Web search engines are listed in tables below for comparison purposes. The first table lists the company behind the engine, volume and ad support and identifies the nature of the software being used as free software or proprietary software. The second and third table lists internet privacy aspects along with other technical parameters, such as whether the engine provides personalization (alternatively viewed as a filter bubble).
Defunct or acquired search engines are not listed here.
Current search engines with independent crawlers, as of December 2018.
Search engine | Founder(s) | Company | Launched | Software distribution license | Pages indexed | Daily direct queries | Results count | Advertisements |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ahmia | Juha Nurmi | 2014 | Proprietary | |||||
AOL | William von Meister | 1999 | Proprietary | |||||
Ask.com | IAC | 1996 | Proprietary | Unknown | Unknown | Yes | Yes | |
Baidu | Baidu, Inc | 2000 | Proprietary | |||||
Blackle | 2007 | Proprietary | Unknown | Unknown | ||||
Brave Search | Brendan Eich and Brian Bondy | Brave Software, Inc. | 2021 | Proprietary | Unknown | Unknown | No | Yes |
DuckDuckGo | Gabriel Weinberg | Duck Duck Go, Inc. | 2008 | Mixed | ||||
Ecosia | Christian Kroll | 2009 | Proprietary | No | Yes | |||
Exalead | Exalead | 2000 | Proprietary | Unknown | Unknown | Yes | No | |
Fireball | Fireball Labs GmbH | 1996 | Proprietary | |||||
Gigablast | Independent | 2000 | Free | >1 billion [1] | Unknown | Yes | No | |
Google Search | Larry Page, Sergey Brin & Scott Hassan | Alphabet Inc. | 1998 | Proprietary | hundreds of billions [2] | 9.022 billion [3] | Yes | Yes |
Kiddle | 2014 | Proprietary | ||||||
KidRex | 2008 | Proprietary | ||||||
KidzSearch | 2005 | Proprietary | ||||||
Lycos | 1995 | Proprietary | ||||||
Microsoft Bing | Microsoft | 1998/2009 | Proprietary | Unknown | Unknown | Yes | Yes | |
Million Short | 2012 | |||||||
Mojeek | Mojeek | 2004 | Proprietary | 5 billion [4] | Unknown | Yes | Yes [5] | |
Naver | Naver Corp. | 1999 | Proprietary | Unknown | Unknown | No | Yes | |
Parsijoo | 2010 | Proprietary | ||||||
Petal | Huawei | 2020 | Proprietary | Unknown | Unknown | Yes | Yes | |
Qwant | Qwant | 2013 | Proprietary | 20 billion [6] | 10 million[ citation needed ] | No | Yes | |
Seznam.cz | 1996 | Proprietary | ||||||
Sogou | Tencent | 2010 | Proprietary | Unknown | Unknown | Yes | Yes | |
Swisscows | Swisscows | 2014 | Proprietary | Unknown | Unknown | Yes | Yes | |
WebCrawler | 1994 | Proprietary | ||||||
Yahoo! Search | Yahoo! | 1995 | Proprietary | Unknown | Yes | Yes | ||
Yandex Search | Yandex | 1997 | Proprietary | >2 billion [7] | Unknown | Yes | Yes | |
Youdao | 2007 | Proprietary |
Search engine | Server's location(s) | Dedicated servers | Data center | Cloud computing | HTTPS available | Tor gateway available | Proxy gateway search links available |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ahmia | Yes | Yes | |||||
AOL | Yes | No | |||||
Ask.com | Yes | No | |||||
Baidu | China | Yes | No | Unknown | |||
Blackle | No | No | |||||
Brave Search | Yes | Yes | |||||
DuckDuckGo [8] | USA | No | Verizon Internet Services | Amazon EC2 | Yes | Yes | No |
Ecosia | Yes | No | |||||
Exalead | No | No | |||||
Fireball | Yes | No | |||||
Gigablast | USA | Yes [9] | Yes [9] | No | |||
Google Search | USA | Yes | Google data centers | Yes [10] | No | Unknown | |
Kiddle | Yes | No | |||||
KidRex | Yes | No | |||||
KidzSearch | Yes | No | |||||
Lycos | Yes | No | |||||
Microsoft Bing | USA / China | Yes | Yes | No | Unknown | ||
Mojeek | UK | Yes | Custodian Data Centres | Yes | No | Unknown | |
Naver | Yes | No | |||||
Parsijoo | Yes | No | |||||
Petal | France | Yes | No | Unknown | |||
Qwant | France | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | ||
Seznam.cz | Yes | No | |||||
Sogou | China | Yes | No | Unknown | |||
Swisscows | Yes | No | |||||
WebCrawler | Yes | No | |||||
Yahoo! Search | USA | Partial | Yes [11] | No | Unknown | ||
Yandex Search | Russia | Yes | Yes [12] | No | Unknown | ||
Youdao | Yes | No |
Search engine | HTTP tracking cookies | Personalized results [lower-alpha 1] [lower-alpha 2] | IP address tracking [lower-alpha 3] [lower-alpha 2] | Information sharing [lower-alpha 2] [ clarification needed ] | Warrantless wiretapping of unencrypted backend traffic [lower-alpha 2] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ahmia | No | ||||
AOL | Yes | ||||
Ask.com | Yes | ||||
Baidu | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
Blackle | No | ||||
Brave Search | No | ||||
DuckDuckGo [8] [13] | No | No | No | No [14] | No[ citation needed ] |
Ecosia | No [15] | No | No | No | Unknown |
Exalead | No | ||||
Fireball | Yes | ||||
Gigablast | No | No | No [9] | No [9] | No [9] |
Google Search | Yes | Default [16] | Yes [17] | Yes [17] | 2013 and prior [17] [18] |
Kiddle | No | ||||
KidRex | No | ||||
KidzSearch | No | ||||
Lycos | No | ||||
Microsoft Bing | Yes | Yes | Yes [17] | Yes [17] | 2014 and prior [17] [19] [20] |
Mojeek | No | No | No | No | Unknown |
Naver | No | ||||
Parsijoo | ? | ||||
Petal | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
Qwant | No | No | No | No | No[ citation needed ] |
Seznam.cz | No | ||||
Sogou | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
Swisscows | No | ||||
WebCrawler | Yes | ||||
Yahoo! Search | Yes | Unknown | Yes [17] | Yes [17] | 2014 and prior [17] [21] |
Yandex Search | Yes | Yes [22] | Unknown | Limited [23] | Unknown |
Youdao | Yes |
Google Search is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the Internet by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze and rank websites based on their relevance to the search query. It is the most popular search engine worldwide.
robots.txt is the filename used for implementing the Robots Exclusion Protocol, a standard used by websites to indicate to visiting web crawlers and other web robots which portions of the website they are allowed to visit.
MUSCULAR (DS-200B), located in the United Kingdom, is the name of a surveillance program jointly operated by Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that was revealed by documents released by Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials. GCHQ is the primary operator of the program. GCHQ and the NSA have secretly broken into the main communications links that connect the data centers of Yahoo! and Google. Substantive information about the program was made public at the end of October 2013.
Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storage, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and display of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing and especially relate to mass surveillance.
Yandex LLC is a Russian multinational technology company providing Internet-related products and services, including an Internet search engine called Yandex Search, launched in 1997, information services, e-commerce, transportation, maps and navigation, mobile applications, and online advertising. Yandex Holding Company was incorporated in 2000. As of 2016, it primarily served audiences in Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Turkey and countries with a significant Russian-speaking population.
A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages and other relevant information on the Web in response to a user's query. The user inputs a query within a web browser or a mobile app, and the search results are often a list of hyperlinks, accompanied by textual summaries and images. Users also have the option of limiting the search to a specific type of results, such as images, videos, or news.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of notable webmail providers who offer a web interface in English.
Info is a metasearch engine, which as of 2013, provided results from search engines Google, Yahoo!, Ask, Bing, Yandex, and Open Directory. As of 2004, news search was powered by Topix.net, Info.com's web search engine information was powered by Shopping.com and Info.com had White Page and Yellow Page search. As of 2013, Info.com also had search plugins for Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox.
DuckDuckGo is an American software company that offers a number of products intended to help people protect their online privacy. The flagship product is a search engine that has been praised by privacy advocates. Subsequent products include extensions for popular web browsers and a new web browser.
Evercookie is a JavaScript application programming interface (API) that identifies and reproduces intentionally deleted cookies on the clients' browser storage. It was created by Samy Kamkar in 2010 to demonstrate the possible infiltration from the websites that use respawning. Websites that have adopted this mechanism can identify users even if they attempt to delete the previously stored cookies.
Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud, synchronize files across devices, and share files. In addition to a web interface, Google Drive offers apps with offline capabilities for Windows and macOS computers, and Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. Google Drive encompasses Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides, which are a part of the Google Docs Editors office suite that permits collaborative editing of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, forms, and more. Files created and edited through the Google Docs suite are saved in Google Drive.
Yandex Browser is a freeware web browser developed by the Russian technology corporation Yandex that uses the Blink web browser engine and is based on the Chromium open source project. The browser checks webpage security with the Yandex security system and checks downloaded files with Kaspersky Anti-Virus. The browser also uses Opera Software's Turbo technology to speed web browsing on slow connections.
Gigablast was an American free and open-source web search engine and directory. Founded in 2000, it was an independent engine and web crawler, developed and maintained by Matt Wells, a former Infoseek employee and New Mexico Tech graduate. During early April 2023, the website went offline without warning and without any official statement.
Qwant is a French search engine that launched in February 2013. Qwant claims to respect the privacy of its users by not tracking them for advertising purposes or reselling their personal data, as well as being unbiased in the display of results.
This page provides a full timeline of web search engines, starting from the WHOis in 1982, the Archie search engine in 1990, and subsequent developments in the field. It is complementary to the history of web search engines page that provides more qualitative detail on the history.
Disconnect is a partly open source browser extension and mobile app designed to stop non-consensual third party trackers, and providing private web search and private web browsing. On mobile, it is available for Android and iPhone. It was developed by Brian Kennish and Casey Oppenheim. Disconnect-Search had once been the default search engine of the security-focused Tor Browser, which now uses DuckDuckGo.
Mojeek is a search engine based in the United Kingdom. The search results provided by Mojeek come from its own index of web pages, created by crawling the web.
Search engine privacy is a subset of internet privacy that deals with user data being collected by search engines. Both types of privacy fall under the umbrella of information privacy. Privacy concerns regarding search engines can take many forms, such as the ability for search engines to log individual search queries, browsing history, IP addresses, and cookies of users, and conducting user profiling in general. The collection of personally identifiable information (PII) of users by search engines is referred to as tracking.
Brave Search is a search engine developed by Brave Software, Inc., which is set as the default search engine for Brave web browser users in certain countries.
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