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Google has lock in, it's just less obvious. Other search engines might not be as good because they don't have access to my search history* and email data for instance.

* This has actually been annoying for me lately. The results favor the things I've already clicked on which is often exactly not what I'm after.

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I'm not saying there's no lock-in, just that it's not as rigid or strong. Better search results (for you) is exactly the kind of reason you want to be using one search engine over another. If another search engine started providing better results, you'd be able to swap, and the only effect would be the psychological disorientation from the change interface (I struggle to use DuckDuckGo because my eyes scan the wrong part of the screen while trying to take in the results).

Have you tried these search engines? These are proxy to Google's or other's results. You will not feel lock in with this for sure because it is bare bone.

https://www.startpage.com/

https://duckduckgo.com/

http://ixquick.com/

https://searx.me/

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