COVER FEATURE
50 25 May – 7 June 2022 • Issue 632
WHAT YOU CAN DO
- • Stop Google controlling how you view
online content - • Avoid seeing personalised ads based
on your searches - • Prevent your search data from being
stored and shared - • Burst the ‘filter bubble’ that always
shows you the same sites - • Hide your identity and location from
pages you visit in search results - • Improve your searches using
independent indexes - • Search specific websites using simple
shortcuts
as it used to be, partly – as we explain –
due to problems of its own making.
The good news is that there are
now more excellent alternative search
engines than ever that are focused
on privacy rather than profit. We’ve
tested the six strongest contenders to
Google Search’s throne, to discover
which offers the most relevant,
unbiased and untracked results.
And no, we haven’t included Bing,
because Microsoft is also notorious
for collecting your data, though some
websites we’ve reviewed use
Bing-powered results.
And finally we also reveal some of the
best tricks for getting the most out of
Google’s rivals.G
oogle Search is such an integral
part of many of our lives that
ditching it for another search
engine might sound like a
crazy idea. It’s the preferred search
provider for nearly 93 per cent of UK web
users (see http://www.snipca.com/41887), three
quarters of whom check it at least three
times a day (www.snipca.com/41888),
and the verb ‘to google’ is even in the
Oxford English Dictionary.
So why would you want to use anything
else to search the web? Well, as we reveal
in this feature, there’s a growing number
of reasons – and not just the usual complaint
that Google tracks your data (though we
cover that, too). It’s a sad fact that Google
Search is no longer as reliable and accurateGoogle may be the most popular search engine, but Google may be the most popular search engine, but
that doesn’t mean it’s the best – at least not any more. that doesn’t mean it’s the best – at least not any more.
Robert Irvine explains why it’s time to ditch Google explains why it’s time to ditch Google
and what you should use insteadand what you should use instead