Can We The People Take Back Search? - Comments Page 1

Don't know if it's all that much better but I use Duckduckgo and get a lot that doesn't show up on Google or is relegated to page 7. They claim not to keep logs or track your search, but who knows.

StartPage and StartMail; from the Netherlands. Supposed to be more private than Google & Gmail. I'm just inches away from getting rid of Google & Gmail altogether and going with StartMail permanently. It's $60 a year for StartMail; that's $5 a month. To me--these days & times!!--it's worth it. (I realize this may sound like spam, but honestly, I'm just giving my personal opinion; I'm ready to ditch Google and Gmail because they are just getting way too creepy). JMHO.

I miss the old, original Alta Vista. After it was purchased, by Compaq or HP?, it was ruined. In those days you had a lot of control over your search, most importantly the ranking.

Do you remember the old Alta Vista? I've tried many others and just cant get that much personal power in my search. Until you wrote this article I had pretty much given up hope. I hate Google, but it is so ubiquitous it is hard to fight. Where can we find an old, original Alta Vist? 😣

If it makes you feel any better you came up second on the list from Duck Duck Go. What can you tell us about DDG’s searches?

I just created an email account with ProtonMail........ This is what they state: You now have an inbox protected by strong encryption. All your emails are secured with zero-access encryption, and all communications with other ProtonMail users will be automatically end-to-end encrypted. Even we do not have the ability to read your emails.

Input please, as to what ya'll think about Proton?

Sounds to me like YaCy is a smart ass. lol

Hopefully one day Bob will discuss more private e-mail providers such as Protonmail and private search engines such as Qwant, DDG, and Startpage. I still recommend an occasional look at https://www.privacytools.io/ to protect ourselves. from prying eyes.

I feel good about start. Duckduckgo.com and protonmail. Can't prove their security, but with duckduckgo.com I have had better results with things that don't appear to be controlled by what they think I want to buy.

Possibly, millions of users of something like Presearch could accumulate search results into a shared, decentralized database. It might be a way of "stealing" info from Google over time, with less and less need for PreSearch users to use Google. After the shared database is available with some amount of accumulated search results, the Presearch frontend could first check the shared database for results before accessing Google. For the dedicated, it might be worth it to miss a few search results just to reduce Google's power.

Most of the above comments seem to do with email rather than search. I'm going to try duckduckgo as I find google, bing, etc., useless when searching for anything other than a product to purchase or a service to buy.

"The love of money is the root of all evil".

Oh, by the way, thanks for the Bible reference. I was surprised by it. They are seen so infrequently today in sectarian publications. That is unfortunate, but it is just another indication that faith is unfortunately disappearing in our nation.

Mike, thanks for the suggestion about Qwant.

I did a Google search on Bob Barker and found he was taken to the hospital after complications after a fall... I hope he gets better soon. I am a longtime fan since I was a little kid.
As for search you can turnoff saved searches or delete them all then you end up getting ads for baby diapers or anything relevant to you.
I write stories and always try to look up a word's definition or I'm having a hard time trying to pronounce a word by asking Google and almost all the time end up getting a band, movies, or some celebrity I never heard of.
You can also use different search engines :)

I have found DuckDuckGo to be an excellent replacement for Google/Bing etc. They say they do not follow you around the web, and there are no commercials in anything they have done so far. Their search engine works well.

"The inventor of the Web is part of it." So, AL GORE is involved??!!! I'll definitely pass, thank you.

In a town with 30 gas stations 5 have fuel for 2.00 the other 25 sell gas for 3.00. Who will be the biggest bully's on the block? A person opens a station and sells fuel for a 1.90 but to get gas their you have to go over seven hills ten stop sighs and two school zones and jump through 4 hoops.My self I will use "Ad Remover" ignore all the adds for coke at 1.99 a can and get back to work. AskBob is great and I have years worth of his columns on USB but every once in a while I take a different path. Thanks much Bob.

I have been using the StartPage search engine for a year.
My go-to email provider has always been FastMail (Australian), which allows sub-domaining and aliasing.
I use my own private server/website to create email addresses for friends and family.
For $100/year, anyone can get a godaddy (or similar) website and create their own email server. And use a CMS (WordPress, Drupal, etc.) to create your own blog content and allow your own friends/family to participate w/o relying on social websites.
Life can be good w/o them surveillance capitalistic pigs meddling in and ruining the internet.

Changed to DuckDuckGo couple of years ago and so far am satisfied. You said YaCy "Windows version is a total trainwreck." My sincere opinion is that ANYthing connected to Windows is a train wreck and major boondoggle. "Softwear" as a service is rotten idea. Closed brief Facebook account, don't shop Amazon, looking for alternative to Google -- all matter of principles. Thought DOS was hard to learn but I did- then they changed to Windows which did so much more. But the brainiacs just never know when to stop and insist on being in charge of MY equipment so I am looking to rebel and follow lots of ancestors who fought for independence over centuries.

Hi Bob,

if you're looking into internet decentralization via the crypto world, you may want to look into Basic Attention Token w/ their Brave browser, and Substratum and Skycoin with their projects to decentralize internet access itself. They look promising w/ projects already released or about to be released. One or maybe all of them could make significant inroads in the foreseeable future. There may be a lot of others who are nuggets of potential among the scam coins, but these are the only ones that I have some info about.

Bob, great article and excellent reader comments. Thank you all.

Another, simpler approach is to use the power of the Google engine but without providing data. This can be done through the www.ixquick.com search engine, based in The Netherlands. Basically, it acts as 'pass-through', denying Google the information it would otherwise get.

Maybe this is not as elegant as a full-blown, non-commercial FOSS search engine but at the moment, it looks like that is all there is.There are other options too (for example,www.duckduckgo.com ).