Google accidentally leaked their search API on Github, giving everyone insight into that they:
–Lied that they track users clicks as a factor for search rankings [1][3]
–Lied about using data from Chrome browser for search, including clicks. This contradicted their sworn testimony to the Department of Justice on anti-trust. [1][3]
–Lied about having a sandbox (to prevent “some” or new sites from ranking) [1][2][3]
–Purposefully gave smaller “personal” sites their own category which ranked lower, EVEN IF they had more relevant information. To favor larger brands. [3]
They after removed the leaked data, but it was already published under an Apache open source license. [2] So now anyone can do whatever with it.
The irony of Google having crappy privacy.
What should you use instead?
Use a variety of engines.
Mojeek: Best privacy, but they aren’t as well-funded. You gotta know what you want in advance
MetaGer: On Hetzner, so if you’re coming through Tor which Hetzner dominates, its a conflict of interest
SearXNG: FOSS front-end for an aggregate. Farside.link has many instances.
Duckduckgo: They are not that private, but it pains me to say the results are not that bad.
Brave’s Search: It’s on Amazon AWS, but not bad indepedent results. As a heads up, if you use the Tor Onion it lets you do it without JavaScript.
And for Fs sake man, avoid Chrome browser.