If you are interested in protecting your privacy you will find many practical and useful tips in The Complete Guide to Computer Security… for Mere Mortals. The security and privacy of your personal information is within your control. Read the report and start to protect yourself now.
Duck Duck Go – A Search Engine for Those Conscious About Privacy. Are you conscious about your privacy while on the Internet? Of course you are because you are a discerning reader of the Q Wealth Report. As privacy seekers ourselves, we are always on the watch for ways to improve our security while on the Internet and thereby increase our privacy.
The problem is that most of us have had to accept the fact that Google is tracking basically everything we do. Often this tracking is done whether we like it or not. After all, the services from Google are so widespread that frequent it’s all but impossible to spend more than a few minutes online without having to log in to your Google account. It doesn’t have to be that way. A viable alternative that we are working on using is the privacy-friendly DuckDuckGo search engine. Listen to what the DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg explains:
Most of us have had to accept the fact that Google is tracking basically everything we do, whether we like it or not. After all, the companies services are so ubiquitous that it’s all but impossible to spend more than a few minutes online without having to log in to your Google account, but as DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg explains, it doesn’t have to be this way.
In a recent AMA hosted on Y Combinator’s Hacker News, Weinberg dispelled the notion that search engines have to mine through user data in order to stay afloat:
“DuckDuckGo is actually profitable! It is a myth you need to track people to make money in Web search,” wrote Weinberg. “Most of the money is still made without tracking people by showing you ads based on your keyword, i.e. type in car and get a car ad.”
“These ads are lucrative because people have buying intent. All that tracking is for the rest of the Internet without this search intent, and that’s why you’re tracked across the Internet with those same ads.”
It sounds simple enough, right? You search for a Honda Accord, you get an ad for a Honda Accord. You search for news about the PlayStation 4 price drop, you get an ad for PS4. No tracking necessary.
As for the future of the anonymous search engine, here’s what Weinberg says he and the team are working on:
“Our long-term focus is really on the instant answers, and we hope to really build up the DuckDuckHack platform to a point where the majority of searches have instant answers on par or better than the links.”
In the meantime, Weinberg says that the only real issue the platform is facing is its relatively slow spread, so if you want to let your friends and family know about DuckDuckGo, head to this link: https://duckduckgo.com/spread.
So it is possible to use a privacy-friendly search engine. Using Safari for Mac as an example, here is how easy it is to change your search engine preference. Just go to Safari > Preferences and click the tab for “Search”. You will see a panel like this:
The process is similar for Firefox. Just go Firefox > Preferences and click the tab for “Search”. You will see a panel like this:
Bada boom you are now using the DuckDuckGo search engine and you are not having your Internet traffic scanned and searched and stored by a data-hungry Internet company.
Here are some other interesting articles about DuckDuckGo.
NSA-thwarting alternative to Google search has a record year
NSA PRISM scandal gives big boost to little-used, privacy-friendly search engine
The most private search engine in the world just got even better
Thanks To Snowden’s NSA Revelations, DuckDuckGo’s Traffic Has Exploded
If you like this kind of reporting and you are interested in protecting your privacy you will find many practical and useful tips in The Complete Guide to Computer Security… for Mere Mortals. The security and privacy of your personal information is within your control. Read the report and start to protect yourself now.
Here is a video from Frederick D. our Computer Security Expert… See what he has to say here about Computer Security Solutions.
We’d like to thank our friends at 4 Choice Ltd for providing this timely and useful information. The full text of the article above is available here.