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Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

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Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#131

Post by kccqzy »

brnt wrote: post #41
sascha_sl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reporting that there is a policy is no bug, but maybe there should be a way to signify that it's customized by your software vendor (i.e. signed and keys are compiled in) and that it just sets the default search engine. Chromium does change the message to "This device is managed by " if attached to Chrome Enterprise.

Being "managed by" and loading a policy config do not equate in meaning, unless we let PR departments redefine words. Moreover, defaulting to Google is also a policy.

The policy config is designed for enterprises, not software distributors. It's Debian that's taking an unnecessary shortcut here. They could've patched the source code to change the default search engine.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#132

Post by rvnx »

oblak wrote: post #18
BeefWellington wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common? Probably not. It's not unheard of though. See: Ubuntu.

It was so cool to have amazon snoop on your presumably local searches...

It's hosted by Microsoft now, not Amazon anymore

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#133

Post by MichaelCollins »

tremon wrote: post #121
unknownaccount wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know what server-side profiling occurs or does not occur? There is no way to know that. DDG gives people a completely misplaced and false sense of security, when they are just as easily comprimisable/corruptable/subpoenable/susceptible to NSLs, EDRs and secret court orders as any other company. And I disagree with your premise that it's particularly difficult to link a persons IP to their real world identi…

Even if they do server-side profiling, they can only track you on duckduckgo.com. Last I checked, DDG did not also own an analytics service that has infested half the world's websites.

> Last I checked, DDG did not also own an analytics service that has infested half the world's websites.

uMatrix shows a 3rd party request to improving.duckduckgo.com every time I visit a page from DDG search results, ostensibly to measure click-through rate. This is claimed to be anonymous, but in principle it gives DDG the opportunity to log much about their users' browsing habits.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#134

Post by rvnx »

yegg wrote: post #27
rvnx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

We (at DuckDuckGo) actually have no current relationship (or commercial deal) with Debian. They did this on their own. That is, there is no revenue share here. Also, we no longer use the Amazon affiliate program, or Yahoo for that matter, and we don't (and never have had) any idea what any individual bought.

Oh wow, so the deal is actually 0% revshare. And I thought I was a weak negotiator... :D

Well congrats then.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#135

Post by okasaki »

DannyBee wrote: post #106
candiddevmike wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a Chromium bug, not a Debian bug--it's an insidious way to keep Google search as the default.

Uh, no? This is managed policy, and this is a 100% good way of letting the user know that someone else has control of their settings Just because Debian thinks that they are doing the right thing, they are in fact, controlling the user's settings through a policy It's just telling you that, as it should. The notion that it has anything to do with keeping search the default or not is like, such a silly assumption i do…

The messaging does seem excessive and hostile.

It says "Managed by your organization." every time you click the menu button. It's even in a different background color and bigger margins.

If you click it, it says "Your administrator can change your browser setup remotely. Activity on this device may also be managed outside of Chromium. Learn more"

I made the policy myself and copied it myself. The remote part is purely conjecture on part of Google. The second part about further management also feels out of place.

Then on every setting that's been changed by policy there's a building icon that says "This setting has been changed by your administrator." That's probably the only message that needs to be there.

On its own it seems innocent and useful, but compare this to the number of steps you have to take to eg.: delete Google cookies.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#136

Post by encryptluks2 »

drexlspivey wrote: post #53
teloli wrote: post #20

Context and rationale here: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=956012

TLDR > Hey let’s change the default engine to DDG > I’ve used DDG for a week, let’s do it!

The way they did it shows lack of experience as well, as this will enforce the change to all users rather than simply change the default profile settings upon creation.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#137

Post by Tijdreiziger »

isaacremuant wrote: post #95
marginalia_nu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flattering. Unfortunately my search engine is far away, both in terms of functionality and hardware capacity from being able to deal with that. Maybe some day, who knows, but not yet. Even if I'm destined to make the Linux of search engines, we're metaphorically living in 1992 or so. Would be funny though because it's both developed on a Debian workstation and hosted on a Debian server.

After DDG decided they would censor material they considered misinformation from Russia I went out search engine shopping and I'm using brave search. I value transparency and fairness and can make my own mind about things (I remember when being against the Iraq or Lybia wars made you a terrorist sympsthizer). Do you have any stance there? (I'm not saying you should have one or agree with mine, just curious. Every sea…

By its very definition, a search engine promotes results it deems relevant, and downranks (or 'censors') results it deems irrelevant.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#138

Post by vhgyu75e6u »

rlpb wrote: post #119

DDG is a more practical default than Google simply because I don't get a "We'd like to abuse your personal data" pop-up that gets in the way every time I open an Incognito window to search for something.

Sadly I have found the DDG lacking, most times I have to go back to Google to find information that just doesn't show up on DDG. As an example, I don't have Twitter but I follow certain sport journalist with a huge following, all thanks to his Twitter. When I search for his name + twitter, DDG shows me articles about the journalist and even a Facebook page link, but not his twitter even if it is in the query and his handle is literally his name!

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#139

Post by Kukumber »

What a mistake

It is literally against anything Debian has done the past decades

Why would they choose a proprietary software and proprietary service?

Chromium at least has a BSD like license and is open source [1], the search provider alternative should be similar

Literally nobody can confirm DDG's privacy claims, they refused every independent audits and your search is leaking to their servers [2], it happened again [3]

And let's not forget the Microsoft Bing trackers ;)

[1] - https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/HEAD/LICENS...

[2] - https://github.com/duckduckgo/Android/issues/527

[3] - https://github.com/duckduckgo/Android/issues/2004

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#140

Post by torpid »

yegg wrote: post #122
torpid wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still haven't convinced me, or many others who used your service to the contrary, and your explanation like in this thread here doesn't match what you are preaching. https://twitter.com/pkm_inc/status/1515677462251945986

I’m honestly not sure what you are referring to as the contrary or contradiction here. The referenced help page is the most complete explanation of how our news rankings work. Put another way, what would it take to convince you?

You were given a screenshot with quoted text from an article that returned completely buried results in your search engine from the same rt.com article. You first replied by giving a person a URL to the RT.com article to search in the engine which brought up a result. Then when someone called you out on it you then said you'd get back to them.

Now today since I've linked this thread, you have now changed who could reply.

It's pretty clear that you will say or do anything to try to save your tanking company.

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