Even aside from Google's wave of dipshittery -- "Gulf of America" added to Maps, Black History Month removed from its calendars *during Black History Month* -- DuckDuckGo is just a better search engine.
No ads. No bullshit AI. Just an actually useful search engine, like Google before it was evil.
Thank you! I was trying Bing but it really sucked. Any suggestions for a map app that didn’t switch the name of the Gulf? Google, Waze, Apple Maps are all changed 😡
In my opinion don't blame the map makers, blame the politicians. Maps always have some element of politics with them, do we recognize that country or not, where is that border, ect
It's important to understand that the main reason queries like that work isn't because of "AI" but because your question has enough keywords for the search engine to find a good source even without trying to parse your question semantically.
e.g. searching DuckDuckGo for "what year were quasars named quasars", even without AI suggestions turned on, brings up the Wikipedia and Britannica articles for "quasar", both of which answer your question.
I am up on my contract, so looking at replacing now that I understand how much privacy I have lost to Google.
It's an ok phone, I really like the camera. My hubby was never a fan, we were always droid users, not iPhones as well. Preferred open source
We can flip Google by... Repeatedly asking them to stop and hoping they listen and don't just set up a script to filter out the words "Gulf of Mexico".
It's … OK. It's not as good as Google was when Google was good. Its results come from Bing. Its image search is swamped with AI slop from two sites in particular, its shopping tab is nothing but Amazon, Etsy and Temu, and it doesn't do Boolean. Really, its only virtue is that it's not Google.
Of course other countries show it as GOM. It's only Trump did it by waving his tiny hand but he has NO AUTHORITY to change the name. Google sucks his mushroom.
I've been looking at global maps and for the life of me I can't find a country named America. Continents, yes. Country, no. Semantics perhaps but accurate.
Thank you so much for this. I have resisted using GoDuckGo for a long time because I was married to Crome's ability to save my usernames and passwords. Turns out GoDuckGo does that too, automatically! I've just finished making the switch.
The calendar changes were decided early 2024 and done in June. It has nothing to do with Trump, they have just been widely seen now, but they have been there for months.
And if they get really popular, will they get greedy like google and facebook did, and sell us to anyone who'll pay?
Sorry about the skepticism, bad experiences ... ;)
I mean, my only direct experience (besides using the search engine) was that I interviewed with them (wasn’t a good fit at the time: they needed more software engineering, I’m more sysadmin), and they were super chill and actively non-mercenary.
But also I’m just some dude in the Internet so 🤷🏼♂️
You’ll be surprised to learn how much companies track us! DDG analytics will show who’s trying to track you and how many tries n the info they’re seeking.
Typing without my glasses.
Sorry to bother you, but my son just mentioned Opera to me as having an inbuilt VPN and with a more modern look than DuckDuckGo.
I think I am giving it a try
There are, of course, other search engines besides of DuckDuckGo that respect your privacy and security:
MetaGer
Qwant
Mojeek
SearX
Startpage
Swisscows
Brave Search
Kagi
Ecosia
And think about getting rid of Chrome Browser. Brave Browser offers the best privacy out of the box.
I did it a couple of days ago. I love DuckDuckGo! No tracking cookies! How did we get convinced that Google was best? Ddg is way better! Blocked Google from tracking me on my first search.
I don't know why they support Duck Duck Go. I don't know why they thought changing search engines would stop companies from spying on them. All the internet companies do it, have been for decades.
I've tried. It's just not as good. Same thing with Brave, though I do like the browser. Ecosia is pretty much useless. Bing is Google with the enshittification knob turned way up. Hopefully the results on DDG will improve from the increase in user base. I'd love to drop Google but for now, I can't.
I switched to DDG three days ago and so far have no complaints. Now I get the search results I want faster and unobscured by the garbage clutter offered by google.
Would be really hard to punish Google since pretty much everything I use is Google (mobile os, browser, search, notes, pay, maps. That is scary, but a reminder diversify in general.
It's not impossible to do. For me since I'm Apple based it was a no-brainer to move my gmail to iCloud, stop using maps. It also gave me a chance to unsubscribe to a lot of things. I'm tired of giving them data they don't need.
Switching away from individual Google products still sends a message - I started using a GPS app called Magic Earth yesterday, for example. Seems to work fine.
I left a review for Google Maps yesterday that never got published and switched to the Magic Earth as well. Have not used it for real directions yet. I hope you are right.
I switched to DuckDuckGo YEARS ago and love it. Maybe you get more hits on a google search, I don't know. This works for me. I only use google b/c my work uses it. This is a better search engine b/c it searches for what YOU want and doesn't search everything ABOUT you.
Have used Duck Duck Go for years. They automatically block pop-ups, so I do have to switch to Safari on occasion. Easy enough to switch back afterwards.
Does DuckDuckGo have an option so that any given point one can choose which browser to use? I find Google useful for some things. When I tried to download DDG, it seemed to be an extension that replaced Google instead of an app that one could choose at a particular moment. Thanks!
I didn’t find DuckDuckGo to be much of an improvement on Google, since it is basically just a wrapper on Bing. I have found Kagi to be fantastic. Definitely worth a few bucks a month to be the customer and not the product
What's crazy is you will see "Gulf of America" if you are in the US. If you're in Mexico you'll see "Gulf of Mexico" and the rest of the world will see both names.
YouTube is going to be much harder to replace, as it effectively exclusively hosts many items of media that people care about, and it serves ads, thereby enriching Google, far more effectively than the search engine.
Nope go duck go has the worst search results!!! I searched for information on Blackwater on Google nearly nothing, Bing a little but not much, Go Duck Go had the least amount of information. Safari not only had info but a friggen deep dive!!! Safari for the win!!! I deleted Google and Chrome.
I literally did that yesterday. I had never used that search engine before & am liking it a lot so far. Still getting used to the UI but seems to be just as good for finding exactly what I'm looking for as Google.
You can change the default search engine to DDG in Chrome as well, both mobile and desktop. I also just downloaded the DDG app to replace the Google search widget on my home screen.
I think if you use it via chrome you're still basically using Google to access DDG. You can download it from the website and completely replace Chrome. That's what I'm doing.
So I have a pixel which I unfortunately in this current situation love, I added ddg widget to my home screen but didn't think I can remove the defaulted Google search bar widget from ddg!? Do you have magic?
Google just pissed me off by directing me to a scammy ticket resale company instead of what is searched for so I’m
Already pissed at them and this is timely
Startpage and Qwant are both terrific privacy-oriented search. Startpage with google results but not the nonsense, Qwant France-based their own search results. Qwant browser on Android also superior features to Chrome
Did that about 10 years ago & NEVER regretted it: the search results it returns are not ranked by revenue, and are more specific - actually relevant to my query. it has pretty good anti-spam/privacy tools that are free and work better than the ones I'd been paying for in my Anti-Virus pkg, as well.
Comments
No ads. No bullshit AI. Just an actually useful search engine, like Google before it was evil.
Settings>Search>Search Engine
Does DuckDuckGo do this ?
I know I could google it.. omg, I keep getting into these spirals this month
It's an ok phone, I really like the camera. My hubby was never a fan, we were always droid users, not iPhones as well. Preferred open source
https://bsky.app/profile/kc6.bsky.social/post/3lhxjgpbuu223
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇
Don't miss the ads tightly coupled with any searches I do.
I only wish it had a voice search.
https://www.startpage.com/en/about-us
They are global so you can get results you don't get in Google.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/windows/
No more revenue or ads with malware.
Looking forward to navigating with DuckDuckGo. I've got my partner on board too.
I ain't switching back anytime soon
Sorry about the skepticism, bad experiences ... ;)
But also I’m just some dude in the Internet so 🤷🏼♂️
DDG has vpn service and personal information removals service
Typing without my glasses.
I think I am giving it a try
https://sourceforge.net/software/compare/Brave-Browser-vs-Opera-vs-ProtonVPN/
MetaGer
Qwant
Mojeek
SearX
Startpage
Swisscows
Brave Search
Kagi
Ecosia
And think about getting rid of Chrome Browser. Brave Browser offers the best privacy out of the box.
I've been using it for years. Google has sucked for a few decades now. Evil.
(Alphabet) owned companies:
Mandiant (Cybersecurity)
Fitbit (devices )
Looker (Business softeare)
Nest (smart home products)
Waze (navigation)
DoubleClick (ad management)
Utube (video)
It all helps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_Maps
https://european-alternatives.eu/category/email-providers
I know Ive tried it, & after 30 years in I.T. I think I know what works or not
BRAVE BROWSER with its own built in search engine that rivals Google.
Settings > Safari > Search Engine
Done.
FUCK INKJETS
Remember to change your preferred browser to the new one.
There are other apps to replace ALL the google ones on your Android. Its time consuming but you can purge ALL Google apps from yo phone, even gmail.
YouTube is going to be much harder to replace, as it effectively exclusively hosts many items of media that people care about, and it serves ads, thereby enriching Google, far more effectively than the search engine.
How do you think that’s going to work out?
;^>
Who uses G##gle?
Already pissed at them and this is timely
https://hogonext.com/how-to-ungoogle-yourself/
Works great 🙌