Here are some tips you can use to maximize data security when using a search engine. Use a secure search engine We've covered several secure search engines in this article. No one can guarantee you 100% security against a powerful opponent like the NSA. But if you aren't doing anything that attracts the focused attention of national intelligence agencies, you should be able to find one or more secure search engines that will protect your data from less powerful threats. Use a secure web browser Regular web browsers can and do reveal lots of private information about you. They let third parties put cookies and trackers on your computer, send metadata (your user agent) to every website you visit, and can potentially expose lots of additional information. Switching to a secure web browser can plug this source of data leaks. Use a top-quality VPN A top-quality VPN will prevent a search engine from seeing your real IP address. This is important because several of the secure search engines share a truncated part of your IP address with whoever provides the ads that appear on your search results. While this truncated IP address isn't enough to expose your identity by itself, it is another piece of data that third parties (like that advertising company) can use to create a profile. Given enough data, they can track you and your online activities, even though no single piece of data is sufficient to identify you. We've done extensive testing of VPN services, and based on our testing, these are the top-quality VPN services we recommend: NordVPN, Surfshark, and VyprVPN. You can read about the best VPNs here. Use an ad blocker Ad blockers stop ads and trackers from collecting data for the advertising networks that publish them. Some ads even install malware on your device. In other words, for the security's sake, it is best to block ads and trackers altogether.