Andi

In a nutshell: Andi is still in operation – it remains free and ad-free – but its presence is clearly not as noticeable as it was in the previous two years.

It was developed by a team based in San Francisco that was founded in 2021 and incubated by Y Combinator. This platform combines chat-based responses with search result cards on the same screen: on one side, it provides general summaries of answers; on the other, web pages are displayed in order of relevance, allowing users to preview them quickly. This service does not sell user data nor relies on advertising for revenue. Its operating funds come from investments and donations from users, which makes it quite unique among search products.

The problem lies in the speed of updates. Over the past two years, Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, and Google’s AI services have all seen rapid iterations. Andi has fallen behind in terms of model capabilities and in-depth research; third-party statistics also show that its traffic is declining. Its support for the Chinese language is average at best, so it’s practically useless for searching for information in China. If you’re looking for an English search engine that respects privacy and offers a user-friendly interface as a backup option, you might want to add Andi to your list of favorites.