Doesn’t apple already have a search engine? Where do the results for Siri suggestions come from? (I really don’t know)

Just this morning I searched “air purifier” in safari and it suggested the wirecutter “best air purifiers” article

Siri uses Google by default.

I actually don't think Apple could build a good search engine. They believe in privacy, and will be compared to engines that track you everywhere.

Or, it might be possible. But their constraints will make it far harder to build even a comparable search.

Wouldn’t the search be like the old days of google before they personalised everything?

Apple is operating a search engine right under our noses, hiding behind Siri. Applebot is regularly crawling the web. They’re probably much further along toward a privacy-focused search product than any of us would know.

I thought Siri's web results were returned from tour chosen search engine in settings. Does it use its own search?

"Web results" are. "Siri Suggested Websites" and "Siri Knowledge" are not — those are fed by Applebot. "Applebot is the web crawler for Apple. Products like Siri and Spotlight Suggestions use Applebot." — Apple's support document about Applebot.

I've wondered why no one has bought wolfram alpha and used it to power knowledge bases. Certainly it seems cheaper for Apple to have down that as a start point than to start from scratch. Maybe it's too technical for most users?

DDG is already a comparable privacy first search engine. Apple would just need to buy them in they cared, but instead they just promote them.