The Zuck suck is in full swing. In the few short hours since I started using #Threads, #DuckDuckGo has already blocked over 200 data tracking attempts. These include things like "headphone status" and "screen density."
EDIT for clarity: The 200+ attempts may have been overcounted as DDG hadn't tooled their VPN for Threads yet.
Since my post about the #DuckDuckGo app and #Threads is still getting lots of attention, I want to be clear about how I actually feel about #DataPrivacy.
It's a lot like #recycling. Yeah it's a good thing to protect your own personal data, but if we're being honest, it's not effective on an individual scale. We need good legislation at a national level to meaningfully change the game for the benefit of us all. Until then, no matter how careful you are, you're still being negatively affected.
🇳🇱 Ook zoekmachine DuckDuckGo heeft nu AI standaard aan staan. Om het uit te schakelen klik je op de zoekresultatenpagina op de twee "tennisrackets" aan de rechterkant. Vervolgens kies je in het menuutje 'AI-functies > Beheren' en daar kun je alles uitzetten.
🇬🇧 DuckDuckGo has turned on AI as a standard setting. To turn it off, click on the two 'tennis rackets' on the search results page, on the right side. Then click on 'AI functions > Manage' to turn everything off.
Yet another example of the #enshittification of Google as a search tool. I have a number of old blogs on the (Google-owned!) blogspot.com domain. These gradually became harder to find using Google, & are now completely invisible, or at least never in 1st few pages of results. Instead a load of commercial-related links +vacuous "people also ask" stuff. The whole point of Google was that it was a really good, trustworthy search engine. No more, alas 🙁 #DuckDuckGo now better for most searches
Hehe, #duckduckgo hat eine Interessante Beschreibung parat, wenn man nach „#CSU" sucht: „Die CSU ist eine rechtsextreme Partei, die sich für die Interessen von Bayerisch-Deutschland einsetzt.“ 😂
Il y a un truc que je comprends pas sur #duckduckgo
Quand on cherche un terme qui est sur wikipedia, il y a l'encart avec le début de l'article wikipedia.
Mais souvent c'est complètement farfelu...
Comme quand on cherche "paquerette" par exemple
I have been experimenting with different #OnlinePrivacy tools. While travelling by train this afternoon I switched on #duckDuckGo's variant to see what they found. Bearing in mind that it's been enabled for only about 4 hours, and I haven't even had the app open, I think it's fair to say I'm a little shocked at just what The Economist is up to... 😱
Wow idk when they did this... I went to search (with google!?!?) to see if #duckduckgo had a blog or something for news about their outage, and ofc they just have a twitter page. But if you look at it from the browser while not logged in you dont see their most recent posts, but posts ranked mostly by number of likes but also in random order.
I've finally done it. I've uninstalled #Microsoft#Edge from all my devices.
My browser setup will now be #Vivaldi as my main, #DuckDuckGo as my amnesiac and academic and #Safari (on iOS) as my main mobile, and Vivaldi on #iOS as a companion to the desktop version.
I've installed some PWAs as windows, but have shifted most to Vivaldi's web panels, this has actually cleaned up my #WindowsTaskbar!
Im as anti-"AI" as the next person, but I think its important to keep in mind the larger strategic picture of "AI" w.r.t. #search when it comes to #DuckDuckGo - both have the problem of inaccurate information, mining the commons, etc. But Google's use of LLMs in search is specifically a bid to cut the rest of the internet out of information retrieval and treat it merely as a source of training data - replacing traditional search with #LLM search. That includes a whole ecosystem of surveillance and enclosure of information systems including assistants, chrome, android, google drive/docs/et al, and other vectors.
DuckDuckGo simply doesnt have the same market position to do that, and their system is set up as just an allegedly privacy preserving proxy. So while I think more new search engines are good and healthy, and LLM search is bad and doesnt work, I think we should keep the bigger picture in mind to avoid being reactionary, and I dont think the mere presence of LLM search is a good reason to stop using it.
Well #DuckDuckGo drank the cool aid. Can we just not plug hallucinating AI into every single thing? I've been meaning to get #SearXNG going on my infra. I guess it's time now.
I feel like I post this every few months, but: is there a launcher for #Android AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to the latest #Pixel Launcher, but lets me use a different search engine?
I love the stock launcher:
• At a Glance
• Combined app/web search
• Very little customizability because good defaults
• Smooth animations/integration w/Recents
• Ability to turn off Google Discover feed
• Simple gestures (⬇️ notifications, ⬆️ all apps)
Somewhat inspired by @theprivacydad's most recent blog post, here's a list of privacy-friendly software that "just works" about as well as (if not better than) more invasive alternatives, even for the relatively non-tech savvy:
Folks, I know… I use Duck Duck Go also but remember they have venture capital. Enjoy it while it lasts (or let’s fund and build alternatives differently that aren’t temporary businesses with profit motives and exits but commons-owned institutions working for the common good).