Why I changed my home page TODAY from http://google.com to http://duckduckgo.com :

[Faryn Balyncd]

In short, I made Google my home page years ago precisely BECAUSE I did not want some corporation spoon feeding me the internet.

Because I wanted to broaden rather than narrow my perspectives.

Not the perspective that some corporate entity such as AOL or Earthlink might want to shape for me.

Just a naked search engine for a home page.

And, in those days, before March 1, 2012, Google had yet to develop the idea that the Google corporation should be the entity DECIDING for everyone exactly what search items he or she is interested in, discarding the rest, and presenting a progressively narrower and narrower filtered view by means of search engine results, and eliminating the option for any person to opt out.

So I began to look to see if there was any search engine that would still provide unfiltered search results.

And I came across this:


http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2081047/DuckDuckGo-Ditch-Google-Bing-for-Unfiltered-Search


As for Google, the company whose page I have chosen to designate as my home page for the last several years, ending this morning, they deserve to burn in corporate hell.

[Octafish]

1. When GOOGLE decided privacy was secondary to marketing, it lost an ardent supporter.

Thanks for the heads-up on DuckDuckGo. It's a great game -- us old folks like it, too.

[Faryn Balyncd]

3. Is it something other than a search engine.(I never even heard of it before this morning as I was

...looking for a Search Engine that does not filter/track.

[Octafish]

6. Arikara on DU2 suggested Ixquick...

Online article: http://webupon.com/search-engines/stop-big-brother-from-spying-on-you-top-three-search-engines-that-dont-track-you

DU2 article: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2475154

Hope they are of benefit, my Friend.

[Faryn Balyncd]

9. Thanks. Interesting article. Looks like I'll need to check out several alternatives. Devaluing....

....privacy is not Google's only atrocity, however: It is not only that Google is selling one's privacy to the highest bidder, but that Google is depriving all users of the opportunity to explore an unfiltered universe, and has chosen a route that will inevitably result in progressively narrower and narrower views of the world....

It is custom-made for Fox "News" types: after a few months of narrowing their "preferences" they will be presented by Google with "Search Engine" results that will present to them a world in which all the entire intellectual universe appears to lie between Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum!

[LiberalEsto]

2. Thanks to DU, I made ixquick my search engine

and made DU mu home page.
I also installed the Firefox Ghostery add on.

Thanks, DU experts!

[Faryn Balyncd]

5. I'll have to check that out...Thanks!

[Scuba]

4. My home page is....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/index.php

[Sherman A1]

7. Interesting

I will have to look it over.

[Faryn Balyncd]

8. Here is a discussion I just found of 4 alternatives:

http://www.brighthub.com/internet/google/articles/123719.aspx

[MuseRider]

10. Thanks.

I will check this out. I am so sick of being spoon fed stuff I am not looking for. If I really only wanted what the people in my state thought about something I would have searched for that. If I really only wanted to find something in my area I would have searched for that. It has now become so difficult on occasion to find something that it is almost useless.

[riverwalker]

11. thanks for this n/t

[dionysus]

12. silly. your homepage is supposed to be DU.

[Faryn Balyncd]

13. Well, I've always been able to get here by just typing "DU" into Google, and there it would be,right

...after University of Denver and Ducks Unlimited!


With another search engine, I'll have to re-learn the ropes.


But that will be a small but necessary price to pay.


For me, while I agree that privacy is a significant issue (and central to maintaining a culture of free speech), an at least equally important issue is intellectual freedom....In the past, I could know that the Search Engine results were based on the internet activity of the society of internet users, and an individual was free to explore that universe....With Google's current view, one can only assume that one's "Search Engine" results are what some corporation thinks you might be interested in, or perhaps interested in buying, based upon your past. Not only will you be blinded to opportunities to explore the intellectual universe, but you will be sppon fed the false impression that the intellectual universe looks progressively more like whatever ou may have been interested in last year.

[Faryn Balyncd]

15. Actually, it turns out DU is still there, right after Univ of Denver & Ducks Unlim, on DuckDuckGo!

[Scurrilous]

14. Thanks.

I'll check it out.