Google Knows What You Wonder About
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Your search history is one of the most intimate datasets that exists about you. Medical symptoms you looked up at 2am. The address you searched before going somewhere. The questions you were embarrassed to ask anyone. The news stories you checked again and again.

Google stores all of it. Tied to your account. For years. And they use it to build a profile of you that they rent to advertisers — and share with governments when asked.

Switching search engines is one of the simplest, highest-impact privacy changes you can make.

Why Search Privacy Matters
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When you search on Google while logged into a Google account, those searches are permanently tied to your identity. Even without an account, Google uses your IP address, browser fingerprint, and cookies to track you across sessions.

Google’s search history has been subpoenaed in criminal investigations, used in divorce proceedings, and accessed by intelligence agencies. In 2023 alone, Google received over 100,000 government data requests worldwide — and complied with the vast majority.¹

Your curiosity should not be evidence.

What We Recommend
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DuckDuckGo — Easiest Switch
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DuckDuckGo is a search engine that does not track you, does not store your search history, and does not build a profile on you. Results come from multiple sources (including Bing) and are generally very good for everyday searching.

It is the easiest switch: results look familiar, the interface is clean, and you can set it as your default browser search engine in about thirty seconds.

Use it: duckduckgo.com

Set as default in Firefox: Settings → Search → Default Search Engine → DuckDuckGo

Set as default in Brave: Already the default — no change needed.

Brave Search — Independent Index
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Brave Search is operated by the same company that makes the Brave browser. Unlike DuckDuckGo, it uses its own independent search index (not Bing or Google), which means it is not dependent on Big Tech infrastructure. No tracking, no profile building.

Results can be slightly less comprehensive than Google for niche queries, but for most everyday searches it works very well.

Use it: search.brave.com

Startpage — Google Results, No Google Tracking
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Startpage acts as an anonymizing middleman: it queries Google on your behalf, so you get Google’s results without Google seeing who you are. It is a good option if you find DuckDuckGo’s results less useful and really want Google-quality results.

Use it: startpage.com

SearXNG — For the Self-Hosters
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SearXNG is a free, open-source meta-search engine that anyone can run on their own server. It queries multiple search engines simultaneously and returns results without tracking anything. If the Collective ever runs a local instance, we will link it here.

You can also use publicly available SearXNG instances — look for a list at searx.space .

How to Switch Your Default Search Engine
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In Firefox:

Open Settings (three-line menu → Settings)
Click “Search” in the left sidebar
Under “Default Search Engine,” choose from the dropdown — or click “Find more search engines” to add DuckDuckGo or Brave Search if they’re not listed

In Brave: Brave already defaults to Brave Search. You can verify or change it at Settings → Search engine.

On iPhone (Safari): Settings → Safari → Search Engine → DuckDuckGo

On Android (Chrome, if you haven’t switched browsers yet): Settings → Search engine → DuckDuckGo

A Note on AI Search
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Google, Microsoft (Bing), and others are now integrating AI chatbots into search. These AI search products have additional privacy concerns: your queries may be used to train the AI, and AI-generated answers can hallucinate false information confidently. Be especially skeptical of AI search results for medical, legal, or factual questions. Check primary sources.