without spreading your personal data around. One of the coolest things about this search engine is that it is open source, so you can host your own instance, which is exactly what many people do. You can find a list of registered searx instances at searx.space which you can configure your browser to use, or you can host your own instance. All in all, this is a great sollution and probably the most private clear net search engine. It's only downfall is that sometimes an instance goes down, and it can be pretty slow. This is highly regional in my experince though, and I still would absolutely recommend.
Swisscows
Swisscows is also a ridicoulsly private search engine that has stood the test of time. It is hosted from probably the most secure data center in the world (I recommend you read this), and stores little to no user information. It is a family safe search engine, which means that you won't find any porn on it, which could be great if you are trying to get a younger child to have a private search engine without any of the general nasty internet stuff. Asides from that, it is also very fast, secure, and provides a great user experience. I would absolutely recommend this search engine to anybody loooking for a private search engine.
Startpage
Startpage is another great private search engine, although not my engine of choice. It is based in the Netherlands, and uses a data removal system to mask your identity whilst you search with them. Startpage is a great private search engine, and their site also has some wonderful articles on other privacy components, but I would recommend Searx and Swisscows before them. Startpage is very fast and private, but it just isn't the best. It is a wonderful alternative to non private search engines, and would work great for someone transitioning out of Google because of their similarities, but Searx has an option to include Startpage results as well as already masks and proxies your information. In total however, a solid search engine.
A fair Warning
There are a couple of things I should warn you about when browsing the web. First of all, a private search engine does not make you invisible. It helps protect you while you are searching, but the websites you visit can still track you, especially if you are not using a private browser(if you are not already I would recommend reading my article on that). There is also no search engine that is completely private, information does still need to get sent, which could be a good reason to self host a searx instance that you can control. If you are using a server you don't have complete access to, there's not much you can do about what information is and isn't collected on you. Also, DuckDuckGo is not a private search engine, it it is better than google, but collectes a lot more data than you would expect. With this information in mind, happy browsing with your new search engine!