Frequently Asked Questions
I'm an Epic Privacy Browser user and I would like to keep using Epic for free. What options do I have? In Epic's Settings under Search Engine, you can switch to free search options which support Epic including Yahoo at present. Google cancelled our previous private search partnership and no longer works with smaller browsers. Using Yahoo in Epic is free and supports us. We hope to migrate to a free, transparent, private search engine from Yahoo soon. If you don't have search options other than EpicSearch, you're on an older version of Epic, please email Alok for help at alok at hiddenreflex dot com.
Are other so-called private search engines just out to make money then? There is an enormous amount of money in the search industry (tens of billions of dollars). From conducting searches on their sites, anyone can observe at the very least that some location data is being relayed to their search ad partners Google/Bing, and that when you click on an ad link it goes directly to Bing/Google. We believe these simple observations contradict a claim to an intuitive sense of privacy. Their lack of transparency about how their purported privacy works (how they retrieve search ads, what data they share) prevents us from even considering trusting or working with them. We are both legally and ethically bound to vouch for and understand the data privacy and security of any companies with whom we partner.
What about Incognito Mode? Can I trust it? Is its claim to delete your browsing history from the device accurate? Chrome's Incognito mode does clearly state that you're not protected from governmental, employer, website, ISP and other surveillance and tracking. It claims that your device history is deleted from your device on close of the browser. Even that limited claim, unfortunately, is not accurate. After closing your Incognito Window, you can easily access your browsing history on your device in a few seconds via the OS's DNS cache. Google should narrow its claims to state that your browsing history doesn't come up in Chrome's browsing history. Incognito mode, thus, provides quite minimal privacy benefits (vs. say the Epic Privacy Browser or the TOR Browser).
How can I see my browsing history after I close my Incognito window? You need to access your DNS cache. In Windows, press WinKey + R, type cmd and press Enter to open a command terminal. In the command line, type ipconfig /displaydns to see your Incognito browsing history (in the DNS cache). Type ipconfig /flushdns and press Enter to delete your DNS cache.
Are there other privacy services you recommend? As you can guess from the above, we are unable to trust almost all so-called privacy software providers unfortunately.
Why results from Yandex? Why not Google or Bing? There are three providers of global search results: Yandex, Google and Bing. Google doesn't openly sell their search results, so we're not sure of their fees. Bing's API charges $3 - $7 per thousand searches. At our monthly limit of 5000 searches, it would cost at least $15/month just to buy the results from Bing. It isn't possible, today, to keep the service affordable with Bing or Google. We will continue to try to add more search providers at a resonable fee.
How many results do I get per search query? 25 results are initially shown. You can see another 75 results by clicking more results at the bottom of the page.
Can you improve the search results? We can't afford to buy results from Google or Bing at present, but we hope to in the future.
How long have EpicSearch and the Epic Privacy Browser been supported? What demonstrations of trust have you made? The Epic Privacy Browser and EpicSearch have been protecting your privacy with transparency for seven years now. We're one of just three companies which has placed your privacy ahead of our business interests. When Google annulled our private search partnership, we refused to let them track you and tried for years to form another private search partnership before moving to a paid service model for EpicSearch.
EpicSearch only provides web results? No image, video, news, maps or other types of results? Yes, EpicSearch only provides web results at present. With one click, you can send your query to other search engines for videos, images, news, maps or other results. We can't afford to buy results in the other media formats from Google or Bing at present, but we hope to in the future.
Can I access other search engines if I don’t like EpicSearch’s results? Yes. We have links to Bing, Google and other sites such as Twitter at the top of EpicSearch. In case you need more search results, those other options are just one click away.
How private is EpicSearch? EpicSearch provides what one intuitively would expect from a private search engine. There are no ads. We send only your query, not any IP or other information to retrieve search results. We save no data except a numerical count of your searches.
Why is the cost so reasonable? Yes, it's just $2.50/month. We want as many people as possible to enjoy private access to the internet. We have kept our Epic Privacy Browser free with a free, unlimited encrypted proxy (a VPN for the browser), and kept the fee for EpicSearch as low as possible.
Can I get a refund? Can I cancel my account at anytime? We're unable to offer any refunds once the service has been purchased. You can cancel your service anytime by logging into your account, then clicking on subscriptions then cancelling your subscription.
What if I need more than 5000 searches per month? Email us and we'll try to accommodate you. Write our founder directly alok at hiddenreflex dot com.
Who handles your payments? Stripe.