Comments on: Are Your Search Results Being Personalised To Your Individual Tastes?

By: PChammer

PChammer — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 07:45:00 +0000

There is a slight bit of principle involved, however, it’s not at all why I use DDG. If it wasn’t a great search engine, privacy or not, I would not use it. I still need to find what I am looking for.

I don’t have anything to hide when I search. Anyone tracking me would have a very boring experience. It’s the point of why they do it and the means to which they do it.

I can actually find what I’m looking for again, using !’s “bangs” and such, it’s quite flexible. There are no ads popping up at you or sites that take you to the deep jungles of Africa seeing someone stuck in a muddy jeep when you typed in “hard drive”.

It’s definitely about getting back to what search engines were and the privacy is a bonus.

Yes, I find it more annoying than 2011 Antivirus. I’ve had people tell me to leave the virus on and they take the PC home, thinking it a 15 min fix and getting upset when I say “No, quite longer”, then they leave with it that way because they need Facebook.

By: James Bruce

James Bruce — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:53:00 +0000

Great link mr Hammer, I’m sure everyone appreciates. Have you seen any significant differences yourself, or is it more on principle?

lol@ “being rushed because people cant get on facebook!”

By: James Bruce

James Bruce — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:49:00 +0000

Thanks Taz! TED rocks

By: Taz

Taz — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:32:00 +0000

Here is a really good talk on the subject - http://youtu.be/B8ofWFx525s

By: PChammer

PChammer — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:42:00 +0000

I don’t Tweet a lot, have an account there but no Facebook. I fix
computers for a living and I am more than tired of being rushed because
people can’t get on Facebook. I do prefer privacy. If I sign up for
something, that’s my doing, my choice but I don’t like to be tracked or
shown what search engines feel is what I want to see.

So after reading your article, how personalized searches are done, I thought about the Filter Bubble and about a search engine I use called “DuckDuckGo”. While the name isn’t exactly something that stands out as being serious, this search engine is very much that.

It does not track your browsing habits, very customizable, and the creator truly listens to the people, keeping in contact with them in the forum and other means. It’s not one of the “Big Dogs” (yet) but it’s definitely growing.

Perhaps the biggest feature is the search. When you search, you actually get what you are looking for, if people recall the days when Google did that, gave you your search result and not the top bidder link.

I read your articles here and thought you may be interested in DuckDuckGo, if not for use, then to let users know.

Here’s the link…

http://duckduckgo.com/

Great article.