Can DuckDuckGo replace Google search while offering better privacy?
2Reported today on The Guardian Technology
For the full article visit: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/dec/12/duckduckgo-google-search-engine-privacy
Can DuckDuckGo replace Google search while offering better privacy?
The alternative search engine markets itself on protecting users' privacy, but is it worth using?
So is DuckDuckGo no good? Surprised you did not mention it. Murray
Following last week's article about privacy and surveillance capitalism, several readers wrote in about the absence of DuckDuckGo, and it was mentioned a dozen times in the comments. I have suggested this privacy-oriented search engine a few times since 2012, and I think it's worth a go. However, I'm answering Murray's earlier query along the same lines because I can use his email verbatim rather than cobbling together a joint question from multiple sources.
I will admit that Google is generally the best search engine. I was an early adopter and often recommended it. Google was also attractive because its home page wasn't stuffed with advertising, and because of the company's old motto: "Don't be evil". This was a bit of a jab at competitors, who were said to be "kind of exploiting the users to some extent". How times change.
Google's prowess at search and its success at selling advertising created a virtuous circle. More users and more money led to bigger indexes of web pages, more servers and faster responses, along with better algorithms created by growing numbers of super-smart computer scientists. Adding Gmail, Maps and the Chrome browser reinforced its power. Nobody else could keep up.
Google Search soon became one of the web's category-defining behemoths along with, for example, Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Gmail, Instagram, YouTube and Wikipedia.
Dominant web properties can decline dramatically – it happened to AOL and Yahoo, as Data Is Beautiful's animated video shows – but most survi