website thubmnail of StartPage
How would you rate StartPage?
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Wisconsin
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Private and Solid
June 4, 2023

Startpage is almost perfect! It's just as advertised—all the quality search results of Google and none of the invasive tracking. My one quibble as that, personally, I find the format for image search results rather unpleasant, and this is a central feature. However, given all its other advantages, I'm willing to trade infinite image scroll and easy viewing for privacy.

Date of experience: June 3, 2023
Massachusetts
1 review
3 helpful votes
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Frustrating search block
July 10, 2022

When doing an extensive search, I always get blocked with this message; We apologize for the inconvenience: to prevent possible abuse of our service, your ability to connect to Startpage has been suspended at this time.

This happens when a large number of search requests are received from a particular internet connection during a short period of time. Screen scraping software may trigger this, as would a connection shared by many people at the same time, for example a VPN server or through Tor. Often, this can be resolved by connecting through a different server through your VPN provider or by connecting through a different Tor exit node.

It sucks.

Date of experience: July 10, 2022
Japan
2 reviews
11 helpful votes
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StartPage banned me from their search engine due to "unusual traffic similar to bots". They also mentioned use of a VPN & Tor privacy browser as contributing factors - and I was using both. It seems strange that they call themselves a privacy browser, and yet they disallow privacy tools that might hide personal data from THEM. If Startpage doesn't collect and sell data as they claim, how are they paying salaries & bills? Does Startpage offer proof of their altruistic claims? Do they have verification from the privacy police? After they banned me, I deleted Startpage from all my browsers and replaced it with DuckDuckGo.

Date of experience: March 27, 2023
California
1 review
4 helpful votes
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I did a search on stimulus checks and numerous sites with baseless claims about election fraud came up. WTF?!?! I've never experienced this from ANY search engine.
If they do this, how can they be trusted?

Date of experience: March 10, 2021
StartPage S. StartPage Rep
over a year old

Hi Sher,

Thank you for taking the time to provide a review.

Your comment about the quality of results leads me to believe that you may have been using the mobile app. Our website provides a far superior search experience including better results and more features. We've recently delisted the app and have added dozens of new features (news, shopping, calculator, currency converter and so much more.) We also have a better handle on abuse, so legitimate users aren't blocked,

More information can be found here - https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/en/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1354/0/why-were-delisting-our-mobile-app

We'd really appreciate if you gave us another try and let us know what you think about the experience. We hope we can earn your trust back!

Canada
1 review
7 helpful votes
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Try something simple like searching for google maps, see how bad it sucks. I don't get it if startpage pays for results from google why are they so frustratingly different. Is google doing something their end to drive people back to their spy machine?

Date of experience: July 12, 2019
StartPage S. StartPage Rep
over a year old

Please email our Support Team so we can investigate. Most people find search results to be very similar so there may be another issue. (Though the maps are different. Startpage purposely uses Open Street Map for privacy reasons.) Here's the email address: Support@Startpage.com

India
1 review
8 helpful votes
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Poor Search Results
August 16, 2020

I agree with other reviewers that the search results yielded by Startpage are vastly inferior to other search engines. Misplaced a letter from your query? Sorry, no results found! Looking for exact phrases? Startpage is more likely to fail than other search engines, or return blatantly incorrect results, and actually relevant results either don't show up or are further down the search results, often in 3rd and 4th pages. Sometimes, I get some sort of IP blocks for no reason while browsing, and I have to reset my router for it to work again.

Date of experience: August 16, 2020
StartPage S. StartPage Rep
over a year old

Hi Rohit and thank you for taking the time to review.
The comments about the quality of our results is surprising and makes me think that you may have been using the app - our website provides a far superior search experience including better results and more features. We've recently delisted the app and have added dozens of new features (news, shopping, calculator, currency converter and so much more.) We also have a better handle on abuse, so legitimate users aren't blocked,

More information can be found here - https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/en/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1354/0/why-were-delisting-our-mobile-app

We'd really appreciate if you gave us another try and let us know what you think about the experience!

Canada
1 review
1 helpful vote
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1-fast
2-Similar to Google for search results
3-Still had to weed through Amazon, and advertiser ads before I got a real result.
4-Started having printer and text font issues--not respecting size to fit-like crosswords-1page didn't fit. That's on 5 PC's, 5 Users--all different types. Probably their updates-that I wasn't told about.
5 -Switched back to Google.

Date of experience: January 24, 2022
Canada
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Was happy using startpage and startmail and mail up until now. Came home and tried to use startpage and got a message a message saying due to a high degree of usage from my ip address they are not letting me use startpage because I may be a bot.This after I reinstalled windows and the cloud decided to upload my photos and videos. That's all I took for them to get their panties in a Knott.
Anyway if you use startpage watch you usage or they won't like it.
I think I'm done with them.

Date of experience: March 7, 2023
Spain
1 review
0 helpful votes
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I love how a search engine can help us with our privacy, reducing the chances of spreading our data and information online. Hopefully more people will start using Startpage.
Thanks!

Date of experience: May 20, 2021
California
1 review
11 helpful votes
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IXQUICK may be a secure site from something,( I have no idea what) but not what you may think. For example, type in "Macy's", search for an item or two, then go to Yahoo! Mail and in a short time you'll see in the right hand part of the screen what you were looking at while in Ixquick on Macy's site. If Macy's can follow you through Ixquick, anybody can. Don't trust this site. Prove it to yourself. It's free, but worthless.

Date of experience: July 10, 2017
Australia
4 reviews
1 helpful vote
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Such a great ordering experience. Design team was super quick with responses and created a product just like I had envisioned. Delivery was sooner than quoted.

Date of experience: July 27, 2022
Arizona
3 reviews
9 helpful votes
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Very disappointed in StartPage lately. Basically, the results HAVE NOTHING to do with my query. I have been using StartPage mostly for over a year and then off/on for 3 years. The longer I use it the worse it gets in finding relevant results. So my last query was for driving directions from point A to point B, and the results were ridiculous - how to drive from Pittsburgh to a Baseball Stadium. (I'm on the west coast) Or how to drive from Point A to Point X. You get the picture.

Date of experience: July 23, 2019
StartPage S. StartPage Rep
over a year old

Hi Lisa. Startpage.com does not currently offer driving directions. We are, however, planning to add this feature soon -- likely next quarter.

Please email our Support Team so we can help fix any other search issues. We appreciate your feedback! Here is the email address: Support@Startpage.com

TT
149 reviews
1794 helpful votes
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I agree that this site is a wonderful search engine because it does not record one's IP address and that means I am able to protect myself online.

Here is the claim made by this search engine:

"Ixquick search results are more comprehensive and more accurate than other search engines. Ixquick's unique capabilities include an Advanced Search, a global search and power refinement."

I would have to agree with them personally and I intend to make them one of my regular search engines from now on.

Date of experience: November 19, 2011
Australia
140 reviews
752 helpful votes
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StartPage is an initiative by Ixquick.

StartPage works similar to Google. Go into your URL bar - type "startpage.com" and you can surf the internet like Google does. But - what's the difference between Google and StartPage? What makes StartPage better than other search engines?

Well StartPage.com picks up very similar results as to what Google would pick up. StartPage.com doesn't log your IP address and supports 256 bit SSL. A really cool part about StartPage.com is its proxy tool. For example - lets say you wanted to view the NASA website - enter NASA into the engine, then click "proxy". This will then take you into their site through a secure proxy server. However - bare in mind that it will disable Java.

Date of experience: July 5, 2011
California
1 review
5 helpful votes
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Very Private
August 29, 2020

After minor adjustments in settings the browser is very quick and super private, I use "StartPage" in Firefox and Microsoft Edge as my homepage. I also use "StartPage" with my VPN to increase security. Great browser!

Date of experience: August 28, 2020
StartPage S. StartPage Rep
over a year old

Thanks Dawn!

We appreciate your feedback. We went through a brand refresh this week (more info here -https://startpage.com/privacy-please/press-releases/announcing-startpages-refreshed-brand) and have added dozens of new features (news, shopping, calculator, currency converter...) since you wrote this review. As always, if you have comments or questions, we will provide personalized support if you write to us at support@startpage.com. Thanks again!

Wisconsin
1 review
34 helpful votes
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Startpage doesn't seem to find existing websites that are readily found by other search engines. I could not find one of my own websites for one of the businesses that I own AT ALL. What's the use of privacy if you can't find the sites you are looking for? No, there was not a problem with my site because I could readily find it using another search engine. So, I would have to say thumbs down on Startpage.

Date of experience: August 12, 2014
Spain
58 reviews
312 helpful votes
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Ixquick is a new search engine that respects the privacy of its users. Their results are quite accurate and the best thing is that they claim that they keep absolutely no records of ip addresses and search strings. ( as you know Google maintains a detailed user profile for everyone that uses its services)

Date of experience: August 7, 2010
Ukraine
1 review
8 helpful votes
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I tested 15 best search engines by http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/search-engines. StartPage seems to me the best. Second place - Duckduckgo, I used before for several months. Google is good, but spy. Bing is even bigger spy.
One of advantages of StartPage is correct localization, it gave me first line results in Ukrainian, not in Russian as do all the rest search engines. For the rest I need every time to add in search line -ru and -russian, etc. It's very annoying.

Date of experience: April 10, 2018
Ireland
1 review
14 helpful votes
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When in StartPage browser type in 'ip address' and enter, and up pops your IP address and location. I'd have thought that the op address of the search engine would appear! It's not as private as you think.

Date of experience: July 4, 2017
StartPage S. StartPage Rep
over a year old

Hi Gerard. Maybe you are thinking of the US private search engine DuckDuckGo? We don't offer that "what is my IP address feature." DuckDuckGo does.

Note that StartPage.com does NOT record your IP address or any other personal information. That said, when you visit a 3rd party website directly without any protection, that site can see your IP address. An IP address is like a snail mail address that indicates where mail you request should be sent.

If you want to visit 3rd party websites via StartPage, you can do so anonymously using the free StartPage proxy. Here is a link to information about that feature: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/146/0/where-is-the-startpage-proxy-and-how-do-i-use-it

Hope this helps! Feel free to email our tech team if you have any questions about this: Support@startpage.com

Canada
1 review
9 helpful votes
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I am looking for a 'Safe Search Engine and because I saw this in an article I was reading -->- > [So I Ixquicked " (Ixquick, that's my favorite search engine ("the world's most private search engine")), <-- I searched ixquick and@ this point I rated this Site JABBER Website 5 Star & want to tell the entire world!
I will come back to this Website and report my experience and pray my experience will confirm Ixquick, is the answers to my prayers. And I will tell the world. I read & like --> Read Review Guidelines. Thank you, Sincerely, for providing this safe search engine for Good people. The 'World' needs you. I will be back. I do get confused when a different name comes up from what I have searched. I will Register then tour this website.- Love. From me.

Date of experience: March 2, 2014

Overview

StartPage has a rating of 3.1 stars from 39 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally satisfied with their purchases. StartPage ranks 7th among Search sites.

service
4
value
4
quality
3