University of Kwazulu-Natal

The Top 5 Search Engines For Windows In 2025

Bonisiwe Shabane
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the top 5 search engines for windows in 2025

A judge ruled that Google created an illegal monopoly because it paid partners to make its search engine the default on phones and mobile browsers. And the bad news continues: The company recently changed its policy to allow tracking you with fingerprinting. But you don’t have to use Google (though it's hard to avoid the code it places on nearly every website you visit). Alternative search engines often give you more privacy and sometimes come with other benefits as well, such as specialized search tools and commitments to charitable donations. The difference in quality of results between Google and other search engines has become a non-issue, too. We've tested the top alternative search engines and included the ones worthy of consideration below.

We focus on standard web search engines here, but you can also read about the new world of generative AI search. AOL is still in the web portal game, giving you a start page that shows curated hot topics in the entertainment, finance, food, health, news, and sports categories. But you can use it just as a web search engine as well. This offering features a slick interface, optional content filtering of potentially offensive material, and good image search filters. It's not the most private search in the world since activity tracking and location are on by default, but you can disable those from a Privacy Dashboard as long as you're signed in with... Yahoo now owns AOL, so your web results will likely be the same in both; they just have different interface tools.

Coming from the innovative creators of the privacy-focused Brave web browser, Brave Search claims “unmatched privacy.” In my testing using the EFF’s Cover Your Tracks Tools, Brave was the most private browser, so the... When I enter a search in Brave Search, my ad-and-tracker blocker, uBlock, doesn’t report anything to block. Brave gets its results both from its web crawling index and “anonymous API calls to third parties.” Brave now gives you a choice of AI-powered or standard web results via its Answer With AI... A Discussions section on the result page features content from Reddit and the like. Finally, Brave's Goggles feature lets you filter your results with parameters like No Celebrity content or News from the Left or Right. The biggest name in private search deserves your attention.

DuckDuckGo (DDG) has a simple privacy policy: “We don’t collect or share any of your personal information.” The search interface is simple, too, and results are on target, though they lack the extensive info... DDG lets you search for images, videos, news, maps, and shopping results. A nice touch is that DDG adds more header options depending on the search term, such as Definition, Meanings, Nutrition, and Recipes. The search service now includes two AI features: Assist, for a generated answer summary for your query, and Duck.ai Chat. The first is similar to AI features in Bing, Brave, and Google. It summarizes web results to give you an answer at the top of the page so that you don't have to hunt down that nugget of information on multiple websites.

Duck.ai lets you have a conversation with a chatbot that doesn't use your input for training. Choosing the right search engine is more important than ever in 2025. With growing concerns over privacy, censorship, and algorithmic bias, users are looking beyond Google’s familiar homepage for smarter, safer, and more specialized ways to search the web. While Google remains dominant—accounting for roughly 94.8% of global mobile search traffic—there’s an expanding ecosystem of alternative search engines that offer compelling advantages, whether it’s enhanced privacy, eco-consciousness, or tailored search experiences. Here’s a breakdown of the best search engines you can use today, what makes them stand out, and who they’re best suited for. Best For: Comprehensive search, accuracy, and advanced toolsMarket Share: ~94.8% (mobile search traffic)

Good to Know:In 2025, Google continues integrating its Gemini AI model to power more conversational, intelligent search queries—especially within mobile and smart devices. Best For: Microsoft ecosystem users and AI-powered results Looking for an alternative to Google Search? We’ve got you covered. Google might be the most popular search engine on the market, but it isn’t the only one. There are a ton of alternatives to Google Search out there that you can use instead.

Below, we’ve listed some of our favorites. Many of these alternatives to Google are ad-free, offer more attractive privacy policies, and still serve up the same high-quality results. So without further ado, here are the best search engines on the market! DuckDuckGo is the perfect choice if privacy is your top browsing concern. Want to know what the best search engines are this year? I’ve got you covered.

In this post, I’ll reveal the 17 most popular search engines in the world right now, ranked according to their market share. I’ll also provide a detailed overview of each search engine and share some interesting facts and figures about them along the way. Note: I’ve used data from Statcounter in this post. In their dataset, market share is calculated based on search engine referrals, i.e. the share of website clicks resulting from searches on each engine. Their tracking code was installed on over 1.5 million websites and over 5 billion clicks were measured.

Google is the most popular search engine in the world by a huge margin, with a market share of 90.83%. Which are the 10 best and most popular search engines in the World? It may be a shocking surprise for many, but Google is not the only search engine available on the Internet today! Besides Google and Bing, other search engines may not be as well known, but they still serve millions of search queries daily. In fact, several alternative search engines want to take Google's throne, but none is ready (yet) to pose a threat. Google is the most popular search engine, with an amazing 90.4% market share compared to 4.08% of second-place Bing.

Nevertheless, other search engines are worth considering, and the best Google alternatives are presented below. List of the 10 best search engines in 2025, ranked by popularity. Discover diverse search engines tailored for unique needs, from privacy to academic research, that redefine how you explore the web Most people tend to rely on just one or two search engines that offer three key features: This article's options should help you find the best search engine for your needs. These are mainly web page search engines, but others exist for specific searches.

Other search engines exist just for people, images, and, of course, jobs. Does not track or store user information. The year 2025 marks a fascinating juncture in the evolution of how we find information online. While familiar giants like Google continue to dominate, the List of Search Engines is rapidly diversifying, fueled by advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a growing demand for user privacy. This shift is creating a vibrant ecosystem where traditional web search, specialized platforms, and cutting-edge AI-powered answer engines coexist and compete. Search engines are powerful tools that help us navigate the vast amount of information available on the internet.

While Google dominates the market, there are various types of search engines, each designed with different functionalities and purposes. This overview will detail the many types of search engines available, providing a breakdown of their main categories. These are the most common type of search engines, like Google, Bing, and Yandex. This foundational type of search engines forms the backbone of web search. They work by: Examples: Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu (popular in China), DuckDuckGo (privacy-focused).

These are unique types of search engines that rely on human editors to review, categorize, and organize websites into subject categories. While less prevalent now, they offer a curated and often more focused selection of resources. Home » Technology » 20+ Best Search Engines (November 2025) Alternatives to Google Tested I’ve spent the last three months testing over 20 search engines, and Google’s declining search quality isn’t just your imagination. After analyzing 4,500 searches across different engines, measuring privacy features, and tracking performance metrics, I discovered alternatives that actually outperform Google in specific areas. The search landscape in 2025 has dramatically shifted with AI integration, privacy concerns reaching an all-time high, and Google facing multiple antitrust cases.

You’re probably here because you’ve noticed Google serving you more Reddit results than actual websites, or you’re concerned about the 2.5 billion data points Google collects about each user annually.

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