Alternative Search Engines - Good Tools #9

60+ tools to find faster what you are looking for

Hello and welcome to a new edition of Good Tools devoted exclusively to search engines.

Once again I have listened to your preferences expressed through the last poll and I am bringing to you exactly what you asked for: alternative search engines that can replace Google in quality and speed when you have some specific search need.

In total I have found and tested over 60 useful search engines that can be great partners when you are searching for:

• good quality icons

• academic books

• sounds

• royalty-free images

• fonts

• new tools

• journalists

• and more….

The filtering criteria I use are:

• 100% free (or have very generous free plan)

• Not popular, not well-known

• Tested and personally verified

If you find this curated selection useful, please consider placing a like at the bottom of this newsletter or supporting this work with a paid subscription.

That would really mean a lot to me.

Robin Good

Top Alternative Search Engines

Alternative Search Engines

• Brave
  Independent index and allows users to apply their own rules and filters: Brave Goggles. Respects privacy. Does not track users.
  100% free.
  

• Mojeek
  Independent index and algorithms. No tracking. Allows to create personalized, custom results: Mojeek Focus. 
  100% free.
  

• Kagi
  Private search engine. No ads, no tracking. Premium meta-search. Customizable. Allows to personalize results and create filters: Kagi Lenses. Requires registration.
  Free for up to 100 searches - starts at $5/mo
  

• Presearch
  Built on a decentralized network of volunteer-run nodes. Runs on blockchain. Offers PRE-tokens.
  100% free.

• Andi
  Smart search assistant, ad-free, tracking-free and anonymous, and gives you a cleaner, more visual way to search the Internet without clutter or distraction.
  100% free.

• YaCy - Decentralized P2P search engine software (Mac, Linux and Windows).
  Tutorials and docs. This is the direction I would want search engines to take. Users are the ones who index, organize, filter and rank. 
  100% free.

Search with Maximum Privacy

• Startpage
  Zero personal data collection, no tracking. Chrome extension
  100% free.

• You
  Personalize your search with 150+ apps like StackOverflow, Medium and Twitter. No tracking. No ads. Multi-dimensional interface. AI-assisted.
  100% free.

• DuckDuckGo
  Search with privacy. No tracking. Encryption. Private search. Desktop and mobile (iOS, Android) + browser extensions.
  100% free. Ad-supported.

• Qwant- No tracking. No tracking from any website. No-tracking maps. Children search. Web browser extensions, Android, iOS.
  100% free. Ad-supported.

Search for (free) Images

• Pexels
  Search for royalty-free downloadable images and videos on any topic.
  100% free
  

• Muzli
  Search for images by keyword, color or style. Taps into Dribbble, Behance, Designspiration, ffffound, Mashable, Techcrunch and 150+ more. Chrome extension.
  100% free
  

• Openverse
  Successor of CC Search (Creative Commons) specializes in finding free stock photos, images, and audio, available for free to download and use.
  100% free
  

• DMM
  Meta-search engine for images taps all the major stock photo platforms, art communities, social media platforms and more. Images found are NOT copyright free. AI-support allows to generate valuable image options and alternatives next to each found image.
  100% free
  

• VisualHunt
  Image search engine allows searching for both copyrighted and license-free images as well as by color, interestingness, relevance and recency.
  100% free

• Librestock
  Search for CC0 public domain photos from multiple sources as well as for quality premium photos from the Shutterstock library.
  100% free
  

• Zoommy
  Search through 200,000+ free downloadable photos with Creative Commons Zero & Public Domain licenses from 50+ sources. Desktop app for PC, Mac and Linux.
  Downloadable software $4.99

Reverse Image Search

• Tineye
  Discover where any online image has been used before. How to use it.
  100% free

• Reverse Image Search
  Find visually similar photos to any image you submit.
  New version (Reverse Photo App) works also on mobile and iPad.
  100% free.

• Search by Image
  Reverse image search tool leveraging 30+ search sources includingGoogle, Bing, Yandex, Baidu and TinEye. Open-source (Chrome extension).
  100% free
  

• Google Lens - use your camera or an existing image to search anything. Products, plants, animals, text in other languages, formulas. 
  100% free.

Search for Presentations

• Scribd Slideshare
  Search for a universe of PowerPoints and slide decks on just about any topic or theme. * To download presentations requires Scribd free trial registration.
  100% free to search. 

Podcast Search

• ListenNotes
  Search the full universe of audio podcasts as if they had all been written.
  100% free  

Sounds Search

• FindSounds
  Search for sound effects, samples, short recordings, nature sounds and more.
  100% free. Ad-supported.

• Soundcloud
  Search for music. Commercial and indie.
  Free for basic use.
  

Search for Books

• Google Book Search
  Search all the books in the world. Find them. Browse inside. Download PDF where allowed. Buy the book.
  100% free

Search for Scholarly and Academic Literature

• Google Scholar
  Search all scholarly literature. Sources include academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and more. Explore related works, citations, authors, and publications. Check who's citing your publications, create a public author profile.
  100% free.
  

• Internet Archive Scholar
  Fulltext search index of over 25 million research articles and other scholarly documents preserved in the Internet Archive.
  100% free
  

• Academia.edu
  Academic search engine with an index of over 47 millions PDFs. Find easily the most downloaded and cited papers.
  100% free to search.
  

• JStor
  Search across 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 scholarly disciplines.

  100% free.
  

• OER Commons- Search across all open educational resources.
  100% free.

Search for Old Websites

• Wayback Machine
  Find pages and websites that do not exist anymore. Search by URL or keyword. Indispensable.
  100% free

Search Inside Specific Sites

• Search Current Site
  Searches all the pages of the website you are visiting.
  Chrome extension
  100% free
  

• Content Site Search Guru
  Search inside any website you are visiting.
  Chrome extension - video

  100% free

Search for Old Software Versions

• Oldversion
  Find older software version for most popular downloadable programs.
  100% free. Ad-supported  

Search for Fonts and Typefaces

• Google Fonts
  Search all fonts and typefaces. Discover variants, foundries, font packs and typeface authors.
  100% free
  

• Visual Search for Fonts by Google
  Reverse image search for fonts and typefaces. Upload an image of a text and get feedback about the font that was used. (Follow the tips on the page to make it work)
  100% free

Search for Icons

• TheNounProject
  Search the largest icon and symbols catalog (over 5M images). Bitmaps and vectors. Customize background or have it transparent.
  Free with Premium options.
  

• IconArchive
  Search over 800,000 icons. Free downloads. Multiple formats and sizes.
  100% free. Ad-supported.
  

• IconHunt
  Search over 175,000 open-source icons. Vector and bitmaps.
  100% free.

Search for Events

• Events
  Find current events worldwide by location. Advanced filtering.
  100% free

Search Across Forums and Communities

• Brave Search - Discussions
  Brings back relevant results from Reddit and StackExchange forums (more sources coming).
  100% free

• Boardreader
  Search across forums and communities. Advanced controls and settings.
  100% free

• GummySearch
  Find the most relevant Reddit communities and threads on any topic.
  100% free

Search for Insights

• Startupy
  A search engine for inspiration and ideas for startuppers, indie entrepreneurs and thinkers of all kinds.
  Free for now.
  

• Glasp.co
  Search engine for your insights and for those of others who are curating and highlighting the most interesting bits of the internet. Requires registration.
  100% free. Video.

Search Inside YouTube Video Comments

• YCS
  Search comments, replies, chat replay, video transcript for the current video on YouTube by contents, authors, time. Chrome extension.
  100% free.

Create a Custom Search Engine

• Google Programmable Search Engine
  Create a custom search engine that indexes only the websites and pages you specify.
  100% free.
  

• SiteSearch360
  Powerful search engine for any website or e-commerce.
  Free for up to 150 indexable items.

Search for New Tools & Apps

• ProductHunt
  Find new startups, apps, software and digital tools for the digital entrepreneur.
  100% free.
  

• G2
  Find and compare apps and software based on human reviews.
  100% free
  

• Capterra
  Find best software and online services.

  Free.

Keyword Search

• Deap Market
  Structured search insights for any given keyword.
  100% free.
  

• AnswerSocrates
  Combines results from Google Suggests, People Also Asked featured questions and Google Trends.
  100% free.
  

• KeywordSea
  Leverages Google Search Suggestions and Autocomplete.
  100% free.
  

• SuggestMachine
  Generates huge list of long-tail search queries and underlying search intents.
  Free.

• Keywords People Use
  Instant insights into what people are searching for and what questions they ask online.
  Free for up to 20 searches / month.

Search Simulators

• SEO Search Simulator
  Simulate search queries from any location on Google and easily check and track your website or your competitor's rankings. Chrome extension.
  100% free

Search People

• PeekYou - People search. US only.
  Free
  

• FaceCheckID
  Submit photo, find out who he is. Reverse image search for people - Web + Chrome extension
  Free

Search for Journalists

• PressMob - Members of the press cataloged and indexed into a searchable and browsable database, organized by their names, the publishers they write for, and the major topics and keywords they write about. 

  100% free

---

Poll

---

Enjoyed this issue?

Thank you for being a reader. It takes a lot of hard work to find, check and verify all of these resources and then to organize and present them in an orderly and legible fashion.

If you like what you have found in this newsletter, please:

a) like this issue, by clicking on the heart icon at the end so that others can find it

b) share it or forward it to a friend who may find it useful

c) consider a paid subscription, even for just a short time, to keep me on it.
(this gives you also access to the whole archive of previous collections).

from sunny Holbox island,
Robin Good

Publisher of:

Good Tools

TRUST-able

Curation Monetized