For the people who have not yet decided on a search engine. The most EU way you can go is Ecosia or Qwant as they are building their own search index.
Ecosia is my personal pick as its also aimed at planting trees and they have quite a good browser alongside it.
Good news, needs to happen as fast as possible.
France and Germany will have it this year, we’ll have to see how it evolves further but hopefully its a success!
We will develop a privacy-first search index, which will be used by both Ecosia and Qwant, and unlike proprietary solutions, we are making the index available to others.
Sounds great! I’ve been happy with Ecosia currently. I tried Qwant, but I have strict privacy settings enabled in my browser and it says it couldn’t get a secure connection. I’m sure it’s 100% safe, but I just settled for Ecosia for now. Looking forward to trying out their new partnered search engine.
It doesn’t mention whether it’ll be opensource or not. A proprietary search index that isn’t USAian is probably better, but still opensource would be better.
Don’t let perfect stand in the way of better I’d say, in the end both companies still need to make a return on investment
True, it’s a first step in the right direction :)
Maybe I’ll use Ecosia again
Now if only anyone of them would offer a paid ad-free option. I’d drop Kagi in an instant
Perhaps send their support an email about it to see what they say
Pity they aren’t on mastodon :/
I use Kagi because of their strong stance against censorship. If I want to find information about controversial topics, I expect my search engine to give me the results it has crawled. I use this community test list to determine if they’re censoring results. Most search engines fail this now. I imagine any EU search engine will fail this on day one.
Why do you imagine that?
The EU has made numerous moves towards restricting free speech and communication over the last decade, especially in the technology space. These include:
- Digital Services Act (DSA) (2022)
-
The DSA imposes strict regulations on large online platforms and search engines (such as Google and Meta).
-
Requires platforms to remove “illegal content” quickly, though the definition of illegal content varies by country.
-
Mandates content moderation transparency but can pressure platforms to suppress speech preemptively.
-
Enables regulators to demand access to platform algorithms and recommend content moderation changes.
-
Forces messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal to comply with EU orders, potentially compromising end-to-end encryption.
- Digital Markets Act (DMA) (2022)
-
Primarily aimed at tech monopolies, but also affects search engines and app stores.
-
Limits the ability of platforms to rank their own services higher (e.g., Google prioritizing its own results).
-
Forces companies like Apple to open up iMessage to other messaging services, potentially impacting security.
- Terrorist Content Online Regulation (2021)
-
Requires platforms to remove flagged terrorist content within one hour or face heavy fines.
-
No clear appeals process, raising concerns about automatic censorship by algorithms.
-
Governments can demand removals across all EU member states, limiting national sovereignty over content moderation.
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (2018)
-
Although GDPR focuses on privacy, it has been used to delist certain search results (right to be forgotten).
-
Some critics argue that GDPR can be weaponized to suppress critical information about public figures.
- Copyright Directive (2019) – Article 17 (formerly Article 13)
-
Requires platforms to filter copyrighted content before it is uploaded.
-
Forces platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to proactively block content using automated filters, which often lead to false positives and excessive censorship.
-
Criticized for making memes and satire more difficult to share due to automated copyright enforcement.
- EU Code of Practice on Disinformation (2018, revised 2022)
-
Although voluntary at first, compliance with fact-checking and disinformation policies is now mandatory under the DSA.
-
Forces social media companies to demonetize or downrank “misinformation,” often without clear definitions.
-
Involves close cooperation with government-backed fact-checkers, raising concerns about political bias.
- Chat Control Legislation (Proposed in 2022)
-
Requires messaging platforms (e.g., WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal) to scan private messages for child abuse content.
-
Critics argue this destroys end-to-end encryption, making all private communication vulnerable.
-
Could lead to mass surveillance under the guise of child protection.
- Political Ads Transparency Act (2023)
-
Requires all online political ads to be labeled and traceable.
-
Platforms must track funding sources, but unclear definitions of political content could impact activism and independent journalism.
-
Could be used to limit grassroots campaigns that lack formal funding structures.
- Media Freedom Act (2023)
-
Gives the EU more oversight over media ownership and state influence on journalism.
-
Some journalists worry it could be used to pressure media outlets to align with EU narratives.
These are just the laws. There have been uncounted statements by EU leaders about greater control over the kind of information they wish to allow transmitted in the EU. All of these Acts are rooted in good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. At minimum, a significant portion of the results in the test list above would be banned under existing legislation.
Ah yes, because regulations are so horrible, right?
It stands in the way of “innovation”.
God forbid we protect our citizens!
@JasSmith @madjo Lemme guess… 'Cause 'Murica is the only country that knows freedom?
If things like that are censored it usually happens on the ISP level, not at the search engine. Those “censored” pages might rank lower but there could be dozens of perfectly fine explanations for that. Mostly because some of those pages know diddly squat about SEO or their pages might be socially relevant but are really bad at / for driving ad revenue.
But calling that “censorship” is IMHO not correct.
No I mean actual censorship. For example, RT and Sputnik. They have also banned PressTV and CGTN. They suspended broadcast licenses for EADaily / Eurasia Daily, Fondsk, Lenta, NewsFront, RuBaltic, SouthFront, Strategic Culture Foundation, and Krasnaya Zvezda / Tvzvezda. All of these sites would be explicitly banned from any EU based search engine.
Note that I am not giving American tech companies a free pass here. Google is one of the worst.
Also note that “censorship” doesn’t exclusively refer to government censorship. That is an American-centric perspective using the Constitution as the lens. Censorship is often conducted by individuals and organisations. In this case I am referring to the EU.
Pretty much all of those “”“news”“” sources have been witnessed to spread complete fabrications and fake news, and were used to undermine democracy on this continent, much like how Fox News and the likes are actively undermining democracy across the pond by spreading lies as “opinion pieces”.
This is the way! Excited to try it!
Honestly, I don’t have a lot of hope for this because Qwant is involved, and that’s never a good sign of things to come.
Why is that?
what problem do you have with qwant?
Great! Ecosia works super well, and it feels good to not having to rely on google to find things. Only thing I’d wish for is that they’d have some map service or similar to find restaurants and shop. There is sadly no good replacement for google maps that I’ve found
You could also use open street maps. For mobile I recommend using Organic Maps.l Only problem is, that the search isn’t that good.
Its already been mentioned but if you don’t need reviews you can use Here WeGo maps. Its a good alternative and with more users (who make fixes if something is missing) it’ll get better and better
Organic Maps
Try Here WeGo maps, it’s the closest one to Google maps but European
Ecosia works well enough for me too. The tree planting thing should never be forgotten. The scope of their work is impressive and they’re very transparent about their goals and funding. No other search engine comes close to that.
The tree planting sounds so much like greenwashing and an excuse to serve ads
I listened to a podcast a couple years ago. The founder talked about how he made sure that Ecosia can not be sold and monetized, he himself is not making much money from it. My english is not good enough to explain it in more detail. :)
I see greenwashing everywhere, but as far as I can tell from the podcast and their YouTube, this is legit.200 million trees. Far from greenwashing.
Folks, critical thinking is more important than ever these days. Making conclusions based on a brain fart - when we have the internet at our fingertips - is partly why the world is the way it is.
Is either one worth the switch from duckduckgo?
Yes it is.
I personally never really liked duckduckgo. I’d say Qwant is the better one of the two in terms of results (I use it for work) but for personal use I choose Ecosia for the environmental impact, the results are getting better but not on Qwants level yet
Both are great! In my experience Qwant gives better search results, so thats what i use. I even prefer Qwant’s results over Google’s. But Ecosia is a great option as well because of the tree planting.
I use Ecosia for personal use and Qwant for work. So I support both!
Ecosia is my personal choice because of the tree planting as well. But I agree Qwant results are a bit better, which for me only matters while I work.
If only they would brainstorm and find better names. 😂
Any News on when this will go live?
1H 2025 in France and Germany
1H for Qwant and its indexing of French websites. 2H for Exosia and its indexing of German websites.
The index is expected to start serving France-based search engine traffic for Ecosia and Qwant by the first quarter of next year. It will then expand to include a “significant portion” of traffic in Germany by the end of 2025. English would be the third language they’d look to add, the pair said, adding that more European languages could follow in the future if momentum builds.
1H?
1-handed (as opposed to 2-handed) which means you can wield two 1H but only one 2H. Usually 2H has the higher damage dice, while 2 1H allows for two attacks in one turn instead (which means either slightly increased base dmg or flexibility of attacking multiple targets) ;)
half
I’ve never seen “1H” used before for what I’m guessing means Q3. Where’s that from?
I’m pushing 40, have a mind like a steel trap for phrases and terms that crop up in pop culture, and have a business degree. I have never heard “H1” or “H2” before, let alone “1H”. To me that suggests that it’s not a common term in British or American English and instead is common in another language. Kind of like Swedes and numbering the weeks of the year (perhaps the other Scandinavian countries do it too), or the various languages that interpret “half one” as meaning halfway to one (i.e. 1230) rather than half past (1330).
Of course it could just be a bizarre blindspot and it’s passed me by but damnit, I’m curious now!
I think it is a central European thing where we used to structure the business year into two halfs - erstes Halbjahr and zweites Halbjahr - in regards to reports etc while the anglosphere has tended to structure it into quarters. And it’s still done for things like release dates. But don’t quote me on that, as I have no sources.
impressive! :) its used in austria. i wrongly assumed its used in the english too.
Was using startpage the entire time but because of this i’ll try out qwant.
Startpage is also majorly American owned, so good to step away from it!
Good thing I recently changed my standard search engine to Wcosia!
