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Comment by milesf | Hacker News Reader

Which is why I use ddg.gg (DuckDuckGo). They don't track you.

People are starting to wake up to the implications of a world without privacy. I carry around Snowden's quote on my phone and repeat it verbatim when people say they have nothing to hide:

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say".

Do not be discouraged. Just keep educating people one-by-one and we will win this fight. We have to, otherwise our ancestors who fought and died for freedom and liberty will have done so in vain.

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I know everyone wants to hate on google, but I think we should be more worried about our government and ISP's

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/gop-senators-new...

no one is safe if this bill passes.

Seems like we ought to be worried about both.

true, but with google you have a choice. ISP's are generally granted monopolies and most people don't have a choice. Google only hands over data when mandated by courts or government. ISP's are looking to actively share and sell your information.

While I agree that Google is likely more trustworthy, I think it is naive to think Google does not sell your information; that's how they make money, right?

that is not how they make money. They make money by showing people ads. All they allow you as a user to do is specify attributes you're targeting and the people that view these ads ... match those attributes as best as possible

That bill opens up to ISP's what website's ( like google ) hav e been doing for years. If no one is safe because of that bill, then no one is safe already. VPN'ing around your ISP is about the same level of difficulty as setting your default search engine to not be google.

>VPN'ing around your ISP is about the same level of difficulty as setting your default search engine to not be google.

Not even close.

VPN involves:

* Knowledge of the purpose of a VPN

* Knowledge of a specific VPN

* Money to pay for VPN

* Maintenance in the form of turning it on/off depending on application

* A method of digitally paying your bill, i.e. a credit card.

In contrast, if you know nothing about computers but open IE/Edge for the first time you'll be prompted to select your search engine.

Opera has a free VPN built in

google doesn't sell or share your personal information to anyone. Its a huge distinction.

> google doesn't sell or share your personal information to anyone [sic]

The article is about Google sharing someone's private searches with the police.

TFA is about Google being ordered to share information to police, by a (currently) legal court order. There's no call for [sic] in your quotation of GP.

GP said Google doesn't share personal information with anyone. That's not true. The article shows them sharing it with someone. The point isn't pedantic when one of their competitors, DuckDuckGo, literally can't--court order or not.

My use of sic erat scriptum means I'm quoting GP, grammatical errors and all. This point, in contrast to the previous one, is pedantic :). (One doesn't share information to someone, but with them. "Google doesn't sell your personal information to, nor share it with, anyone" or "Google doesn't sell or share your personal information" are more correct.)

[1] https://duckduckgo.com

The only reason they don't share it to anyone is that "anyone" is their competition.

They claim they don't track you. I use DDG for at least 1/3 of my searches (and have to add !g to the rest because I don't get the results I need).

Still, it's important to note DDG runs on AWS, so Amazon still has access to the entire underlying infrastructure. If served an NSL, Amazon could track all traffic going to/from DDG. In theory, they could also grab the SSL certs from those servers and decrypt SSL traffic as well.

What you said is true of many websites, but this threat isn't relevant to the threat discussed in this thread: finding IP addresses in server logs.

I am one of those who also like/use DDG. My only fear is "collaboration with Yahoo to enhance blah blah.."

in that sense I don't know (and don't care to learn) the details and whether in the end of the day Yahoo gets a copy of every-thing searched on DDG with the extra info (IP, MAC, browser fingerprint, etc.)

as for the "one at a time" I am totally wih you on this but I think it's a losing war.. WAY TOO many people don't see past their screen into what happens on the bits&bytes exiting their phones/laptops

DDG originally detailed the extent to which this collaboration existed. They described a DDG-owned and operated server that is accessible only to DDG, but which was required to have a yahoo.com domain in order to use services of Yahoo.

Now, I cannot find this information on their website. Perhaps they got rid of that collaboration (now that Verizon owns Yahoo)?

I either use DuckDuckGo or if it doesn't return relevant results, I use Google in private mode. Private mode obviously doesn't help much (they can easily connect me to my Google Account), but Google does have the years of development behind it.

I've had good luck with Bing, so now I use that as my fallback.

But honestly, simply forumulating a query appropraiately can help.

Pagerank basically lets you use search terms like circles on a Venn diagram - whatever's in the intersection floats to the top.

DDG requires a little more effort. Putting quotes around words that group together, using - to exclude large chunks of.

I find when I "search like it's 1999" DDG does fine.

(The syntax page has some useful tips: https://duck.co/help/results/syntax)

Spouting quotes just makes you seem like a zealot and I suspect most people just nod and quietly assume it safe to ignore you.

Yeah, you're right. But frankly, I don't care what people think about me. If what I am saying is true, they can think I am crazy, but (hopefully) the words will stick in the minds of some, and in time those words will be proven right.

Of course, there is also a risk that sometimes I am wrong. There are things that I believed to be true that were not, and I've gone back and told people so. Pursuing truth and being transparent about my mistakes and missteps builds trust.

People may not like me, and I'm fine with that. I would rather have their respect than their admiration. If they do not respect me, then I will do them the courtesy of keeping my opinions to myself. I don't waste my breath on cynics.

Definitely all about expressing opinions in exactly that manner, it's just quotes that grind my gears. The way you described it, I pictured you grabbing your phone, quoting Snowden and dropping the mic :) Quotes always seem like an appeal to authority, are usually taken out of context and rarely say anything truly useful.

Good point, although in this instance of "argumentum ad verecundiam" Snowden has the credibility and has stated a common objection in such a succinct way that I think it bears repeating provided it is stated accurately.

Appealing to authority can be a fallacious way to reason, however it can also be done correctly, and is a powerful way to influence people. I love your visual of phone/quote/mic drop - that'd definitely be the wrong way to do it :)

Are there any statues in the US (where DDG is based) that would compel them to keep logs? I find it hard to believe there are not.

I wonder how many ddg users have switched their mobile's default search to it as well... It doesn't seem like many.

One here. Firefox mobile with ghostery, ublock origin and ddg search engine.

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