The search wars are heating up. A new paid contender, called Neeva, was started by former Googlers and is ad-free and private.

“The current state of search is broken,” the Neeva teams explains. “Mainstream search engines no longer primarily serve the user. They are littered with advertisements, burying organic search results far below the fold. What started as a well-intentioned way to organize the world’s information has turned into a business focusing most of its resources on monetizing clicks to support advertisers.”

To that end, Neeva is “search reimagined.” It’s not free—the cost is $4.95 per month, but you can get three months for free—but it comes with no advertising, protects your privacy, and is customizable. So instead of relying on ads—and being beholden to advertisers—as Google is, Neeva promises to be “100 percent focused on providing the best search experience for the user,” and to deliver more relevant results and higher quality content.

Neeva blocks third-party trackers, and it can optionally integrate with your email accounts, calendars, and cloud storage platforms so that it can surface the information you need without sacrificing privacy. Neeva also says it will share at least 20 percent of its revenue with content creator partners when their content is used to directly answer Neeva user queries.

Obviously, there are alternates to Google Search, like Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo, and now Brave Search, but each has its flaws, mostly from a results comparison perspective. But if Neeva can deliver on its promises, it could be well worth the asking price. (After all, I’ve been asking for a paid Google option for years so I can opt-out of their privacy invasions and advertising.)

Neeva provides web browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, and Safari. There’s also a dedicated iPhone app. You can learn more at Neeva.com.

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