Turning the tables on google

[NachtRitter]

Also take a look at the TOR project: https://www.torproject.org/

[California98Civic]

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but I use Mozilla Firefox exclusively as my browser, and use DckDuckGo and Start Page for searches and OpenStreetMap for maps. I do also use google and facebook but I regularly delete flash cookies and have Firefox set to delete ordinary cookies every time I close it.

[freebeard]

NachtRitter -- I was going to stick to touting baby steps; but, yeah, that's a big one.

Also Bitcoin and Litecoin.

I'm also watching Bitmessage. It's based on Satoshi Yakamoto's algorithm; but it's only up to v0.32. It needs more external auditing.

California98Civic -- I have Opera locked down like you can Firefox. My worst sin is Youtube. It know me better than I know myself—instead of the number of views, one link said 'Recommended for you'.

I just say 'know' to Flash, it's too much of an attack vector. There's still too much to see without it.

Facebook? I laughed when everyone bolted from Myspace. Wouldn't touch it.

[Xist]

Freebeard, I am glad that I am not the only Opera user on here. As I mentioned in another thread, one of my friends saw it, asked what it was, and immediately said "Use Firefox! It's better!"

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by freebeard

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo

In case anyone doesn't get why this is important, here's this:

I think I disagree about this. I would prefer a search engine that is customizable, so that if I for instance search for the term "heavy metal", I would not have to wade through endless pages of garbage about movies and "music" without seeing a single reference to uranium, vanadium, or even lead.

[Arragonis]

DuckDuckGo was selected as the "preferred" search engine in Linux Mint earlier this year (and maybe earlier than that and since too, I only played with it earlier this year).

It was selected because they would share ad revenue with the Mint team.

But to do this, i.e. to add up all the 0.001 cents into a single cheque to write every month they would have to store something about the user who clicked - at the very least what operating system they run.

This is where the grey area starts - what is unique about the user and what is not ?

The OS info is a start - e.g. if it includes version info and a security vuln appears then you have your targets identified, at least the unpatched ones.

But a blanket "we don't store anything" is just woo.

[freebeard]

jamesqf -- There's nothing stopping you from using multiple search engines; but the search term is customizable, for example "+uranium +vanadium +lead -Felder".

Arragonis -- That's the type of criticism I'm looking for.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by freebeard

jamesqf -- There's nothing stopping you from using multiple search engines; but the search term is customizable, for example "+uranium +vanadium +lead -Felder".

But why should I have to do that work, when a search engine could "learn" to do it for me? And of course this example presupposes that I already know enough about heavy metals to a) name some of them; and b) know terms to use to exclude crap.

This seems true at all levels. Take for instance Google News. It's supposed to be somewhat customizable, so I could in theory get news that isn't stuffed with sports & activities of "celebrities"; tech news that isn't 90% games, and so on. But the customization doesn't work, which means I waste time, and often miss really interesting things, because I can't define a working personalized crap filter.

PS: I do use 3 search engines. An older version of Opera, because it has the best user interface, a new version of Opera, because some pages don't render in the old version, and Firefox because some things (like Google Docs) don't work correctly in either Opera.

[Xist]

One of the recent versions of Opera had the added feature of crashing when I clicked on the icon. I reinstalled it several times, without effect, and finally installed an old version.

Now I have 32-bit and 64-bit. I would use the latter if I could transfer my stuff.

[UltArc]

On Windows, Opera all day everyday. On macintosh, I have to go with Chrome. But also on macintosh, more than three tabs and regardless of processor size, their are twitches and freezes and endless pinwheels.

I still like google to search, but I think it's sad the limited character input size.