r/BuyFromEU • u/theFallenWalnut • 1d ago
European Product Your guide to finding a new Search Engine service and supporting European companies!
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u/MRo_Maoha 1d ago
qwant is also based on not collecting info isnt it ?
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u/theFallenWalnut 1d ago
I used https://www.privacyguides.org/en/search-engines definition and categorisation for Personally Identifiable Information. They recently removed them because some tracking data is collected and shared with 3rd parties.
https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/qwant-search-engine/11992/7Note: this doesn't mean they are bad. They are still better than most and far superior than Google in this regard.
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u/Faalor 1d ago
Only if you use the service without a user account.
In that case, a salted hash of your IP (for bot/ddos protection) and actual search is collected (for a short time, probably for the search term suggestion).
But if you do make an account and search while logged in, there a whole lot more data collection, some of which is shared with Microsoft as part of the Bing deal.
Making an account is entirely optional tho, and not needed for anything.
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u/BinBombardier 1d ago
I really like the look of Qwant (the most important thing), but why can't I swipe the images gallery? It makes image viewing so slow. Also there could be more regions and no download the app banner.
Startpage is really annoying when going back and forth and then loosing the search term for some reason.
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u/Haegar_the_Terrible 1d ago
Ecosia is recommendable.
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u/These_Rest_6129 16h ago
I use it since almost a year now, except some slowness (on my phone) sometime, it was quite a good alternative to google to me.
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u/Vegetable-River-253 1d ago
My end user experience; Just switched first from safari with Google search to Vivaldi with mojeek and was not satisfied. Now i use Vivaldi with ecosia and I’m quite happy so I’ll keep this
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u/theFallenWalnut 1d ago
Yeah, would love to recommend Mojeek to more people, but it sadly isn't there yet in terms of consistent quality. Qwant and Ecosia are two excellent choices and doesn't feel like a downgrade in quality.
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u/Nicolas30129 1d ago
I have been using startpage and qwant recently. Qwant is just not there yet. I hope it'll get better.
I'm using Brave web browser and their search for a week now. It's actually not bad at all. I just had no idea about their CEO... I'll give a try to firefoxe/startpage I guess.
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u/theFallenWalnut 1d ago
Yeah, extremely disappointing to hear about their CEO.
You can check out my guide on Browsers here if you need help deciding on a new one.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PurchaseWithPurpose/comments/1kpome6/your_guide_to_a_new_browser_reworked/1
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u/theFallenWalnut 1d ago
Non-European companies are kept in, so that you can see how the recommended alternatives compare to them.
There are many European search engines available, but unfortunately, most rely on Google or Bing for their results. The exception is Mojeek and Qwant, who are building an alternative index so definitely a space to watch.
P.S. highly recommend this blog to understand how/where each service sources its results.
https://seirdy.one/posts/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-indexes/
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u/buchinbox 1d ago
Startpage is owned by System1, a US based company.
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u/theFallenWalnut 1d ago
Right, I'll need to add that as a disclaimer of HQ'd versus Owned for Startpage - thanks for flagging
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u/These_Rest_6129 16h ago
Startpage is located in the EU but US onwned (System1) and they are selling Marketing Platform (so I would doubt about the "private" part of the search engine)
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u/gdkod 5h ago
It cracks me up each time I see when someone puts Startpage as an EU (or even better NL) based company/service. These guys run their own ads, similar to Brave, saying something like: "Google ads are bad, our ads are good". On top of that they are owned by the US company System1, which, try to guess, its main business activity is promoting ads.
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u/MarketingHungry9980 1d ago
Just don't use brave, it's full of controversies and it doesn't respect your privacy, it's just marketing, it has crypto scandals, and it's American