Search engines, including web search engines, selection-based search engines, metasearch engines, desktop search tools, and web portals and vertical market websites have a search facility for online databases.
| Name | Language | Backend ownership |
|---|---|---|
| Ask.com | Multilingual | Google 
|
| Baidu | Chinese | Baidu 
|
| Brave Search | Multilingual | Brave
|
| Dogpile | English | Metasearch engine |
| DuckDuckGo | Multilingual | Microsoft Bing
|
| Ecosia | Multilingual | Microsoft Bing
|
| Elasticsearch | Multilingual | Apache 2.0 until 2021, then Elasticsearch |
| Exalead | Multilingual | Cloudview 
|
| Excite† | Multilingual | Microsoft Bing
|
| Gigablast | English | Apache License 2.0 |
| Multilingual | Google
| |
| HotBot | English | Microsoft Bing
|
| Kagi | English | Metasearch engine and Kagi Inc
|
| Lycos | Multilingual | Microsoft Bing
|
| MetaCrawler | English | Metasearch engine |
| Microsoft Bing | Multilingual | Microsoft Bing
|
| Mojeek | Multilingual | Mojeek 
|
| Opensearch | Multilingual | Apache License 2.0 (Elasticsearch fork) |
| Petal | Multilingual | Huawei
|
| Qwant | Multilingual | Microsoft Bing
|
| Searx | Multilingual | Metasearch engine |
| Sogou | Multilingual | Tencent
|
| Startpage | English | Google
|
| Swisscows | Multilingual | Microsoft Bing
|
| WebCrawler | English | Microsoft Bing
|
| YaCy | Multilingual | GPL-2.0-or-later |
| Yahoo! Search† | Multilingual | Microsoft Bing
|
| Yandex | Multilingual | Yandex 
|
| Youdao† | Chinese | NetEase
|
| You.com | English | Microsoft Bing
|
† Main website is a portal
| Name | Language | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Accoona | Chinese, English | China, United States |
| Biglobe | Japanese | Japan |
| Daum | Korean | Korea |
| Nate | Korean | Korea |
| Egerin | Kurdish | Sweden[1][2][3] |
| Fireball | German, English | Germany |
| Goo | Japanese | Japan |
| Leit.is | Icelandic, English | Iceland |
| Najdi.si | Slovenian | Slovenia |
| Naver | Korean | Korea |
| Parsijoo | Persian | Iran |
| Pipilika (defunct) | Bengali, English | Bangladesh |
| Rambler | Russian | Russia |
| Rediff | India | |
| Search.ch | Switzerland | |
| Sesam (defunct) | Norway, Sweden | |
| Seznam | Czech | Czech Republic |
| Walla! | Israel | |
| Yahoo! Japan | Japanese | Japan (Google backend) |
| Yongzin | Tibetan | China |
| ZipLocal | English | Canada, United States |
General:
Academic materials only:
Search engines dedicated to a specific kind of information
These search engines work across the BitTorrent protocol.
Desktop search engines listed on a light purple background are no longer in active development.
| Name | Platform | Remarks | License |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP Autonomy | Windows | IDOL Enterprise Desktop Search, HP Autonomy Universal Search.[5] | Proprietary, commercial |
| Beagle | Linux | Open-source desktop search tool for Linux based on Lucene. Unmaintained since 2009. | A mix of the X11/MIT License and the Apache License |
| Copernic Desktop Search | Windows | Major desktop search program. The full trial version downgrades after the trial period automatically to the free version, which is (anno 2018) limited to indexing a maximum of 10.000 files. | Proprietary (30 day trial) |
| DocFetcher | Cross-platform | Open-source desktop search tool for Windows and Linux, based on Apache Lucene | Eclipse Public License |
| dtSearch Desktop | Windows | Proprietary (30 day trial) | |
| Everything | Windows | Find files and folders by name instantly on NTFS volumes | Freeware |
| GNOME Storage | Linux | Open-source desktop search tool for Unix/Linux | GPL |
| Google Desktop | Linux, Mac OS X, Windows | Integrates with the main Google search engine page. As of September 14, 2011, Google has discontinued this product. | Freeware |
| ISYS Search Software | Windows | ISYS:Desktop search software. | Proprietary (14-day trial) |
| KRunner | Linux | ||
| Locate32 | Windows | Graphical port of Unix's locate & updatedb | BSD License[6] |
| Lookeen | Windows | Desktop search product with Outlook plugin and limited support for other formats via IFilters, uses Lucene search engine. | Proprietary (14-day trial)[7] |
| Nepomuk | Linux | Open-source semantic desktop search tool for Linux. Has been replaced by BalooinKDE Applications from release 4.13 onward. | License SA 3.0 and the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 |
| Recoll | Linux, Unix, Windows, macOS | Open-source desktop search tool for Unix/Linux | GPL [8] |
| Spotlight | macOS | Found in Apple Mac OS X "Tiger" and later OS X releases. | Proprietary |
| Strigi | Linux, Unix, Solaris, Mac OS X and Windows | Cross-platform open-source desktop search engine. Unmaintained since 2011-06-02[9]. | LGPL v2 [10] |
| Terrier Search Engine | Linux, Mac OS X, Unix | Desktop search for Windows, Mac OS X (Tiger), Unix/Linux. | MPL v1.1[11] |
| Tracker | Linux, Unix | Open-source desktop search tool for Unix/Linux | GPL v2 [12] |
| Tropes Zoom | Windows | Semantic Search Engine (no longer available)[13] | Freeware and commercial |
| Unity Dash | Linux | Part of Ubuntu Desktop | GPL v3,[14] LGPL v2.1[15] |
| Windows Search | Windows | Part of Windows Vista and later OSs. Available as Windows Desktop Search for Windows XP and Server 2003. Does not support indexing UNC paths on x64 systems. | Proprietary |
| X1 Desktop Search | Windows | Major desktop search product along with Copernic Desktop Search | Proprietary (14-day trial)[16] |
| Wumpus | Cross platform | Desktop search focused on information retrieval research | GPL |
| Name | Language |
|---|---|
| Dogpile | English |
| Excite | English |
| Info.com | English |
| Kayak.com | Multilingual |
| Mamma.com | |
| MetaCrawler | English |
| MetaGer | Multilingual |
| Mobissimo | Multilingual |
| Otalo.com | English |
| Publisher's clearinghouse Search and Win | |
| Searx | Multilingual |
| Skyscanner | Multilingual |
| Wego.com | Multilingual |
| All In One | English |
| Name | Language |
|---|---|
| Seeks (open-source) | English |
| YaCy (free and fully decentralized) | Multilingual |
| Name | Description | Speciality |
|---|---|---|
| Evi | Specialises in knowledge base and semantic search | answer engine |
| Swoogle | Searching over 10,000 ontologies | Semantic web documents |
| Yebol | defunct | |
| Yummly | Semantic web search for food, cooking, and recipes | food related |
| Name | Backend ownership | Demise |
|---|---|---|
| iWon | Ask.com | Shut down after AT&T merger[citation needed] |
| Teoma | Ask.com | Merged to Ask.com which still uses its algorithms |
| A9.com | Microsoft Bing | Redirect to Amazon homepage (parent company) |
| AOL | Google until 2015, then Microsoft Bing | Merged to Yahoo! |
| Alexa Internet | Microsoft Bing | Bought by Amazon in 1999, shut down in 2021 |
| Ciao! | Microsoft Bing | Shut down in 2018 |
| Ms. Dewey | Microsoft Bing | January 2009 |
| Groovle | Taken over by Google after Google sued for name similarity | |
| MySpace Search | Function taken over by Google in 2006 | |
| Mystery Seeker | Novelty "search"; went offline in 2017 | |
| Netscape | Now redirects to AOL | |
| Ripple | as of 2017 at the latest | |
| Ecocho | Google, then Yahoo! | |
| Forestle | Google, then Yahoo! | Redirected to Ecosia in 2011 |
| Yippy | IBM Watson | Redirected to DuckDuckGo in 2021 |
| Grams | Grams (anonymous owner) | Closed in 2017 |
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