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[–]BravoVictor 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Sounds like a non-story.

  1. It only effects their Android app, not their regular website
  2. It's not tracking user data, it's just retrieving the site's favicon in a format that can be displayed in the app. Otherwise they'd have to bloat up the app's code with image processing functionality to retrieve and convert all the various image formats. Much easier to just setup a tiny server somewhere that the app can just query.

If you think sending data to DuckDuckGo is being used to track you...you're already sending them data in the form of search queries that can also be used to track you. You either trust them when they say they're not tracking you or you don't. This news doesn't change anything.

If you're truly so paranoid as to think they're tracking you, you can always hack your phone's DNS to point the domain "icons.duckduckgo.com" to localhost or something so it can't retrieve anything.

Even better, you should be using incognito browser behind a VPN.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

If you think sending data to DuckDuckGo is being used to track you...you're already sending them data in the form of search queries that can also be used to track you.

I totally believe this. You just have to do a cost benefit analysis on each use.

Even better, you should be using incognito browser behind a VPN.

I personally use StartPage because their policies seem more transparent than DuckDuckGo. I believe DuckDuckGo censors results and favors advertisers way too easily. Either way, we use these services as proxies to Google, all searches go through Google.

[–]SeasonedReason 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

What does "we use these services as proxies to Google, all searches go through Google" mean?

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

It means just what I said. DuckDuckGo and StartPage aggregate search results from other search engines, mainly Google. You just use them as a proxy server to make it difficult for Google to track you.

[–]BravoVictor 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

DuckDuckGo and StartPage aggregate search results from other search engines, mainly Google.

Yes and no. Here's what DDG says it gets its results from, which does include other search engines like Bing and Google, but also it's own custom crawler and adapters for sites like Wikipedia. They're not just a proxy for Google Search.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They're not just a proxy for Google Search.

Yeah they are also a tool for Microsoft and other massive international monopolies to push their junk on you at the very least.

[–]SeasonedReason 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I read this page, https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ It refutes your statement.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Wow, that is definitely an unbiased independent source. I don't buy it, I don't think it refutes anything and I'm not taking the claims of a PR statement at face value.

We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from multiple partners, though most commonly from Bing (and none from Google).

This much is probably true, only StartPage uses the Google API directly out of the two but you have to realize Google's stranglehold is not just through search, they have trackers on something like 80-90% of the web. They know what you're searching for, end of story.

What bothers me is that DuckDuckGo often just gives me the same results as Google anyway. This is because they clearly take advertising money from the same people. When you can literally pay DuckDuckGo to push your link to the top of the search results, Google and DuckDuckGo will end up displaying similar results when ad money is involved. Even when that isn't the case, DuckDuckGo is not the end all solution to your search problems. Bottom line is this, DuckDuckGo may not create an individual profile on you and tailor results to that profile like Google does but they advertise based on keywords and engagement obviously. It doesn't matter if you use a VPN. It is better to just use something like StartPage because it lets you use Google without the personalized profile and tailored search results while aggregating the results with other search engines. To me personally, DuckDuckGo and Google are two sides to the same coin because they both seem to make it difficult to find what I'm looking for

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I read this page, https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ It refutes your statement.

I read this page and it refutes your naivety. You're basically exchanging Google for Microsoft and neither care about you having privacy, both care about good PR