11/23/2023 0 Comments Duckduckgo browser vs chromeSometimes, you just want a little privacy in your browsing. You search for a product or click an advertisement once, and then ads seem to follow you to the ends of the internet, even across devices. For the majority of your searches David, it turns out, is just as good as Goliath.Online trackers can be annoying. It might seem ludicrous – DuckDuckGo has 78 employees and Google 114,096 – but often the outcome is the same. It’s not a fair fight, but it is one, oddly, where the small guy can compete. DuckDuckGo helps you find it in the same way Google does: you tap in a random line of lyrics, it finds them on a site with song lyrics on it and voila, the earworm is dead. You don’t need to be tracked and targeted to work out the name of that hideous earworm that’s been stuck in your head all day (in my case it was Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles, I don’t know why). ![]() A realisation that most of your online searches are really bloody obvious is somewhat liberating. But such bells and whistles are, once you stop seeing them, easily forgotten. That doesn’t mean I can’t find what I’m looking for, but it does mean I have to modify my search term a couple of times to narrow things down.īut such moments are rare and fleeting. While Google, with its vastly greater tranche of search data, is able to second-guess what I’m after, DuckDuckGo requires a bit more hand-holding. So, for example, search for ‘film Leonardo Dicaprio goats scene’ in DuckDuckGo and it doesn’t work out you’re looking for Blood Diamond. Where DuckDuckGo has struggled is when I look for something incredibly specific. For the most part, what we’re looking for online is simple: it’s definitions, companies, names and places. What’s good for Google, the commission argues, isn’t necessarily good for consumers or competitors.Ī quick office survey revealed similar search banality: recent Googles included ‘capitalist’, ‘toxoplasmosis’ and ‘hyde park police’. Google’s prioritisation of its results, and a perceived bias towards its own products and services, has landed the company in hot water with the European Commission slapping it with multi-billion pound fines and launching investigation after investigation into alleged anti-competitive behaviour. It might sound small but issues like this are fundamental to how the internet works – and who makes the most money from it. Do the same search on DuckDuckGo and the top result is IMDb. Great for Google, bad for the list of websites below that also contain this information and that you will never visit. As a result, 50 per cent of all Google searches now end without a click. Go further still and search for ‘ Iron Man 2 cast’ and Google displays a carousel of names and pictures right at the top of the page. For the most part, the top of Google’s page of results directs you towards more Google products and services. The same search on DuckDuckGo pulls in a snippet from Wikipedia and quick links to find out more on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon or iTunes. The film is also “liked” by 92 per cent of Google users and people searching for this also search for, you guessed it, Iron Man and Iron Man 3. It will then suggest you play a trailer for the film on, where else, YouTube. Search for, say, ‘ Iron Man 2’ and Google will first tell you it can be purchased from Google Play or YouTube from £9.99. And I don’t need to buy into Google’s leviathan network of privacy-invading trackers to find out what Black Panther is and when I can go and see it at my local cinema. Its annual round-up of the most searched-for terms is basically a list of names and events: World Cup, Avicii, Mac Miller, Stan Lee, Black Panther, Megan Markle. As a result, I’ve had a fairly tedious but important revelation: I search for really obvious stuff. So I made a simple change: I opened up Firefox on my Android phone and switched Google search for DuckDuckGo. ![]() Did I really need the all-seeing, all-knowing algorithms of Google to assist me? Probably not. ![]() It all started with a realisation: most the things I search for are easy to find. And, after two years in the wilderness, I’m pretty sure I’m sold on a post-Google future. But something makes these searches, in internet terms, a bit unusual. ![]() Before that, I wanted to know the capital of Albania (Tirana), the Twitter handle of Liberal Democrat deputy leader Ed Davey (he’s and dates of bank holidays in the UK for 2019 (it’s a late Easter next year, folks). What was the last thing you searched for online? For me, it was ‘$120 in pounds’.
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