--- source_url: "https://unslopsearch.com/guides/best-private-search-engines/?utm_source=openai" title: Private Search Engines Compared - Result Source vs AI Control mirrored_at: 2026-08-22T01:02:45.202Z host: unslopsearch.com cited_in_42a: true mirror_canonical: "https://index.42a.ai/unslopsearch.com/guides/best-private-search-engines/index__q__utm_source_openai" --- > **Original source:** https://unslopsearch.com/guides/best-private-search-engines/?utm_source=openai [Home](https://unslopsearch.com/) / [Guides](https://unslopsearch.com/guides/) / Private Search Engines Compared There is no single “most private” engine, because the phrase bundles together things that come apart under inspection. This page separates them: who owns the index answering your query, and what each vendor documents about its AI features. 4 of 7 engines below have a vendor source for those claims; the others are marked unverified rather than filled in. Engines covered 7 With a vendor source 4 Sources read 2026-07-25 ## Contents 1. [Why one ranking cannot work](#axes) 2. [Index owner and AI control](#table) 3. [Engine notes](#details) 4. [Pick by what you actually want](#byneed) 5. [Claims this page will not make](#claims) ## Why One Ranking Cannot Work Almost every “best private search engine” list produces a single ordered ranking. That only works if the thing being measured is one-dimensional, and it is not. At least three independent questions get compressed into that one number: - **Does the engine profile you?** Whether your searches are tied to an identity and reused to personalise later results and advertising. - **Whose index answers the query?** An engine can be scrupulous about your data and still send the query to a large provider to be answered. - **What does it do about AI?** Entirely separate from privacy. A private engine can add generated answers, and an engine with no privacy story at all can offer a clean links-only mode. Those pull in different directions, which is why the honest output is a table rather than a leaderboard. The engine with the most independent index is not the one with the best coverage; the one with the clearest no-AI documentation is not the most independent. ## Index Owner and AI Control Engine Index Whose index Documented AI control Source **Mojeek** Own index Its own No vendor document on AI controls was located for this review, so no AI claim is made here. [Vendor doc](https://www.mojeek.com/about/) **Brave Search** Own index Its own States that "advanced machine learning models are used broadly and deeply across most parts of the technology stack". A parameter suppresses the AI summary surface only. [Vendor doc](https://search.brave.com/help/ai) **DuckDuckGo** Mixed Mostly Bing, plus its own crawler Publishes a No-AI host and states search there works the same "except all AI features are turned off and AI-generated images are filtered out". [Vendor doc](https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/) **Google** Own index Its own States AI Overviews "are a core Google Search feature" and that "features cannot be turned off". Its Web filter "displays only text-based links without features like AI Overviews". [Vendor doc](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/14901683) **Startpage** Unverified Not verified for this review Not verified for this review. None located **Qwant** Unverified Not verified for this review Not verified for this review. None located **Presearch** Resold Multiple third-party providers Not verified for this review. None located Ordered by index independence, not by preference. That ordering is a fact about who runs the crawler; it is not a claim that the top row is the best engine for you. ## Engine Notes ### Mojeek **Index:** States its technology is "created from the ground up", including its own crawler and "billion scale indexing". **AI:** No vendor document on AI controls was located for this review, so no AI claim is made here. Source read 2026-07-25: [About Mojeek](https://www.mojeek.com/about/) ### Brave Search **Index:** Runs an independent index rather than reselling another engine’s results. **AI:** States that "advanced machine learning models are used broadly and deeply across most parts of the technology stack". A parameter suppresses the AI summary surface only. Source read 2026-07-25: [Brave Search Help — AI in Brave Search](https://search.brave.com/help/ai) ### DuckDuckGo **Index:** States it "largely source\[s\] from Bing" for links and images while maintaining "our own crawler (DuckDuckBot) and many indexes". **AI:** Publishes a No-AI host and states search there works the same "except all AI features are turned off and AI-generated images are filtered out". Source read 2026-07-25: [DuckDuckGo Help — where results come from](https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/) ### Google **Index:** The largest index of the group, served end to end by Google. **AI:** States AI Overviews "are a core Google Search feature" and that "features cannot be turned off". Its Web filter "displays only text-based links without features like AI Overviews". Source read 2026-07-25: [Google Search Help — AI Overviews and the Web filter](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/14901683) ### Startpage **Index:** startpage.com refused automated requests on the review date, so no vendor statement could be retrieved and none is paraphrased here. **AI:** Not verified for this review. No vendor source cited for this engine. Nothing here should be read as a claim about it either way. ### Qwant **Index:** No vendor statement on result sourcing was retrieved for this review. **AI:** Not verified for this review. No vendor source cited for this engine. Nothing here should be read as a claim about it either way. ### Presearch **Index:** Draws on several providers per query, so consecutive searches may not be answered by the same source. **AI:** Not verified for this review. No vendor source cited for this engine. Nothing here should be read as a claim about it either way. ## Pick By What You Actually Want ### You do not want your searches profiled This is what most people mean by private search, and it is the axis where switching genuinely changes something. DuckDuckGo is the easiest switch: widely supported in browser settings, familiar, and designed around not building a search profile. Its tradeoff is coverage on narrow technical and local queries — see [DuckDuckGo vs Google](https://unslopsearch.com/guides/duckduckgo-vs-google/) for where that shows up. ### You want independence from Google and Bing A much smaller field, because running a web-scale crawler is expensive and few do. Mojeek is the clearest case: it documents its own crawler and index rather than reselling results. Brave also runs its own index. Expect narrower coverage from any independent index and keep a fallback for obscure queries — that is the honest cost of independence, not a defect. ### Your actual problem is AI summaries, not privacy Then privacy rankings are the wrong tool entirely, and you should read [search engines without AI](https://unslopsearch.com/guides/search-engines-without-ai/) instead. Short version: DuckDuckGo publishes a No-AI host, and Google's Web filter shows links without AI Overviews while Google states the feature itself cannot be turned off. ### You want Google's coverage without the summaries Use Google's Web filter and accept that it is a per-search mode. Sending `udm=14` gets you there directly — [what udm=14 does and does not do](https://unslopsearch.com/guides/what-is-udm14/) covers why an undocumented parameter deserves some caution. ## Claims This Page Will Not Make Stating these plainly, because they are the claims that make comparison pages in this niche unreliable: - **No numbered “best” ranking.** Any 1-to-7 ordering here would be editorial preference presented as a measurement. - **No privacy scores.** Scoring privacy out of ten requires weights that are themselves opinions. The table records structural facts instead. - **No untested result-quality claims.** Comparing coverage properly needs a disclosed query set run at a stated time and place. That has not been done here, so this page does not pretend otherwise. - **No AI claims for engines whose vendors document none.** An engine that has never advertised an AI feature has not promised it never will, and a green tick in that column would be an inference, not a fact. Search engines also change without notice, so treat everything above as accurate on 2026-07-25 and check the linked sources if a detail matters to a decision.