Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

spreadprivacy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 259 posts

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#11

Post by erdo »

dx034 wrote: post #8
erdo wrote: post #5

Even without privacy considerations though, duckduckgo seems to give me better results, I've been using it as my default search engine for years

Are you based in the US? I found them really bad for localized results outside of the US, even when local mode is enabled (although that's annoying to do manually). In the end I used !g for so many search queries that I switched back again.

I'm in France, possibly I don't use the localisation feature much.

(I actually do use it occasionally to find specialist retailers so I don't have to use Amazon, as it's easy to buy from any other EU country here. German based retailers for audio equipment, or France based retailers if I want to buy cooking equipment etc)

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#12

Post by 11235813213455 »

mpercy wrote: post #4
zenincognito wrote: post #2

No thank you. I appreciate what DDG is trying to do but in the end, a search engine that makes money from selling ads trying to protect me from another search engine that also sells ads is just feeding the ecosystem. I am going to put my money into FF no matter how annoying some of the things in it are.

FF as in Firefox?

yes

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#14

Post by dunkeylim »

Ruthalas wrote: post #9
zenincognito wrote: post #2

No thank you. I appreciate what DDG is trying to do but in the end, a search engine that makes money from selling ads trying to protect me from another search engine that also sells ads is just feeding the ecosystem. I am going to put my money into FF no matter how annoying some of the things in it are.

Is there another search engine you recommend instead?

neeva? maybe brave search in a few months?

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#15

Post by jjbinx007 »

erdo wrote: post #7
zenincognito wrote: post #2

No thank you. I appreciate what DDG is trying to do but in the end, a search engine that makes money from selling ads trying to protect me from another search engine that also sells ads is just feeding the ecosystem. I am going to put my money into FF no matter how annoying some of the things in it are.

I'm honestly ok with ads, I am not ok with "personalised" ads

Indeed. If I buy a magazine then ads are targeted at readers of the magazine but they don't track me, invade my privacy, follow me around wherever I go or occasionally try to hijack me.

If a newspaper or online magazine had traditional ads that were embedded in the page as static images (no distracting video please) then I'd leave my ad blocker off.

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#16

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

zenincognito wrote: post #2

No thank you. I appreciate what DDG is trying to do but in the end, a search engine that makes money from selling ads trying to protect me from another search engine that also sells ads is just feeding the ecosystem. I am going to put my money into FF no matter how annoying some of the things in it are.

Under terms of an agreement, FF sends search bar queries to a "search engine that makes money from selling ads." The search engine belongs to an online ad services company. FF belongs to Mozilla Corporation. The agreement is between the ad services company and Mozilla Corporation. Mozilla Corporation pays the salaries of the developers who maintain FF. Almost all of Mozilla Corporation's income, certainly 100% of their profits, comes from the agreement with the online ad services company. Sadly, donations are not what keeps Mozilla and FF in business.

Sure, DDG might be robbing Peter to pay Paul, but so is Mozilla. They sell out every FF user who does not change default settings. This must be a significant number of users, because the online ad services company pays millions to Mozilla for that "service". That means heaps of queries coming from FF are "feeding the ecosystem".

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#17

Post by propertymagnate »

zenincognito wrote: post #2

No thank you. I appreciate what DDG is trying to do but in the end, a search engine that makes money from selling ads trying to protect me from another search engine that also sells ads is just feeding the ecosystem. I am going to put my money into FF no matter how annoying some of the things in it are.

Really? I can appreciate not wanting to use DDG for a number of reasons, but because they are pushing for financial legitimacy on the basis that there can be an ad industry but it shouldn't be an arms race?

Yes thank you, please make a market out of privacy!

edit: I should probably say, please prove that privacy respecting markets are viable, I'm not suggesting the commoditisation of everything, lol.

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#18

Post by Traster »

erdo wrote: post #5

Even without privacy considerations though, duckduckgo seems to give me better results, I've been using it as my default search engine for years

I moved over to duckduckgo too, but what I've found is that when I'm searching for some esoteric bug Google is way more likely to give me a decent result, to the point that I'll literally switch back to google for those types of issues.

Re: DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC, Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome

#20

Post by pharmakom »

I’m OK with ads and I’m even OK with personalised ads. I’m not OK with companies correlating my browsing with my real world identity or giving that data to governments.

Has anyone figured out some clever cryptography to enable personalised ads without the privacy concerns?

Post reply on HN