I primarily use an instance of Searx – usually search.disroot.org , search.privacytools.io , or search.snopyta.org .

I occasionally use DuckDuckGo, with a little caution as it is American, and also its founder had originally worked on a slightly privacy-unfriendly service called the “Names Database”. That said, I believe it is generally a safe and good service.

If I am struggling to find something I may try Qwant. On the plus side, it is European, but I don’t like the busy news-filled homepage, and their “lite” version often returns zero results, I’m not sure why. I also remember they temporarily blocked certain user-agents (possibly Vivaldi) at one point.

I’ve heard of Mojeek and like the idea, but the fact it’s British means, as with American services and the NSA, GCHQ is probably recording your every search. I think it’s generally safe and OK, but as with DuckDuckGo, I don’t use it for anything nontrivial.

I used to favour Ixquick (and subsequently Startpage), however I now avoid them at all costs, since they were bought by the ironically-named “Privacy One Group”, a devision of System1, whose very existence relies on privacy-invasive practices, tracking and the destruction of digital freedoms. There is such a massive conflict of interest here that I simply can’t trust them. The only reason I can think of System1 taking an interest in Startpage is either to harvest user data, or to cover-up their image and present a veneer of respectability. Either way, I refuse to support them in it.

I haven’t ever performed a search directly on Bing, and haven’t performed a search directly on Google since 2008, although they could have provided search-results indirectly via the metasearch engines I list above.

If you want balanced results, and don’t want to be tracked, I think the best thing is to spread your searches around different services, and not always go to one (although I do have a favourite). You may wish to pick one at random each time, or you may decide to use one for work and one for personal things, etc.