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Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021

bleepingcomputer.com

81–90 of 93 posts

Re: Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021

#81

For day to day searching i use duckduckgo by default on every device. Not a lot because of privacy, something about that company ticks me off in terms of privacy. I like duckduckgo’s interface and I feel they genuinely put a lot of effort to ensure people have a great experience using their search engine. Whether its their !bang feature or integration with apple maps or their various themes. (Heck even their no js, s…

> I like duckduckgo’s interface and I feel they genuinely put a lot of effort to ensure people have a great experience using their search engine. Yeah, it seems like DDG is the only one that has any decent customization options. Custom theming is nice but not mandatory for me, the biggest ones for me are Center Alignment and Page Width set to Wide. It's not 1995 anymore, we have wide screens and having the search res…

Do people really use their web browsers in full screen? I've got an ultrawide screen and it's very rare that I have windows wider than about a quarter of my display.

But then I favor narrow-strip-of-text style web design too. I find it really hard to read long lines of text. I want 65-80 characters at most, like you'd find in a book.

Re: Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have that much of a problem with unobtrusive ads, but I do have a problem with data hoarding. How does Neeva tackle this?

> How does Neeva tackle this? Neeva is a paid product. I’ve enjoyed using Neeva, but not having the ability to make it the default engine in iOS/macOS (Safari) has made it cumbersome to use.

Neeva has a full featured free tier by the way. Glad you are enjoying it. Agree it sucks that Apple doesn’t let you choose Neeva as a default for Safari. The Neeva extensions on macOS and iOS provide a workaround that still lets you search from the URL bar.

Re: Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021

#83
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are in complete control. See the FAQ for more details ( https://neeva.com/faq ), but the main takeaway is data saved by Neeva is only to improve the product for you and you have the option to clear or disable such functionality. Neeva is just really transparent about that. Neeva is a tool for you and no one else. Products that show you ads can’t make such claims.

Thanks for the reply! I signed myself up but got put in a queue since I'm Swedish. Could I trick your system with a VPN maybe?

Yes, you can get around the geo restriction using a VPN. Note of course that the experience will not be optimized for your locale if you are outside the US (e.g., local searches for restaurants and such will not work well).

Re: Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021

#84

I really wish FRAND search APIs were mandated. This would enable new companies to compete on privacy and UX, and even make partly-FOSS solutions viable. Probably won’t happen unless/until Google angers enough legislators, so for now I’m trying Neeva. The iOS browser is still very much Beta quality, but the search experience has been pretty good. Not seeing ads has been refreshing, but I wish there was a way to say “d…

Thanks for trying Neeva! We’d of course love any feedback thru the in app support feature.

Re: Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021

#85
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Icons are proxied by DDG, so no data leaking there. Bing's API requires you provide them with an IP address and results are personalized to that address. Because DDG shows the same results to everybody, I assume they have a special deal with DDG and no PII is being sent to Bing. Disclaimer: I run https://okeano.com , a private search engine.

>Icons are proxied by DDG, so no data leaking there. Not according to the console view (F12) for images in the browser. You can also verify this with your firewall and dns lookups. >Disclaimer: I run https://okeano.com , a private search engine. Also uses bing.net, mm.bing.net for safe search and explicit.bing.net for not safe search, but with a GUID linked to every image it pulls in, so there is still traceability a…

> Not according to the console view (F12) for images in the browser. You can also verify this with your firewall and dns lookups.

Are you talking about the DDG browser? On the website, icos and other external content is proxied.

> Also uses bing.net, mm.bing.net for safe search and explicit.bing.net for not safe search, but with a GUID linked to every image it pulls in, so there is still traceability and thus accountability, ergo its not private.

We (Okeano) don't send any PII to Bing.

Re: Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021

#86

Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo is based and hosted in the U.S., and thus subject to U.S. court-and-gag orders. Just something to be aware of.

Do you have any proof they keep records of searchs and logs of ips/UINs for those searches?

In this case, you should provide the proof of the opposite)

Re: Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021

#88
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Icons are proxied by DDG, so no data leaking there. Not according to the console view (F12) for images in the browser. You can also verify this with your firewall and dns lookups. >Disclaimer: I run https://okeano.com , a private search engine. Also uses bing.net, mm.bing.net for safe search and explicit.bing.net for not safe search, but with a GUID linked to every image it pulls in, so there is still traceability a…

> Not according to the console view (F12) for images in the browser. You can also verify this with your firewall and dns lookups. Are you talking about the DDG browser? On the website, icos and other external content is proxied. > Also uses bing.net, mm.bing.net for safe search and explicit.bing.net for not safe search, but with a GUID linked to every image it pulls in, so there is still traceability and thus account…

>Are you talking about the DDG browser? On the website, icos and other external content is proxied.

In MS Edge they appear as separate external links pulled in to the webpage. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=some+query Press F12 Application Tab Frames, Expand Images and you can see the icons there.

>We (Okeano) don't send any PII to Bing.

What do you mean by PII? On its own its a jigsaw piece, with other jigsaw pieces you can build a picture. This is where the law, the words, are vague and open to interpretation. Its possible to assemble jigsaw pieces using metadata.

Re: Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021

#89
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not up to a search engine to decide what is true or false. If they want to play this game, it’s censorship.

Surely you don't think that it's Google's responsibility to return any random bullshit that happens to be on the internet? I go there to figure something out. I don't care that some conspiracy theorists believe the earth is flat, if I search for "theory of gravity" I don't want any flat earth garbage.

> Surely you don't think that it's Google's responsibility to return any random bullshit that happens to be on the internet?

Uh, yes? It's an internet search engine, it's literally its job.

Re: Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 46% in 2021

#90
I tried using DDG as the default for everything, but I consistently get inferior results, especially when I use `site:` searches. (I append `site:reddit.com` to many of my searches). I want to use DDG, but having to use `!g` so often really puts a wet blanket on the idea.
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