Alternatives to Swisscows
A Swiss private search engine with no tracking and results filtered to be family-friendly. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Swisscows
A Swiss private search engine with no tracking and results filtered to be family-friendly.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Swisscows.
DuckDuckGo Search
A web search engine that does not track or profile its users.
DuckDuckGo Search is free with no profiling and easy to set as default, but shows ads and lacks Swisscows' family content filter.
Startpage
A web search engine that does not keep search histories and lets you view results anonymously.
Startpage keeps no search histories and offers anonymous viewing of result pages, without built-in filtering of adult or violent content.
Brave Search
A private web search engine built on its own independent index, with optional AI answers.
Brave Search uses its own independent index with Goggles for custom ranking and optional AI answers, but no family-oriented content filtering.
Qwant
A French web search engine hosted in Europe that says it does not keep search data.
Qwant is a French engine hosted in Europe with iOS and Android apps, stating it keeps no search history or sells personal data.
Mojeek
An independent UK search engine with its own crawler and index that does not track users.
Mojeek is a UK engine with its own index and a no-tracking policy, offering web, image and news search plus an API.
Kagi
A paid, ad-free web search engine with anti-tracking, result customization and an AI assistant.
Kagi requires a paid subscription and account, giving ad-free results, per-site blocking, Lenses filters and an AI assistant, with apps for Android and iOS.
SearXNG
Self-hosted metasearch engine that aggregates results without profiling you.
SearXNG is open-source, self-hostable metasearch that aggregates many engines, which keeps queries under your control but requires ongoing maintenance.
MetaGer
A privacy-focused metasearch engine and anonymous browsing service paid for with a prepaid key.
MetaGer is open-source metasearch run by a non-profit, paid with a prepaid key usable across devices, without an account or email.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Swisscows as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
4get
A proxying metasearch engine you can use through public instances or host yourself.
Swisscows is a Swiss search engine with no tracking and built-in family filtering of violent and adult content, plus Android and iOS apps.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Firefox Focus
A private mobile browser from Mozilla that blocks trackers and erases history with one tap.
