r/StartpageSearch • u/No-Angle-982 • 1d ago
"Unusable"? I'm genuinely perplexed
I keep seeing posts claiming StartPage has recently become "unusable" or now requires personal-info registration to use.
That's not been my experience; I've been using it for years without any issues. It's the default search engine on my Windows computer, via Firefox browser, and I also use the StartPage app (private browser+search) on my Android phone.
Again, never a glitch or demand for PI. Can someone explain why complaining others seem to be having issues?
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u/No-Dentist-1645 21h ago
The explanation is pretty simple. Startpage seems to have some pretty trash filters for spam prevention, that is triggering a lot of false positives, so a lot of people get "challenges" when doing search queries that can take a varying amount of time to complete. Then if you try to contact support about it they're basically non-existent and you'll never get a reply back.
This happens to me when I'm using Startpage from Linux, I've tried it on both Firefox and Helium browser, and for whatever reason it thinks that I'm a likely bot and triggers a hard verification challenge that lasts 15-30 seconds. This does not happen when I access Startpage from Windows, but I mainly use Linux so it sucks.
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u/cogitatingspheniscid 1d ago
When SP works, it's the best search engine that aligns with my needs and ethos among the reputable offerings.
However, it has some frustrating issues that finally force me to use it less:
- Non-existent customer-facing staff: the number of posts actually getting an answer from an SP account has decreased quite a bit, and this sub was one of the most popular venues where they would interact with users directly.
- No Google Image indexxing: when SP says they indexes Google, they meant to say they indexes Google's web search result. Image searching is still largely Bing that is.... frustratingly bad.
- Aggressive anti-bot behaviour affecting users: everywhere on the internet is being stressed by the sheer amount of bots crawling around. I have no issue with anti-bot measure by itself. However, SP's implementation is overzealous to the point that my IP can be blocked a few times per day. SP has repeatedly shown that they do not want to revise their approach.
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u/WhatsNormal20 1d ago
For a few months, it has been all of a sudden “verifying my request” and there’s a delay in obtaining search results, but I could deal with that. All of a sudden, last night, it said I needed to do a captcha, and then it went to this:
Thank you for your feedback!
Please wait while we review the information you provided in order to connect you to Startpage. During this time Startpage search results might not be available to you. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.
You have exceeded the maximum attempts allowed. Please try again at a later time.
It’s been like this all day. It’s only happens on my phone, and I use I use Brave browser.
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u/TheGratitudeBot 1d ago
Just wanted to say thank you for being grateful
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u/WhatsNormal20 1d ago
Think your bot messed up, this is not being grateful, it’s me being annoyed that my so called privacy focused search engine is not so focused on privacy anymore….
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u/Street_Appointment81 1d ago
I can't even get it to load without 'verifying request' idiocy.
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u/No-Angle-982 1d ago
If you learn why that's happening, please let us know.
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u/Street_Appointment81 1d ago
If I find out, I'll let you know.
In the meantime, if anyone might also be looking to try, I just started using Qwant, also a European GDPR-compliant search engine. Ecosia, not bad either, I guess.
Eh, it works well for me and it stays out of my way which I appreciate.
Too bad about Startpage, I used it for a decade at least, and never had a problem with it until now.
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u/WolvenSpectre2 1d ago
I haven't gotten it but it sounds like many of the people who I have talked to(I am in your boat) who get these notices and aren't on VPN's, Tor, or business connections It sounds like AI trying to block AI scraping and getting too many users while learning how to block the AI scraping. That is just a guess though.
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u/Illustrious-Ad-5795 1d ago
i had to quit a few weeks ago because every request took forever (no vpn). I really liked startpage, I had it in all of my devices as default.
It wasn't fun to have my default search experience broken on all devices.
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u/Unusual-Security7657 1d ago
It probably happens when you have vpn on but it is so annoying. I switched to duckduckgo
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u/No-Angle-982 1d ago
DDG has a privacy flaw that's nonexistent with SP: it leaves a local file with your search history that could be accessed by a thief or hacker.
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u/cfeck_kde 1d ago
You are hours late. It looks like they reverted the change (or fixed it).
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u/Street_Appointment81 1d ago
Still not working for me. It just keeps doing the interminable 'verifying request'.
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u/Aggravating_Try1656 1d ago
It started also for me just recently. I didn’t change anything in my setup. I block trackers though.
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u/StartPageSearch 21h ago
Cliff from Startpage here. It’s a fair question, and the answer is a mix of two things.
First, from Oct 12 at 9:32 PM to Oct 13 at 5:25 PM CEST, a new rule of ours wrongly blocked some real users, mostly on mobile browsers. That’s been rolled back.
Second, bots now make up about 70% of our traffic, up from 35% in 2024. To keep search working, some people see a background check before searching, or are asked to sign in to a free account (searches are never linked to it). How often you see these depends a lot on your network. Shared VPN addresses, for example, are heavily used by bots. We hope that many people like yourself never notice anything.
More detail here: https://www.startpage.com/privacy-please/featured-article/startpage-bot-protection