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Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

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Re: Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

#121

Post by newscracker »

projektir wrote: post #87
stevenjohns wrote: post #30

After everything that has happened in the last few weeks I've completely moved away from Google. 1. I retired my ~15 year old Gmail account and registered with Fastmail 2. I moved away from Chrome to Firefox on both my laptop and phone 3. I stopped using Chrome's password manager on iOS in favor of 1Password and Firefox Lockbox 4. I've mostly stopped using the Google search engine and now using DDG and Bing if I have…

> 1. I retired my ~15 year old Gmail account and registered with Fastmail I'm looking to switch my email. Any thoughts on Fastmail vs ProtonMail? Do you feel secure with Fastmail?

Assuming you're looking at paid services, I wouldn't recommend either of them as the first choice. Take a look at Posteo.de, Runbox, Mailfence and Mailbox.org before you decide. At least browse through their websites and see what they offer. All these services are a lot cheaper than Fastmail or Protonmail (more so if you need multiple mailboxes, not just aliases). All of them offer IMAP access on all platforms, which isn't available directly in ProtonMail and requires a "bridge" application to be installed and setup on computers.

Re: Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

#122

Post by aembleton »

ColanR wrote: post #25
seibelj wrote: post #15

The average tech person has been switching away from Google products, and this filters down to their social networks, and then their networks, and so on. It's a big deal when the tech people decide to switch. For me, it was Chrome making me log-in to my account. Now I use Firefox, DDG, ublock, privacy badger, etc. I think society writ large will begin to take privacy more seriously in the coming years. Edit FYI: If y…

There's all kinds of awesome 'bangs'. I realized it's actually easier to use the variety of google/bing search engines from ddg. google scholar: !gsc google images: !gi bing: !b

I find it easier to create keyword searches in Firefox

Re: Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

#123

Post by aembleton »

benjaminjackman wrote: post #94

Am I the only one that finds that the DDG’s bang commands actually make DuckDuckGo more useable than google, even for googles own products? E.g. it’s faster to type in a location and append !gm after (which will cause DuckDuckGo to redirect immediately to searching within google maps itself) than it is to click around on google to bring the maps up? (Likewise for google express !ge google images !gi and especially Yo…

I use ddg but don't use bangs. Instead I have 'map' and 'wiki' set up as keyword searches in Firefox. Then all I have to type is 'map London' to search Google Maps for London.

Just right click in a search box and you will see an 'Add a keyword for this search' option.

Re: Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

#124

Post by scns »

stevenjohns wrote: post #30

After everything that has happened in the last few weeks I've completely moved away from Google. 1. I retired my ~15 year old Gmail account and registered with Fastmail 2. I moved away from Chrome to Firefox on both my laptop and phone 3. I stopped using Chrome's password manager on iOS in favor of 1Password and Firefox Lockbox 4. I've mostly stopped using the Google search engine and now using DDG and Bing if I have…

With !sp you get startpage search results, google search under the hood.

Re: Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

#125

Post by scns »

qbaqbaqba wrote: post #119
cottsak wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a dev I was pretty anxious about the quality of results from DDG but a couple of months into my experiment I’ve only found myself going back to Google for dev-related searches a handful of times (maybe 2 handfuls). So I’m now sold on DDG. Yeh sure there are cool little helpers in Google that DDG doesn’t have (yet) but can’t think of any right now that I miss so they can’t be too important.

!g is very handy.

!sp even handier, dunno if that is a word, since english is not my first language.

Re: Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

#126

Post by kmlx »

gregorygoc wrote: post #17
kmlx wrote: post #13

is it possible to get personalized search results when using duck duck go?

The whole point of DDG is that they don’t personalize results.

I would love to try out a search engine that would be able to offer personalised results while still being relatively private. Otherwise the feeling I get from DDG is a step back both in user experience, and from a general tech point of view.

Re: Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

#127

Post by ricardonunez »

copperx wrote: post #22
ricardonunez wrote: post #21

I switched earlier this year. It takes some time to get used to it. I used to !g often. It doesn't feel as intuitive at knowing what you are looking like Google. Addresses and map integration is not that good either and does not come even close to Google. It is a good enough. I have their app on my phone as my search tool, which I miss Google maps more often.

I've found that Google is better when you're doing research and your net is wide (e.g., rectal cancer incidence in Hispanics). Searching for specific and/or popular things works great on DuckDuckGo.

Definitely. When you search for technical stuff or specific things that you are not sure what you are looking, Google results is better. but as a day to day quick searches DDG does a good job. I hope as they increase revenue they get better.

Re: Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

#128

Post by mygo »

mgalgs wrote: post #84
mygo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched away from Google to Bing on my iPhone because I like to Google in incognito mode for basically everything... and recently Google’s added some annoying friction to that. I started Googling in incognito when Google decided to return “personalized” search results instead of standard results, a few years ago. I was always more interested in the normal results than whatever Google thought I specifically wanted…

I've never seen this behavior by Google in incognito... Wonder if they're doing some questionable browser/os fingerprinting to track you??

It happens more often when I copy and paste the search instead of type it in. So for example I’ve already searched on Bing and I don’t like the results. So I copy and paste the query on Google in a fresh incognito mode instead of retype (I use Safari on iOS so maybe that helps with recreating it)

Other times when I don’t copy and paste I’m just Googling stuff related to my work as a programmer. And I’m guessing since I don’t always use natural language it raises a few flags? I’m not sure.

This was before we had wifi at this house (just got it last month) so I was using a cellular connection almost exclusively, except when at a coffee shop or something.

But I’m a fully coherent human and I can attest that it happened often enough for me to get annoyed by it real fast.

Re: Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

#129

Post by mygo »

Alterlife wrote: post #107
mgalgs wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen this behavior by Google in incognito... Wonder if they're doing some questionable browser/os fingerprinting to track you??

I haven't seen this in incognito either... which is probably why op is being downvoted. I didn't downvote because I feel bad for OP, but the information is innacurate according to my personal experience, which IMO is a actually good reason to bury it. -- edit: By the way I DO see the traffic lights, crossroads etc and can sometimes NEVER get past them sometimes when using Tor, so this might have something to do with…

> By the way I DO see the traffic lights, crossroads etc and can sometimes NEVER get past them sometimes when using Tor, so this might have something to do with google restricting op's network provider rather than incognito mode.

When I do a Google search outside of private mode I’m logged in to my Google account. Under that scenario I’m pretty much never asked to prove I’m not a robot. Same when visiting websites who have that “I’m not a robot” checkbox. When I’m in private mode I have to train datasets. When I’m not in private mode I just hit the checkbox and I’m not a robot.

For me there is a direct correlation between being in private mode on mobile Safari and being asked to click on street signs and sidewalks.

- 100% of the time when clicking “I’m not a robot” checkboxes (which I don’t really mind),

- and pretty reliably (although not always) when doing a google search on a fresh private window on mobile Safari (which I do mind because I get sidetracked for a minute and exit my search mode mindset)

Re: Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo hits 30M daily searches, up 50% in a year

#130

Post by petra »

stevenjohns wrote: post #30

After everything that has happened in the last few weeks I've completely moved away from Google. 1. I retired my ~15 year old Gmail account and registered with Fastmail 2. I moved away from Chrome to Firefox on both my laptop and phone 3. I stopped using Chrome's password manager on iOS in favor of 1Password and Firefox Lockbox 4. I've mostly stopped using the Google search engine and now using DDG and Bing if I have…

With Google analytics installed everywhere, half the world still using gmail, and various browser fingerprinting techniques, is it really effective ?
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