Google is the undoubted leader in the search engine world. With its powerful algorithms, dominant advertising platform, and personalized user experience, Google is a force to be reckoned with. But all of that does, some feel, come at a cost. It’s hardly a secret that the Big G catalogues and tracks its user’s browser habits and shares that information with various advertisers.nnThere are a number of ‘alternatives’ that users can make use of to search for just what they are looking for online. Some, like Bing and DuckDuck Go are general search engines. Others, like SocialMention (used to search social media mentions) and Crunchbase (used to search for companies and businesses) are specialist search engines. You can also use platforms you might not think of as search engines – like YouTube, Twitter or Pinterest – to find what you are looking for.nnSearch engine users have regional preferences as well. In Russia, Yandex is the search engine of choice. In Japan, Yahoo! still reigns supreme. In China, Baidu is almost universally utilized. In a nutshell, if users want to make a little extra effort then Google is not the only game in town.