I’ve been using duckduckgo for years now with no issues, but today I opened it and realized there were no longer any search results before scrolling. It was all ads/info cards. So I guess I’m looking for a replacement. Any suggestions?
Related: anyone know if there’s a way in the Adnauseum Firefox extension to hide ads on a specific trusted site? I like their goal of not punishing ads following the do not track standard, but DDG has crossed a threshold and I now want to blacklist them specifically.
I’ve been using Kagi for the better part of a year. I find it removes about 2/3 of the time and effort between search and goal. There are a lot of very simple quality of life things that every search should have (and would have if not for user tracking).
Some people have fairly said that paid search is inherently privacy unfriendly. You have to log in to use it. That doesn’t really bother me, and if it doesn’t bother you, it’s great to use a quality search where you are not the product.
That’s the kicker for me. It’s possible they log your entire search history which is disturbing.
I looked into it before I started using it like a year ago. They count the number of searches but claim to not hold actual search queries. I don’t have a citation handy (it has been a year…) but even if that’s untrue (which I don’t think it is, but hypothetically) and they were found to be using it to tweak their engine, meh? I search for memes, accounts for art/porn, games/reviews, etc. I’m not searching for my home address or anything of interest or value. “hey, the horny furry searched for more horny furry stuff” is like “water is still wet, more at 10”.
This is a super low-important possibility, imo.