This is about the DuckDuckGo browser and not the DuckDuckGo website. That should be reflected in the title as the original title is intentionally misleading people for clicks.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2022
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Privacy
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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I don't see the point of Duckduckgo browser in a world where Firefox exists.
I'm assuming DDG's browser is just its own fork of Chromium?
Then why not just use Ungoogled Chromium if you must have a Chromium engine?
Me neither. Although Firefox also often does weird stuff, which they should stop to not have people say "meh, Firefox is just as bad as the rest"…
Updated the title.
Thank you 😍
What is the best alternative?
Selfhosted Searx instance.
I think also this is the best alternative i switch to this few months ago but also searchEncrypt don't look bad. I advise to everyone always to do your own research
I didn't know the alternative that you mentioned. Thanks for the heads up, I'll look it up. (:
But the default behaviour is to expose the server's IP to the actual search engines, do you use VPN or something at the server side?
Searx as of now. You can also check out Whoogle
For ease of use, StartPage and Mojeek. Brave search seems interesting, too, but I'm pretty skeptical of Brave in general. Also, DDG's web search is not a part of this, so it's still tracker-free. Just the Android app sucks now; that said, I can see why many not feel comfortable using it anymore even still.
For max privacy, other people are right about Searx, self-hosted ideally.
These all work great for me:
qwant.com
startpage.nl
ecosia.org
I'm not super concerned as a user of the search engine and not the browser. When I see stuff like this it certainly gets me paying a bit more attention, but I think DDG is still fine and I don't mind using it while it continues to have the best experience for privacy-conscious search engines. This appears to be a legitimate issue with the browser, but nearly every bad headline I've seen about the search engine has turned out to be complete bs.
If this is enough to shake your trust in anything they touch, fair enough, but I'm not there yet.
Testing https://qwant.com/ currently
Qwant looks good. I am also testing startpage.nl and ecosia.org.
qwant isn't available in my country :(
I am really disturbed by what Duckduckgo has been doing lately. That being said, they are better than Google.
how are you sure about that? Both are closed source companies operating without proper oversight.
The problem with Google is that it integrates with many different services. Google doesn't just know what you searched online. It can also link your search history with your payments, the videos you watched or your gps location. It aggregates everything about you in one place.
Duckduckgo can't do that. Fragmentation of services is great.
That's a pretty good argument! While some of the companies have some of your data, none of the companies can have all of your data.
Consider Librewolf, YaCy or (ideally self-hosted) Searx.