Most efficient online Search Engines

Efficiency is a big deal when you want to find information on the internet. You not only want to find things quickly, but you want the most comprehensive search algorithms to give you the best results filtered to your needs.

Here are 5 search engines that you should keep in mind when looking for the best and safest user experience.

Google

In any conversation about search engines, Google is going to come up. It’s dominated the market for decades with its advanced algorithms, huge servers, and dedicated apps including Google My Business, Google Maps, and Gmail.

As more information is traded over the internet, however, and more people are relying on it for everything from grocery lists to financial advice, some people are starting to question Google. It has a long history of gathering your information and giving it to ad agencies and lead generators. These may personalize your experience, but they can be inconvenient too.

Sometimes, efficiency means getting rid of these distractions, ditching the ads, and finding a more streamlined search engine.

DuckDuckGo

This brings me to DuckDuckGo, a search engine with a lot of similarities to Google and which uses many of the same interface tools. Compared to Google, though, it’s a little more streamlined. They have ads but they’re based on metadata and not on your personal searches. They don’t collect or sell your information, promising its users a privacy-focused experience.

For a lot of the same benefits of Google’s algorithm and a little less hassle, DuckDuckGo has been a trusted alternative for a long time.

Ecosia

Here’s a search engine with an entirely different definition of “efficiency.” Ecosia, like a lot of privacy-oriented services, doesn’t use trackers or steal your information. They’re also totally unique in that they run on 100% renewable energy. When you use them, they even donate to organizations and activists that plant trees.

If you’re looking for planetary efficiency in your search engine, Ecosia is the only one I know of that fits that specific bill.

Hot.com

Hot.com prides itself on offering its users an efficient, privacy-oriented experience. While bigger search engines track and use the information you input into them, Hot assures its users that your queries won’t go anywhere beyond the search bar.

searX

searX accumulates data from other search engines to produce its results, which gives you a wide range of options in the information available to you and where it comes from. It’s built on open-source code, meaning you can open it and manipulate it yourself, providing a customizable search experience.

This one is especially useful for people who like to use Torrent clients since it filters those links for you in file-specific searches. If you want a lot of advanced options with no advanced information stealing, searX is the way to go.

Conclusion

Using a search engine is a way to make your life more efficient, so using the engine with the best interface and servers is a natural way to get the best experience. Yet, there are so many customizable options on so many engines that your specific needs may actually be met more efficiently on a search engine other than Google.