Tech-Friendly: Ditch Google for DuckDuckGo for ad-free, private Internet searches

By Paul Gorski

DuckDuckGo.com, strange name, great Internet search engine. The Google Internet search engine and many Google products are all about tracking you and selling your Internet surfing habits to advertisers. Google tracks not only what websites you use, but what you are searching for. Then, “miraculously,” ads or links to sites selling related products show up on your search results page.

DuckDuckGo doesn’t track you. You don’t have to log in, and it doesn’t snoop into your browsing history. DuckDuckGo search results are more relevant and more consistent because results aren’t filtered. Google search results may change based on your location or your search history, leading to distorted or filtered results. Visit http://dontbubble.us/ for details.

Nor does Duckduckgo display ads. Google places ads on your search results pages based on your searches. These ads often are presented as legitimate search results. DuckDuckGo doesn’t display ads and has a very clean, uncluttered look and feel.

DuckDuckGo ranks more authoritative search results first, not just the sites with the most traffic. This technique provides you with more accurate results and answers to your search questions.

DuckDuckGo does tap into Google and Bing for some search results, particularly image and video searching, but when it does, you still are searching privately and without ads.

In today’s age when we have legions of people worried about big government tracking and spying on us, many of us never give a thought to how big business is tracking us. Why would a free browser, Chrome, advertise on commercial television? Google Chrome doesn’t have television commercials just to amuse us. Google wants you to use the Chrome browser and the Google search engine so it can track you and sell that information.

Get better answers, don’t be tracked and avoid search results that are really ads — use DuckDuckGo.com as your Internet search engine.

Learn more about Duckduckgo.com at http://duckduckgo.com/about.html.

Paul Gorski (www.paulgorski.com) has been a technology manager nearly 20 years, specializing in workflow solutions for printing, publishing and advertising computer users. Originally destined to be a chemist, his interest in computers began in college when he wrote a program to analyze data from lab instruments he hard-wired to the back of an Apple IIe.

From the Jan. 2-8, 2013, issue

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