Google spent $26 billion to hide this phone setting from you

The Washington Post ^ | Nov 8, 2023 | Geoffrey A. Fowler

[Paal Gulli]

Google spent $26 billion to hide this phone setting from you

Google goes to great lengths to be your default search engine and keep you from switching. Here’s why you should make your own choice.

There’s a setting on your phone and web browser that Google is desperate to keep you from discovering. How desperate? In 2021 alone, Google paid Apple, Samsung and others $26.3 billion to keep it buried.

That’s more money each year than McDonald’s makes selling burgers.

This setting affects who gets to track your location and watch what you look up online. It affects the usefulness of the information you see and how much of your screen is taken up by ads.

I’m talking about your search engine — what pops up the answers when you type into the search bar. Google pays the makers of phones, laptops and browsers to be your default and to stop them from even presenting you other options during setup...

...You might be wondering: So what? Google has a reputation for good results, in part because it has data from so many users. What’s so bad about making Google the default?

What we’re learning from the trial flips that question on its head. If Google’s so good, then why does it need to spend as much as all the Big Macs combined to make sure we never even consider the alternatives? What have we been missing while Google has been our default? And how would we know if something better came along?..

...The biggest price we pay for monopolies is that they limit better ideas in ways we’ll never get to know.

#30#

[glorgau]

Already had mine set to DuckDuckGo...

Forgot I did that.

[Allegra]

I don’t trust anybody.

Except Jesus Christ.

I don’t lose sleep over my browser.

[crazycat]

Go Linux from word Go.....

[vpintheak]

Google = Be evil
It’s not what you know, but what you don’t know that you don’t know that will kill you.

[vpintheak]

I do a similar thing. When searching for generic information, general things I want to know, use Google. Anything of value or remotely political, I use other browsers and search engines. I don’t use Chrome at all.

[enumerated]

I set my iPhone Safari to DuckDuckGo - it was easy - go to settings, safari, default search engine. But even if you don’t do that, you can just browse to DuckDuckGo and then bookmark their page. I really don’t see the problem.

I also have Brave browser which has its own Brave search engine as default. I’m sure you can easily change that too, but I didn’t bother - I just bookmarked the DuckDuckGo page and I click on that bookmark when I want to search.

If google really spent $26m to bury this, they sure wasted their money!

[Fester Chugabrew]

One should *never* use the internet in any way with the expectation of complete privacy and/or anonymity. Does not matter what device or browser you use.

[enumerated]

Right, iPhone as well. But if anyone considered that setting too “buried”, they can easily bookmark the DuckDuckGo page - it takes about two seconds.

[martin_fierro]

[conservativeimage]

Control the information, control the thinking, control the behavior.
There is a war on for your mind. Don’t you dare think for yourself. /s

[Jack023]

Here’s a good article on how to change the default search engine on your Android phone:

https://www.howtogeek.com/710307/how-to-change-the-default-search-engine-on-android/

Easy to follow instructions.

[Carriage Hill]

I use Opera v95.0.4635.90, and it’s easy to find and change to DuckDuckGo, or whatever.

[Carriage Hill]

Thanks.
Found it and changed it to DDG.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Can’t.
The laptop serves as a backup PC. In the event my desktop were to fail I can carry my data files over and continue to work while getting a new desktop.

There is no Linux software that is properly equivalent to what I use.

[Red Badger]

Every time I change it, it changes itself back............

[Carriage Hill]

Thanks.

[MrRelevant]

Exactly lol

[old curmudgeon]

My suggestion:

Do not do anything on your Iphone that involves your money or your private life.

You can build a fairly secure system on your computer if it is a general purpose desktop or lap top but there are so many features on an Iphone over which you really have no control plus when they update at midnight they can and do reset some of the features.

Never use the Iphone for anything that you would not want to see on the front page of your local paper.

[lapsus calami]

 

 

Good link to read - the main thing is to not use any of their apps, browsers or staying logged in to any of their services, and use other browsers besides theirs that have all the security holes plugged that they exploit. Gmail has gotten pretty sketchy - they are screening emails, I've been getting email sent to Gmail addresses that get bounced back at me as "spam" when I use certain words and phrases in the body of the message. Big Google is watching.

 

 

[Chickensoup]

All search engines use Google