Gallery: Top 10 alternatives to Google Search

Instead, it's designed to provide facts and figures, on anything from a country's gross domestic product to the frequencies of Christian names throughout history.

It processes more than 10 trillion pieces of data, producing results in the forms of data tables, definitions and graphs of comparative figures.

In its current form it is strong on answering scientific queries, providing numerical data and solving mathematical problems. It falls down however when asked for simpler everyday queries such as 'where's my nearest Chinese restaurant' or 'what's the best fertilizer for roses'.

Future plans for the engine include expanding its knowledge base to a wider range of everyday popular and cultural knowledge.

Screenshot: Wolfram Alpha