Ask HN: How to 100% turn off Google personalization for search?

#1

Post by tlogan » Fri, Oct 07, 2011, 10:18 PM UTC

I have problem that me (I'm in US) and my college (he is Europe) are getting different results for a search a Google query. We use the following to turn off personalization:

- we added `&pws=0` to query

- we use browser in incognito mode.

Is there any way to turn off personalization completely including IP adress tracking?

Re: Ask HN: How to 100% turn off Google personalization for search?

#2

Post by dpapathanasiou » Fri, Oct 07, 2011, 10:22 PM UTC

Use http://scroogle.org/ instead

Re: Ask HN: How to 100% turn off Google personalization for search?

#3

Post by ijt » Fri, Oct 07, 2011, 10:29 PM UTC

Have you tried http://disconnect.me/?

Re: Ask HN: How to 100% turn off Google personalization for search?

#4

Post by murz » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 12:09 AM UTC

http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#...

Re: Ask HN: How to 100% turn off Google personalization for search?

#5

Post by tlogan » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 1:09 AM UTC

murz wrote: post #4

http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#...

We are using incognito browser (no cookies).

Re: Ask HN: How to 100% turn off Google personalization for search?

#6

Post by tlogan » Sat, Oct 08, 2011, 1:13 AM UTC

ijt wrote: post #3

Have you tried http://disconnect.me/ ?

It does not help.

It seems like Google decides what to show by IP address - not sure if it based on history of queries from that IP address or based on location of IP address. The same query from my college's day work (just a couple of miles away) gives different results.

Re: Ask HN: How to 100% turn off Google personalization for search?

#7

Post by pilooch » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 5:51 AM UTC

tlogan wrote: post #6

ijt wrote: post #3

Have you tried http://disconnect.me/ ?

It does not help. It seems like Google decides what to show by IP address - not sure if it based on history of queries from that IP address or based on location of IP address. The same query from my college's day work (just a couple of miles away) gives different results.

Build a seeks node, http://www.seeks-project.info/, configure it to only use Google search as backend. The both of you can then use the Seeks frontend instead of Google, and you'll get the same results.

Additionnally, you guys will benefit from each other's actions on results.