Startpage gives you Google search results without Google knowing who you are. Your queries get stripped of identifying information before they hit Google's servers. Results come back through Startpage's Dutch servers, so Google never sees your IP address, browser fingerprint, or location.

The best trick up its sleeve is Anonymous View. Click it on any search result and Startpage loads that page through its own proxy. The destination site sees Startpage, not you.

It costs nothing. Startpage makes money from contextual ads based on your search keyword, not your personal data. You will see ads, but they are the same for everyone who searches the same term. No profiles, no tracking cookies, no search history on their end.

The company was founded in 2006 in The Hague and has about 21 employees. It stopped logging IP addresses in 2009 and processes all data on EU servers.

Worth knowing

US advertising company System1 bought a majority stake in 2019 through its subsidiary Privacy One Group. That raised eyebrows in the privacy community and got Startpage temporarily dropped from some recommendation lists. Startpage says its co-founders keep contractual control over privacy decisions, and US staff cannot touch servers with unredacted user data. No privacy breaches have surfaced since the deal. But the US ownership layer is worth knowing about if jurisdiction matters to you.