this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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doesn't duckduckgo do the same thing at this point with tracker links? it also uses bing
last we checked they preserved the tracker links bing themselves would use on results, which you had to opt out of.
I would use SearxNG instead, using a public instance like searx.be. It is really lightweight, gets results from multiple indexes and is very privacy-friendly.
Honestly, I set up SearxNG on my own server, and it's not very nice to use, not very configurable and doesn't return high quality results. It's also kinda slow. Maybe I'm missing something?
It is recommended to use a public instance because it makes it harder to fingerprint you off of your searches. It gets most results from Google and Bing, so you will have similar search results. I haven't experienced any slowness yet, so I can't say anything about that.
@isVeryLoud @hash0772 I had similar experience. I was able to resolve the slowness by enabling swap on the vps. What was worst is that over time Bing and Google API changed and it stopped working, took quite long troubleshooting. Occasionaly I would hit some kind of rate limit and got nothing from Google. It was too much hassle and not worth the vps cost.
Cost is whatever since this VPS is being used for other things.
I'm a bit confused about swap solving things though since it's unlikely to be a memory issue.
@isVeryLoud It was for me, I monitored the server and each query would bump up the memory quite a bit. But that sucker had only 512 MB I think. It could've been some issue that's already fixed with newer Searx versions.
Ah that would definitely be it, my VPS has 4 GB of RAM and runs other services just fine. I set it up about a month ago.
You can try it yourself: https://searx.veryloud.ca/
I'm sorry but that is not correct. In the link that you shared to their privacy statement it is explicitly stated that they do not collect your identity when using the service. They say that your identity " is the information we use to ensure that you are who you say you are when you make a de-listing request, report or create an account. This includes: first name, last name, email address."
Furthermore, unlike duckduckgo which to my knowledge relies entirely on Bing's search index, Qwant does actually index the web itself and only uses the Bing index when a search returns insufficient hits from their own index. When they query the microsoft index they send the following data along: "Search keywords; Information about the browser you are using (the User Agent); The first three bytes of your IP address; The approximate geographic area at the origin of the search, at the scale of a region or city; The salty hash generated from your IP address, your User Agent and a salt changing no later than every 3 months; A random token generated by Qwant (aiming to limit data cross-checking)."
I do not know much about DuckDuckGo, but from an initial read the privacy policy is much more vague than Qwant's, not mentioning any specific information that is shared. As they are a US company, they are also not covered by the general data protection regulation.
In general, both search engines seem to do a good job at protecting users' privacy, which to me sounds like something that should be encouraged, not polluted with misinformation.
Fair points. Thank you for amending your comment 👍. I wonder in which situations Qwant sends the full IP address specifically. The wording is a bit vague
Any company doing business with EU residents has to comply with GDPR, even if it is not from the EU.
DuckDuckGo claims to also use more than just Bing.
what are you making misleading claims about Qwant for??? if you click your own damn link you’ll see that the only case where they need to collect your name is if you make an account (completely unnecessary), make a de-listing request (to verify that you are who you say you are before removing something, otherwise i could just go and have jeff bezos removed), or if you report something.
also, 80% of your bullet points after “user agent” are redundant because they are literally just what makes up a user agent. newsflash: every single website you ever visit in your life collects your user agent because it needs to know whether to give you the mobile or the desktop version of the site. this has nothing to do with privacy in this case, you’re just slandering to slander
They're getting the location from your IP
Thank you for informing us. This is what I wanted to know.
DuckDuckGo is US-based and founded by the person who previously founded “The Names Database”.