Posted on 11/22/2020 6:41:52 AM PST by SeekAndFind
If you think you are avoiding the intrusive practices of Google by using alternative search site DuckDuckGo, a new report finds that the alternative site may still be handing your user data over to Google, anyway.
According to a report on One America News, DuckDuckGo is not much of a safe alternative for Internet users.
OAN spoke to Rich Granville, CEO of search engine site Yippy.com , and Granville pointed out that contrary to what DuckDuckGo claims, its code source contains customer tracking devices called “cookies.” A cookie is a line of code that allows the website to track its visitors. Cookies are used by Google to target users for specific ads. If a user has visited a lot of sports sites, Google will see that and tailor ads that might appeal to a sports fan. If that user has bought a lot of books online, the ads may pop up for books sellers. And on and on. “Internet search is the most informative and the most influencing media there is in the world,” Granville told OAN this week. “Google controls just about 90 percent of all searches.” “DuckDuckGo talks about their privacy, right, saying that they’re a private search engine,” Granville explained, “and if anybody had 6th grade developer tools, they can go into DuckDuckGo and they will see tracking cookies” in the site’s source code. DuckDuckGo, however, claims it does not track its users. This seems suspect to Granville who wonders just who is getting all the data from the tracking cookies in DuckDuckGo’s website. “What I can tell is they have targeted advertising, and they have two cookies on their site — somebody is tracking you,” Granville noted. “DuckDuckGo may not be tracking you on their servers — which I find hard to believe — but, certainly they are handing that information off to the two other cookies. And who knows what those other companies are doing — which I suspect is Google — and who Google is selling that information to on down the line.” DuckDuckGo handles 40 million searches a day all while telling users that their data is private, that they are not being tracked, and their data is not being sold. Before OAN’s report went live, DuckDuckGo had two weeks to respond to questions about the cookies in its source code but the search site never responded. Granville’s search engine, Yippy.com, is one of the only search engine sites on the web that absolutely does not track users and does not sell user data. Sarah Corriher also recently looked into DuckDuckGo’s recent background and actions and found that DuckDuckGo donates heavily to far left wing causes and takes money from anti-American billionaire George Soros.
DuckDuckGo, though, claims it is a “private” search engine and that it never tracks users. However, according to Granville, a look at the search site’s source code shows that DuckDuckGo does include several cookies.
Install a new browser, pick one, and only use that for searches with all other browsers closed. When done clear the cookies. That way your search info is sandboxed. Your ISP and the search engine will still track your history but the search engine cookies will be gone, and the engine won’t see the other cookies from the web surfing you do using other browsers.
Agreed. DDG only finds a portion of the possible results for any given search.
Too funny. I probably said their data was being used and they’re in sure your search results wasn’t worth using the engine. Now the game is up.
Always, not probably. Thank you Siri. /s
RE: I hear that Firefox is safe.
Does Firefox have Search software?
They are a browser company.
1. Use a VPN
2. Avoid chrome, it is google spyware
3. Use icecat (Firefox without Mozilla trackers)
4. If you can’t use icecat, use Firefox
5. On Icecat or Firefox install add-ons google containers and Firefox containers to sandbox google and facebook
6. Install Firefox add-on Unlock Origin
7. Install Firefox add-on Canvas Blocker
This is about as secure as you can get without extreme measures to prevent tracking and fingerprinting. Use anything other than google for search.
Thanks!
I’ve got an old FR cookie saved so I son’t have to sign in every time I visit — whixh is frequently! Ditto Wikipedia and Amazon and several other sites I visit regularly. The old stored cookie is sufficient for the site to work properly. But as a rule I keep cookies turned off unless absolutely necessary.
here’s the thing: I watch Youtube vids on DDG. NO ADS. I watch YT on Chrome..I get bombarded on YT ads.
But I do believe there are trackers and cookies. There has to be.
they track other people’s cookies, you can query other’s cookies, you don’t have to have your own.
This is IBM, they don’t have to sell your data in order to use it internally to produce a lot of valuable information.
IBM is vertically integrated information exploiter.
You search FFX on FR and they were responsible for firing the conservative on theiR company. I avoid these clowns too.
“1. Use a VPN”
lol, AND HOW DID you PAY for the VPN?? By Credit card. So they know who you are.
I own a very small amount of Yippie stock.
I'd like a program that grabs cookies by the millions shares them with users so that they can select as many browsing habits from a massive list: -grandma
-a grade schooler
-a government bureaucrat
-a cult member / Democrat
-a foreign exchange student
-a transgender
-an ex-con
-someone with erectile dysfunction
-someone seeking breast augmentation
-someone on the FBI's most wanted list
-someone with insomnia browsing the web 24 hours a day
-someone fluent in 35 different languages
-etc.
Let them try selling that to the government and advertisers.
I have noticed that DuckDuckGo changed a couple of months ago. Search results change to whatever MSM wants you to believe. E.g., search results for Benford’s Law changed to only articles saying how it did not apply to elections, after previously giving me results on how it was used by State Dept as conclusive of fraud in Iran and Ukraine elections.
The real issue is what is your threat model? Understanding what threat you are trying to stop or prevent leads to the best practices. If you are trying to stop the fiveeyes, paying for a VPN with a credit card is probably not a good idea. If you are trying to maintain some modicum of
Privacy and slow down the google/Facebook corporate surveillance, then a decent VPN like Proton should work just fine, even paying with the credit card. Proton doesn’t sell users into to 3rd parties.
If people are worried about google/fb/ms going through their emails, then Switching to protonmail (or tutanota) helps to keep your mail more secure.
Again though, it really depends on what the threat model is and what you are trying to stop.
To read later.
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