As asked.

  • Frosty@lemm.ee
    727·
    2 years ago

    I recommend startpage.com over duckduckgo. It provides at least the same privacy as DDG while having generally better results because it uses google’s results instead of bing’s.

    Edit: The ultimate search engine though, as mentioned by macattack, is SearxNG because it combines privacy with every other search engine and even allows you to mix and match your result sources.

  • macattack@lemmy.world
    391·
    2 years ago

    I self-host searXNG, but you can use one of the public instances as well. My understanding is that it is more secure because you’re search results are commingled with whoever else uses the instance, but you also can use something like libredirect to further distribute your search results across various instances for further security

    • JetpackJackson@feddit.de
      9·
      2 years ago

      How exactly do you self host your own searxng instance? Also, based on what you said, wouldn’t having your own instance make you stand out more?

      • elvith@feddit.de
        12·
        2 years ago

        Having your own instance can be bad for privacy, as all your searches come from your IP (hosted at home) or the same IP (hosted on a server). They might not be traced to you personally, but you might still get personalized results or your search may still be tracked, depending on how they track you.

        That’s circumvented when using it with some or better many other people. But then, you need to trust the admin of that instance.

        Self-hosted is easy if you know a bit about servers. You need a domain pointing to a server. If it’s the only thing hosted on that server and you have set up docker on it, you can just follow their instructions here to get it running in less than 5 minutes (assuming you run the default config and don’t customize all of the settings for a while): https://github.com/searxng/searxng-docker?tab=readme-ov-file#how-to-use-it

        • JetpackJackson@feddit.de
          3·
          2 years ago

          Ah ok gotcha. So it’s a trade-off of having the instance always up vs privacy? Interesting. Thanks for the detailed info! I keep meaning to get into self hosting lol

          • elvith@feddit.de
            4·
            2 years ago

            No, it’s not „always up“.

            There are three main ways how Google, Bing,… can track you:

            1. When you’re doing a search while being logged in, it’s probably you
            2. If you’re not logged in, they can set a cookie to recognize you on your next visit (although they may not be able to link this to you, your email address,… but that’s not needed). They may mix your searches with those of the other users of your PC, when those are using the same PC, browser and account (e.g. if you have a family PC with a single windows/Linux account that everyone uses)
            3. Even if you’re not logged in and don’t accept / delete your cookies, they still see your IP. Depending on your ISP you might have the same Ip for a long time or you might have it rotated regularly. Now they could only track the searches of your household (assuming everyone isn’t logging in and deleting cookies immediately)

            With Searxng, they can only do the last variant. But assuming you use a “real” server in the internet (and not one at home), it will likely have the same IP for its lifetime. And if you’re using it alone, that’s the only thing they need to identify you and track your searches. The more other people use your instance, the less useful this kind of tracking gets. Too much noise to identify a single person.

      • macattack@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 years ago

        Someone already gave an extensive comment about how to set things up so I will skip that part.

        Good observation re: self hosting potentially reducing privacy. The way that I keep my privacy during self-hosting is to completely avoid search engines that track my IP address, and then, ideally, although the remaining search engines are less efficient than the likes of Google or Bing, the fact that the results are aggregated hopefully increase the efficiency of the results.

        For my default searches, it uses mwmbl, mojeek & qwant

  • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    231·
    2 years ago

    I use startpage.

    Also a bit unrelated, but I just found that Gigablast shut down 10 months ago. And also this (a bit earlier) comment from the author: (source)

    Yeah, Google forced my search engine basically out of business. I had ixquick.com as a big client at one time; I was providing them with search results from my custom web search engine. Then their CEO called me one day and told me he was cancelling, even though he’d been a client for over 10 years. He said it was because of some change Google had made to their agreement. Ixquick needed Google’s results and ads for their startpage.com website, and, even though my results were shown on their ixquick.com and later ixquick.eu sites, apparently Google wasn’t good with that.

  • Squizzy@lemmy.world
    17·
    2 years ago

    I want to take this time to say DDG is getting worse in the hopes they reverse course if I say it enough times.

    They are giving location based results even when location is off. They are putting us in the bubble they based their marketing around being outside of

    • burrito@sh.itjust.works
      7·
      2 years ago

      It could be a regional outage. Something like duckduckgo isn’t going to be run from a single location so the individual experiences are going to vary.

  • FIST_FILLET@lemmy.ml
    192·
    2 years ago

    duckduckgo is a US company and the CEO is the previous founder of The Names Database. i don’t know how anyone trusts it when there are so many EU alternatives

  • kaputter Aimbot@feddit.de
    15·
    2 years ago

    MetaGer is a metasearch engine focused on protecting users’ privacy. Based in Germany, and hosted as a cooperation between the German NGO ‘SUMA-EV - Association for Free Access to Knowledge’ and the University of Hannover, the system is built on 24 small-scale web crawlers under MetaGer’s own control. In September 2013, MetaGer launched MetaGer.net, an English-language version of their search engine.

    And it was initially founded in 1996!

    _Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaGer_

    It currently supports the following languages/regions:

    Dansk (Danmark)

    Deutsch (Österreich/Schweiz/Deutschland)

    English (Great Britain/Ireland/Malaysia/USA)

    Español (España/México)

    Suomalainen (Suomi)

    Français (Canada/France)

    Italiano (Italia)

    Nederlands (Nederland)

    Polski (Polska)

    Svenska (Sverige)

    _Source: https://metager.org/lang_

    There is a TOR-hidden service too:

    https://metager.org/tor

    It is open source:

    https://gitlab.metager.de/open-source/MetaGer

    And other useful features, for example:

    That you can hide yourself behind our proxyserver just by opening the result anonymously? Use “OPEN ANONYMOUSLY”; this also affects the following links.

    _Source: https://metager.org/tips_

    Alternatively I use some SearxNG-instances, preferably hosted in the EU:

    https://searx.space/

  • Zicoxy3@lemmy.ml
    12·
    2 years ago

    I’ve used DDG for years but I’m worried that Microsoft has some power with them. Also that its headquarters is in the US, where there are hardly any laws that protect the user. I used Qwant for a season, based in France, but he asked me to remove the browser’s ad blocker. Since then, I use a SearXNG instance, waiting to mount my own. Very happy.

    • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      I was cheeky and put Lemmy into the “find a website” menu and it listed off a bunch of instances.

      • Nyanix@lemmy.ca
        2·
        2 years ago

        If you’ve used Kagi, it has a feature much like “lens” to raise the weight of fediverse results too

    • Myaa@beehaw.org
      21·
      2 years ago

      I really want to like stract but I can’t get it to give me good results. I typically search for programming related things and it has difficulty pulling up relevant information regarding things like documentation and posts regarding the issue.

      • Nyanix@lemmy.ca
        2·
        2 years ago

        That’s fair, I can’t say I’ve daily-driven it yet since I’ve still got my Kagi sub, but I’m thinking of defaulting it on my work computer to put it through its paces. It’s done fairly well with some of my tests, but definitely seems to still be getting refined, I’ve noticed recent information can be difficult to find on it

    • mac@infosec.pub
      1·
      2 years ago

      Second this, it’s fast and they have good privacy practices as far as I’m aware.

      • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        Yeah I noticed that, it’s why I don’t really use them. Astroturfed to shit.

        EDIT: OMG unrelated but i’m so glad you wrote https://dessalines.github.io/essays/nietzsche.html because I got into arguments on hexbear over that guy being a fascist POS and it’s so vindicating to read someone backing me up on that after all the gaslighting they put me through.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
          2·
          2 years ago

          Thx! I have no why some ppl twist their brains in knots trying to defend nietzche. I still come across ppl who read that and try to say he actually meant the opposite.

          • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.mlEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            I know right! And I’m the problematic one for pointing out just how ridiculous that reasoning is.

      • AusatKeyboardPremi@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 years ago

        Contributing here with another sample point.

        I did not find the mentioned link on either search engines’ first page of results.

        DuckDuckGo:

        StartPage:

        I am not sure why a black bar appears when taking a full page screenshot of StartPage on Safari for iOS, but both screenshots are unedited and uploaded as-is.

        • AusatKeyboardPremi@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 years ago

          The screenshot for StartPage is blurred for some reason. Re-uploading again:

          E: Re-uploaded a fresh copy after restarting Voyager.

      • ridethisbike@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 years ago

        Your page isn’t blocked. I found it on DDG just fine. Second page, as the other commenter pointed out.

        What else are you claiming gets censored? Would love to put it to the test myself.

        Edit: and startpage has it on page 3. Are you claiming they censored you out, as well?