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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
It just bugs me that StartPage, just like the DuckDuckGo homepage, is SO long and they got that arrow pointing downwards. You mean I have to look at that arrow every time I view my homepage. That killed it for me with both these homepage's. Was hoping to escape the Google homepage and all things Google and YouTube after their increasing censorship, but StartPage is not the answer I see.
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.
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!
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!
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.
Since using startpage everytime I search for anything on google I get email adverts following up on my recent searches. Last month for examples I've tried to look for holiday destinations and suddenly my yahoo emails are flooded with adverts from travel websites promoting the destinations I had searched for and tripadvisor asking me if I still want to go there. Mind you when I did my search I never logged into any website including tripadvisor, I only did the search on StartPage. It's awful!
Hi Hala. If you are seeing ads based on things you've searched for in the past through StartPage, that is not something we are doing. We do not record your searches, and we do not share your information with advertisers. We can't, because we don't record your data.
(In fact, our privacy promises are 3rd-party certified. You can read more about this here: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/714/0/how-can-your-privacy-policies-be-verified-can-users-trust-startpage-to-do-what-it-says)
The ads you are seeing probably result from a cookie you picked up when you left StartPage by clicking on a website result. Here's how it works:
Whenever you search with StartPage, your search is not recorded, your IP address is not recorded, your identity is not recorded, no tracking cookies are placed on your browser, and our SSL Encryption ensures that your ISP and hackers can't eavesdrop. You are never seen by Google, even though you receive authentic Google results through StartPage.
That protection applies 100% to your searches. However, when you click on a search result, whether you got it from us, Bing, Yahoo, or any other search engine, you leave the search engine that gave you the link and go somewhere else.
Wherever you go, once you leave StartPage, you can be seen, recorded, and tracked by the website you are going to, plus by all of its advertising and marketing and tracking partners and affiliates.
Third-party websites can place cookies on your browser that record your visit and indicate your interest in the contents on their websites. Marketers can later use those cookies to determine your past browsing history and serve you ads about those topics.
To avoid this, you can use the free StartPage Proxy which allows you to visit third-party websites through StartPage without anyone, including the website and its partners, seeing you. Our proxy service is unique, and the privacy protection it provides is not available through any other search engine.
To learn more about the StartPage Proxy and how it works, please visit this link: https://www.startpage.com/proxy/eng/help.html
If you have any other questions, please email our support team: Support@StartPage.com
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)
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.
Answer: When you use StartPage, we do not record your IP address, we do not record which browser you are using (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc.), we do not record your computer platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.), and we do not record the words or phrases you searched for. However, once you leave StartPage, by clicking on a search result you can be seen, recorded, and tracked by all of the websites you visit, plus you can be seen and targeted by all of their advertising and marketing partners and affiliates. StartPage does offer a very useful tool to protect your privacy even when you leave our website. If you are performing a particularly private or sensitive search and you do not wish for your visit to a third-party website be tracked, you can use the StartPage Proxy (shown next to each search result). The Proxy allows you to visit third-party websites through StartPage without anyone, including the website and its advertising partners, seeing you. Our proxy service is unique, and the privacy protection it provides is not available through any other search engine.
Answer: Hi Gordon. You can save previous search sessions by changing from POST to GET in the Startpage Settings. Startpage defaults to "POST" for extra privacy. Here's more on POST vs. GET: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/747/0/post-versus-get Hope this helps! For more information on this or for help with the Settings, feel free to email our Support Team: Support@Startpage.com. Thank you for caring about privacy.
Answer: Hi Steve. Startpage does NOT use doubleclick or any 3rd party tracking services. Please contact our Support Team so we can investigate. It's possible that you have a virus. Here's the email address: Support@Startpage.com Thank you for caring about privacy!
Answer: Hi. Ixquick merged with Startpage.com in April 2018. Here is a Knowledgebase article that provides more detail: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1175/0/why-do-you-no-longer-offer-the-ixquick-search-engine Thank you for caring about privacy!
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!