DuckDuckGo as default search engine

[JBGood]

Moonchild has posted an FAQ on "Why was the default search changed to DuckDuckGo?" ( http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=4016&p=23683#p23683 ).

Of course DuckDuckGo is an interesting search engine and a valuable alternative to Google, but perhaps is it worth mentioning that it is not a nirvana should we take into consideration what is known of the Duck engine.

An interesting article on a French website titled "Les alternatives pour ceux qui veulent se passer de Google" ("Alternatives for those who wish to avoid Google") states :

Source : http://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/alternatives-pour-ceux-qui-veulent-se-passer-google-fabrice-epelboin-996993.html

Si DuckDuckGo a, un temps, été présenté comme l'alternative "anti NSA" à Google, une rapide analyse à l'aide d'utilitaires tels que lightbeam - une extension Mozilla Firefox - vous montrera qu'il n'est pas si respectueux que cela de votre vie privée, et pour cause, son modèle d'affaire dépend de commissions reversées par des partenaires, et il est loin d'être évident de faire cela sans pister ses utilisateurs.

Par ailleurs, DuckDuckGo utilise pour son infrastructure le Cloud d'Amazon. Si c'est un choix technique intelligent en terme de capacité à monter en charge, on peut raisonnablement se poser des questions quand on sait qu'Amazon est aussi le principal fournisseur de services Cloud de la CIA et qu’ils ont promptement obéit au gouvernement américain - au mépris du premier amendement - quand celui-ci leur a demandé de mettre hors ligne Wikileaks... Bref, DuckDuckGo est loin d'être aussi propre que ce qu'ils veulent bien vous faire croire.

Bing's translation :

If DuckDuckGo, [at one] time, was presented as the alternative \"anti NSA\" to Google, a rapid analysis using utilities such as lightbeam - a Mozilla Firefox extension - will show you that it is not so friendly that your right to privacy and for cause, its business model depends on commissions donated by partners, and it is far from clear to do this without tracing its users.

In addition, DuckDuckGo uses for its infrastructure the Amazon Cloud. If this is a technical smart choice in terms of ability to mount support, it is reasonable to ask questions when we know that Amazon is also the leading provider of Cloud of the CIA services and that they are promptly obeys the U.S. Government – defiance of the first amendment - when it asked them to take Wikileaks offline... In short, DuckDuckGo is far from being as clean as what they want to make you believe.

Consequently, I believe that whatever the search engine we should remain aware that even the modest have ears.

[Night Wing]

Maybe all search engines have "ears". Some search engines ears may be larger than other search engines ears. But if one is going to use a search engine; whether one uses Google, Duck Duck Go, Ixquick, Slikk, etc, one should choose the search engine with the least amount of ears if privacy is a concern.

[JBGood]

Maybe all search engines have "ears". Some search engines ears may be larger than other search engines ears. But if one is going to use a search engine; whether one uses Google, Duck Duck Go, Ixquick, Slikk, etc, one should choose the search engine with the least amount of ears if privacy is a concern.

Quite plausible. Anyway an alternative to an omnipotent search engine is in itself an attitude I appreciate. But as you mention it, and that was my point, there's no heaven neither on Earth neither in its clouds.

The general idea is comparable to the assurance felt by a user whose system is bundled with antivirus, antimalware and who assumes that consequently he can surf the Web blindly. Of course security/privacy infrastructure is essential but let it not blind us to the fact that a 100% protection would be included. Same with many Web services, search engines included. Staying aware, one step behind paranoia seems reasonable. After all, as Woody Allen states it "It's not because I'm paranoid that I don't have enemies"

[Moonchild]

Keep in mind that the internet is a public place. (One of the blog posts I will re-post on the forum soon will remind you of that)

What DDG does is at least ensure that any requests for user data "from the source" are not possible, since they are not retained.
Also, DDG uses https which makes any eavesdropping on-the-wire unfeasible, even aside of the fact that intercepting search traffic streams provides disjointed data that isn't really much good for profiling. This leaves the NSA with very little to "spy on".

As much as you shouldn't blindly trust AV, you also shouldn't blindly trust what an add-on tells you. Lightbeam (formerly collusion) may provide you with third party link visualization, but that doesn't say anything at all about what data is stored or transmitted. Just because there's a link on a page doesn't mean that the linked-to site can automatically know you have visited the 1st party site, which has always been and still is a weakness of the add-on, making things look a lot "worse" than they really are. In addition, the add-on itself is a nice tool for information gathering by third parties -- so make sure the data is never mined from the add-on (and never "contribute data")

[Trinoc]

I'm sure no search engine is perfect regarding privacy, but there are so many good alternatives to Google it seems foolish not to use them. If you want the range of Google's results without the tracking, use StartPage, which submits an anonymised Google request for you.

StartPage and IxQuick both have an anonymous proxy so you can choose to view the searched page without connecting directly, and it does a moderately good job of anonymising links within the page (but always check the url your browser is displaying before clicking).

[Moonchild]

Trinoc: Proxying a request to Google still has the issue that the results you receive are based on previous searches, i.e.: very much depending on what other people have searched for recently. It's one of the things I wanted to avoid.

[Trinoc]

Trinoc: Proxying a request to Google still has the issue that the results you receive are based on previous searches, i.e.: very much depending on what other people have searched for recently. It's one of the things I wanted to avoid.

I assumed (perhaps naively) that Google would have the sense not to profile results based on previous searches from proxy sites. Maybe not. Anyway, the point is that there are plenty of good alternatives. I have all of the ones I know about in my search bar alternatives.

[Moonchild]

Yup, there's plenty of alternatives. And of course everyone is free to use whatever they prefer - short of adding an exhaustive list that would serve no purpose, people are of course free to find search plugins that work best for them.

DDG was added a long while back to Pale Moon, and considering the issues solved by using it (and the improvement of DDG search results in the last 6 months), it's a sane choice for Pale Moon to have as default search provider from now on, instead of Google.

[JBGood]

Trinoc: Proxying a request to Google still has the issue that the results you receive are based on previous searches, i.e.: very much depending on what other people have searched for recently. It's one of the things I wanted to avoid.

Besides the privacy issue (one's history is made available for sites as well as non-encrypted cookies) there is a human aspect which may stun some of us and delight others, that is the fact of having a search engine (Google, not DDG nor several others) take the user's history as a parameter for results delivery. This is appreciated by many users who like to find what is in accordance to themselves, and not at all by others who search for "raw results" independent of what their history on the web may reflect of their personality and therefore quest.

By the way, not only one's history if history is the word for visited sites, but also the cache itself (downloaded data either in memory or in disk cache) gather an invaluable amount of information accessible for sites if I believe what the author of the Self-Destructing Cookies add-on had emailed me, and that fact being taken care of with his add-on's options.

As many, I like the set and forget attitude, allowing a surf free of excessive questionings regarding privacy and security, but reality sometimes just imposes itself and reminds the user not to fall too deeply asleep.

Browser_Cache.png

[dark_moon]

Funny. Pale moon have a long time now DuckDuckGo as search engine and now because of our request as default engine. So why you now have problems with that?
It't a lot of better then google and you can set is back. You can as well config another search engine as default.

And i agree with Moonchild. Search engine which send a (anonym - you know that 100%?) request to google isn't so good.

I think DuckDuckGo is now the best search engine for privacy and have good results.

[JBGood]

Funny. Pale moon have a long time now DuckDuckGo as search engine and now because of our request as default engine. So why you now have problems with that?
It't a lot of better then google and you can set is back. You can as well config another search engine as default.

And i agree with Moonchild. Search engine which send a (anonym - you know that 100%?) request to google isn't so good.

I think DuckDuckGo is now the best search engine for privacy and have good results.

No problem at all with DDG, dark-moon! 'twas only a general consideration on search engines.
I don't use Google Search (though I have several counter-measures in case I would!), in fact I switch between 3 engines, DDG, Startpage and Qwant (a French engine).
DDG is fine and, apart of considerations including all search engines, if there is a practical detail I miss with DDG it is its inadequacy to sort results by date. It does have that option available but it's not really as enhanced as, say, Startpage. But the !bang feature is much appreciated. I really move around my searches with those 3 engines.

[jumba]

Remember to !bang the duck!

!g --> encrypted google

Makes it even more reasonable for a default search engine.

[dark_moon]

Ah ok, then i misunderstood your first post.

[megaman]

Some guy posted on a YouTube video regarding the changes about the All-In-One Google experience.
"If I were to be looking for *****, then the next day I am doing an activity with my daughter for school and I am looking for ***** (or just cat), I will end up seeing ads based on my previous searches? No thank you, Google!"
Now, I don't recommend that he uses his own personal computer, but that doesn't overrule the IP addressed shared with all PCs in the house. You guys get the general idea why Google wouldn't be a good alternative. I still can say that different PC will be different and other stuff that can prevent Google from displaying such ads.

[JBGood]

Some guy posted on a YouTube video regarding the changes about the All-In-One Google experience.
"If I were to be looking for *****, then the next day I am doing an activity with my daughter for school and I am looking for ***** (or just cat), I will end up seeing ads based on my previous searches? No thank you, Google!"
Now, I don't recommend that he uses his own personal computer, but that doesn't overrule the IP addressed shared with all PCs in the house. You guys get the general idea why Google wouldn't be a good alternative. I still can say that different PC will be different and other stuff that can prevent Google from displaying such ads.

So true!
I used to have a Google account, mainly for its Gmail. I closed the account just prior to March 1st, 2012, when the company's privacy policy aimed at "universality" (and became since).
Now, don't let be misunderstood, no hate towards no one and no hate towards whatever company. especially when that company trades our privacy for at least products, services of very high quality (discussion about web search remains). Google has a very high degree of excellency in sophisticated services presented with simplicity of use (compare them to Microsoft's!), but at the end I guess it's the user's choice to make his balance.

On another hand, what I dislike with Google as well as with 2-3 other web-wide companies (but I had already mentioned that in previous topics) is the fact that the tracking issues on all users whether they be logged in or not of their Google account, whether even they have no Google account.

Universality seems to take into consideration even those who have not or have lost faith !

[pmirek]

Come on guys. My 1st impresion was what a crap (ddg), but I needed 10 min to look around and admit it's pretty cool. The only thing you need to continue with google is g!. But you are free again. You want a direct searches - go for !amazon, !wordpress, etc. No more google profiling. You get what you want. Isn't what you need?