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DuckDuckGo

3point14

Pi
3point14
Joined
Nov 4, 2005
Messages
23,073
Well, Google's constant demands for me to confirm that they can do what the hell they like with my info (There's an 'accept' button, no option not to) has finally caused me to switch to a different search engine.

DuckDuckGo seems reasonable. Is it?

What's the search engine of choice for the computer literate?
 
Yep, it's brilliant. I've used it exclusively for 12 or 18 months now. No ads, no sponsored links, no shuffled-to-the-top because you paid Google. Best of all, no tracking, and no sharing of info. I can't speak highly enough of it.
 
That merely leaves every single web site you go to sending your info to Google anyway to participate in their targeted ad program. Or Amazon's.

Well, maybe not this one. Just the embarrassing ones you really prefer wouldn't.
 
I had never heard of it. Sounds wonderful. I tried a couple of searches and was fairly happy with the results.

But......a search engine is a complicated thing that requires a whole bunch of servers using up a bunch of bandwidth and electricity. How do they make money?
 
Beerina said:
That merely leaves every single web site you go to sending your info to Google anyway to participate in their targeted ad program. Or Amazon's.

Well, maybe not this one. Just the embarrassing ones you really prefer wouldn't.
Click to expand...

I try to keep as low a profile as I can when browsing the web. I do this by runing FIrefox with some add-ons, notably NoScript, Facebook Disconnect, Google Disconnect, and Twitter Disconnect. I also have the MVPS HOSTS file (you can GoogleDuckDuckGo it for details.)
 
Beerina said:
That merely leaves every single web site you go to sending your info to Google anyway to participate in their targeted ad program. Or Amazon's.

Well, maybe not this one. Just the embarrassing ones you really prefer wouldn't.
Click to expand...

They mostly use various scripts like google analytics, and if you block that and other scripts & domain selectively,less tracking happens , sometimes down to none. ETA with scripts blockers like noscripts and others.
 
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MikeG said:
Yep, it's brilliant. I've used it exclusively for 12 or 18 months now. No ads, no sponsored links, no shuffled-to-the-top because you paid Google. Best of all, no tracking, and no sharing of info. I can't speak highly enough of it.
Click to expand...

I'm skeptical of your claims. Based on the pond thread, it doesn't appear DuckDuckGo is working very well for you at all. :D
 
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I've been using DuckDuckGo as my default search engine for literally years now. Probably about 5 years, possibly more. I couldn't ask for a better search engine. I have absolutely no desire or requirement to use any other.
 
MikeG said:
Yep, it's brilliant. I've used it exclusively for 12 or 18 months now. No ads, no sponsored links, no shuffled-to-the-top because you paid Google. Best of all, no tracking, and no sharing of info. I can't speak highly enough of it.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Someone here actually mentioned it and I've happily used ever since.

Ditto on protonmail.com for un-snoopable email.

i.e. bite me Google.
 
Childlike Empress said:
Google search without harrassment: http://www.startpage.com

You don't get full results with that nice dutch-provided filter, though. But it's good enough for 99% of common searches that aren't deep digs.
Click to expand...

Same-but-different, I've had the advanced search Ixquick page as a home page for yonks. It's an aggregated search so won't give the same results as an individual Google/Bing/whateverelse search, but it has decent privacy settings and a starry ranking system for the aggregation.
 
Quick straw poll: who here still goes to a particular page in order to do a search, rather than just searching from the address bar?
 
arthwollipot said:
Quick straw poll: who here still goes to a particular page in order to do a search, rather than just searching from the address bar?
Click to expand...


I search from the address bar with the feature of customizable search machines with keywords developed by Opera back in the days. I use "g arthwollipot" for looking what startpage has about you, "wiki arthwollipot" for the German wikipedia, "ewiki arthwollipot" for the English wikipedia, "yt arthwollipot" for videos, "bild arthwollipot" for pics, and so on. Mostly with Firefox atm.
 
Just for fun, and because I compete in it each year, I did an image search for Burlington Pumpkin Pitch on DDG, Bing, and Google. The DDG and Bing results were almost identical, and had rather little relevant content. Google was far, far, better.

DDG: Six relevant images, all also on Bing.
Bing: Nine relevant images. Most of the irrelevant ones were also on DDG.
Google: Many relevant images. Heck, I'm actually IN five or six of them in the first screenfull.

YMMV, of course.
 
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