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Which privacy-focused search engine are you using? (self.technology)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by schmurnan to c/technology

91 comments fedilink hide all child comments

TL;DR - which privacy-focused search engine do people recommend, preferably one that can also easily be used as a default option in Safari?

I ditched Google in about 2016ish I would guess, and since then have used DDG as my default search engine.

As someone entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, it’s always seemed like a sound choice, as it’s one of the search engines built in to Safari on both iOS and macOS.

After spending a bit more time recently playing around with and updating my Docker containers, I started hosting a Whoogle container, which seemed to work pretty well, but I don’t see many out there talking about it, so not sure how good it actually is. I then tried a SearXNG container, but either had it misconfigured or just wasn’t getting many search results back.

At the moment I’m trying out Startpage, but I know there are potential privacy concerns since they were part-bought in 2019 by a US ad-tech company.

I’m also playing around with different browsers at the moment, flicking between Safari, Firefox and Brave. At which point I stumbled across Brave Search, which seems pretty promising.

So, which search engines do you all recommend?

UPDATE: Probably should’ve done a poll! But latest (if I’ve captured everything correctly) is:

DuckDuckGo - 10
Qwant / SearXNG / Kagi / Brave - 4
Startpage / Ecosia - 2
Google - 1

As to my other questions around browsers:

Majority seem to use Firefox
Some mentions of Brave
One mention of Arc

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

ddg.gg for the win.

Started using them when I confronted the Google filter bubble for the first time.

But what totally sold me? DDG provided me link for a product I had searched for in vain on Google for years at that point, using the exact same query.

[–] Mrduckrocks 10 points 1 year ago

I used to think Google search was clean until I used ddg. For some reason I prefer how ddg display searches.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Please reveal the product. I am consumed by curiosity.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Steel leveling jacks, manual, center screw variety, used extensively for leveling mobile homes back in the day.

First time I used DDG to look for them, BOOM, half way down the page a manufacturer in Enid, OK. G? Literally for years kept serving me up pneumatic, expensive, industrial gear or services.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That is definitely not what I was expecting

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your post may have just convinced me to try ddg. My problem with Google is that increasingly it does not give me what I am looking for and instead gives me what it thinks I should want. From your description it sounds like ddg is what Google used to be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Pretty much. They deliver a couple of sponsored entries per search, but even those have been occasionally productive. No harm in trying for a while, you can always change if it’s not working. GL&HF!