DuckDuckGo: Alternative to Google?

[trendie]

hi all,

Any experiences of DuckDuckGo, an alternative to Google.
They (DuckDuckGo) proclaim to not capture your personal details, and to be more ethical than Google.

Is their offering as good as Google (problem here is we are all soaked through with the Google experience that we may not know a good thing if it hit us in the face)?

As an aside, I have seen for a while a lot of Youtube channels are going over to Patreon and Vidme as they are being screwed over by Youtube (which is owned by Google)

 

[Pat494]

Which country owns DDGo etc. ?
It makes a difference of perspective.

 

[Signalcalc]

Been moving away from Google (and anything associated with it) for a couple of years now, unfortunately moved away from Apple to an Android phone, but still managing to use alternative apps and avoid Google where possible. Is Apple any different? They proclaim security of data, even have incidences where the iOS cannot be accessed by law enforcement, FBI cases by way of example from about the iPhone 5 or 6 onwards. However who can you believe, silicon valley and authorities have lied to all of us about our data and privacy numerous times, fact is there is no privacy unless you go to 'extreme' lengths to hide yourself nowadays and probably the only people who are in that game are gubbernuts, journo's, law enforcement, the military and criminals/terrorists.

Used DDG for 2 years, not sure how to compare to Google (as I never use it anymore), but I find all I need, combine with the Brave browser instead of using Chrome, Brave has all tracking switched off by default, you have to enable cookies and things if you want/need them. I have found that using an alternative browser such as Safari or Chrome for business use where cookies just work is good enough, for everything else which is the majority just use Brave.

One noticeable difference in the 1-2 years of this combination is a big reduction in email spam, I'm not plagued as much as I used to be, so I think it must be working to some extent, although the odd new batch gets through probably where I've signed up to something and it's been harvested.

As for google, it's all pervasive and the data is accessed by lord knows who, including governments, although they have their own mass scale harvesting programs anyway, such is digital life and lack of privacy.

People are moving away from Facebook and YT et al because of privacy concerns but also because of arbitrary censorship. Other social media platforms will slowly take over, in 10 years no doubt the landscape will have changed.

 

[Signalcalc]

Which country owns DDGo etc. ?
It makes a difference of perspective.

I think it is American, but is this a moot point? What does it matter if it your own government, the US, the Chinese, Indians, Ozzies is harvesting your data? Who is worse, what are they doing with it?

 

[cantagril]

I'm with Sig on this. Been using DDG for about a year so. No real complaints.... and as he says it's not Google and it's not Microsoft...so it can't be all bad. I run Linux for as much as I possibly can and OS apps do almost all of what I want. I recently decided to sign up with a broker specifically because their platform is java based and runs on anything. Currently using Opera and Chromium for browsers but will check out Brave.