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/moPresearch
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% freeMuzli
Search for images by keyword, color or style. Taps into Dribbble, Behance, Designspiration, ffffound, Mashable, Techcrunch and 150+ more. Chrome extension.
100% freeOpenverse
Successor of CC Search (Creative Commons) specializes in finding free stock photos, images, and audio, available for free to download and use.
100% freeDMM
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% freeLibrestock
Search for CC0 public domain photos from multiple sources as well as for quality premium photos from the Shutterstock library.
100% freeZoommy
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% freeReverse 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% freeGoogle 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% freeAcademia.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% freeContent Site Search Guru
Search inside any website you are visiting.
Chrome extension - video100% 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% freeVisual 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% freeBoardreader
Search across forums and communities. Advanced controls and settings.
100% freeGummySearch
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% freeCapterra
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.
FreeFaceCheckID
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
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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
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(this gives you also access to the whole archive of previous collections).
from sunny Holbox island,
Robin Good
Publisher of:
@Robin Good. This is great stuff! I will be spending a lot of time exploring those! I don't care much about privacy but my search queries can be quite advanced so there might be something better than google for this! Thanks! Also, I would also add Horse Browser to the list... I haven't used it yet but planning to.
This is an awesome and useful list, thanks for compiling and sharing Robin. I'm going to share a link to this in my newsletter :)