When it comes to searching the internet, many of us automatically gravitate towards Google, and for good reason. It’s fast, incredibly comprehensive, and the interface is very user-friendly. However, if you’re someone who sticks to Google exclusively, you might be missing out on a whole other world of search capabilities offered by metasearch engines. As a tech enthusiast, I’ve occasionally ventured beyond the comfort of Google’s search bar to explore what these alternative tools have to offer.

Metasearch engines like DuckDuckGo, Dogpile, and MetaCrawler, to name a few, function differently from your standard search engines. Instead of running their own web crawlers to index the web, they compile results from a variety of other search engines to present a broader spectrum of information. This not only diversifies the search results you receive but also minimizes algorithmic influence in the results that you see.

For instance, when researching new topics, using a metasearch engine can help discover articles and forum posts that were not immediately visible on Google. This can be especially crucial when you’re researching niche topics or trying to gather a wide array of opinions and insights on a subject. Moreover, privacy is another significant factor to consider. Unlike Google, many metasearch engines do not track your search history or build profiles based on your internet activity, offering a level of anonymity that is increasingly appealing in the present day.

Are you missing out by not using a metasearch engine? Or even by not using another search engine at all? It depends entirely on what you value, but I'd wager that most people should at least try a couple and see if it suits their needs.

Metasearch engines are great

SearXNG is open source, and you can self-host it

SearXNG is one of the biggest privacy-respecting metasearch engines out there. It aggregates results from around 82 different search engines across various categories including web, images, videos, and news, providing users with a totality of search results. SearXNG doesn't track user searches or store any personal data, which goes far in protecting user privacy.

SearXNG has a big advantage over other search engines too, and that's the ability to search across multiple categories. It has:

1. General Web Search: Aggregates results from multiple web search engines.
2. Images: Searches for images across various image search engines.
3. Videos: Compiles video results from different video hosting platforms.
4. News: Gathers news articles from a variety of news sources.
5. Social Media: Searches social media platforms for relevant content.
6. Music: Retrieves music-related content from multiple sources.
7. Files: Finds downloadable files from various file hosting services.
8. IT: Searches for information technology-related content, including documentation and developer resources.
9. Science: Provides results from scientific databases and academic sources.

For example, searching for files will show you magnet links and direct download links in the results, and social results will show you platforms like Reddit, Twitter, Mastodon, and more. You can make SearXNG your default search engine in Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Chromium-based browsers fairly easily.

If you want, you can also install regular SearX, but SearXNG is said to respect your privacy more. It's a great metasearch engine that combines everything into the one service that doesn't track you, and there are a ton of customization options.

Give a metasearch engine a try

There's more than just SearX

If you want to give a metasearch engine a go but aren't sure where to start, self-hosting your own like SearX might be a step too far. Here are some others that are worth trying out, but if you're new, we recommend DuckDuckGo first.

• DuckDuckGo: While primarily a standalone search engine, DuckDuckGo also aggregates results from multiple sources and emphasizes user privacy and anonymity. This is one of the biggest and one you may have heard of.
• Dogpile: Combines results from major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Yandex to deliver a broad set of search results.
• MetaGer: A privacy-focused metasearch engine that sources results from multiple search engines and provides anonymous browsing options.
• Qwant: A European search engine that aggregates results from various sources and emphasizes privacy by not tracking users.
• Search.com: Offers aggregated search results from multiple sources, providing a broad overview of available information.
• Yippy: A metasearch engine that categorizes search results.

The world of metasearch engines is vast, and there's definitely something for everyone out there. You can host your own without any problem, but there are a ton out there that you can use as well. Give some of them a try, and see what you think!