Ecosia.org updates its Privacy Policy
> From September 2023, we will be gradually rolling out our new unique search offer. This will happen over several months and won’t apply to everyone at the same time. This means that when you search through Ecosia, we work with either Microsoft Bing or, with your consent, Google to provide you with search results and ads. In... #search #ecosia
I used it as my primary browser on my laptop/desktop. I supported the cause and through my usage I planted +150 trees, but the trade-off is steepening so I'm going to have to jump ship.
I'll be pivoting to DuckDuckGo as my main search engine, and use Brave for more nuanced/specific results.
Wooof. I've started using Brave for less then 24 hours and I'm already jumping ship. Anyone backed by Peter Thiel is an immediate 'no' for me.
I'll have to try Whoogle or SearXNG but both constantly get blocked. Maybe I can resolve the issues w/ self-hosting? Otherwise, I might just try to redirect most of my questions to open-source LLMs
I use this one
until you release that due to needing an account, all your search queries are tied to your account and even if they claim not to, it would be trivial for Kagi to associate all of them with you.
and we don’t have the code of their servers, we know nothing of how they handle this critical information, other than their “trust me bro”.
(and even if they are not directly associating this information, if they store some kind of logs, it would probably be trivial for any third party that gets access to their servers to make the association. an again, we know nothing about their procedures)
That’s fair; I guess it depends on what your threat model is — kind of like how using a vpn can just expose you to your vpn service while ostensibly protecting you from your service provider.
To me, the improved search results from kagi and the disconnect between search and ad-and-tracking companies are worth it. But that may not be a fit for anyone else.
That guy created and then sold a social network. He’s being criticized as being in privacy-tech only for the money, although besides the aforementioned fact there seems to be little evidence for this claim.
What is true however is that DDG had some privacy whoopsies in the past, whereas they always claimed those were accidents or not abused (by them). Again, benefit of doubt, but their trackrecord is not clean.
I don’t see a better alternative for search tho.
I don’t think so. They have commercial agreements with Microsoft that forces them to not block their trackers, so who knows what else they are obliged to by contract
For non-search tracker blocking (eg in our browser), we block most third-party trackers. Unfortunately our Microsoft search syndication agreement prevents us from doing more to Microsoft-owned properties. However, we have been continually pushing and expect to be doing more soon.
The Microsoft one does concern me. The Google features are optional to the user, but not the MS ones.
Funny. MS used to ridicule Google for being an "advertising company". Probably said in jealousy since they're no different now.
Tell us that you know absolutely nothing about Brave without saying that you know absolutely nothing about Brave
above
Say what you want about Brave, but at least they are moving to their own indexing. Where as DuckDuckGo is just Bing…
Also I’d take that anti-Brave link with a grain of salt. I’ve got a hunch it’s somehow connected back to a Vivaldi dev. So I’d view it as highly untrustworthy.
macallik
Magnor
FarraigePlaisteach
Possibly linux
Midnight Wolf
Southern Wolf