Fuel for Thought

Online Privacy (sort of)

I started using the search engine DuckDuckGo. I think I like it. It appears to be a more private way of surfing the web, because they aren’t in the tracking business. I like the idea that the search function doesn’t try to tailor the seach results to my past activities and what google or bing thinks I’m interested in. DuckDuckGo has a couple simple tutorials that explain what makes them different. Follow the link. I added DDG to my phone and computer. On the phone I use it as my primary search tool completely bypassing google. I linked DDG to my preferred browser, so I’m seamlessly transferred from search to browser. I use Firefox on my computer, and DDG has a plug-in that makes DDG the primary search tool. Easy peasy.

Google also has a Firefox plug-in that makes sure the browser always remembers that I always want Google to NOT track my surfing with Google tracking cookies. It is called Advertising Cookie Opt-out (by Google). Do I trust Google to watch themselves for me? No. As DDG explains it, Google is really saying they won’t target people, but they won’t stop tracking them.

DDG is probably about to join my two favorite tools at the top of my favorites. Adblock Plus and Self-Destructing Cookies. Adblock removes online advertising and blocks malware sites. Adblock lets through some non-intrusive ads, which helps promote responsible advertising. Adblock blocks the ads from appearing in the browser, and Self-Destructing Cookies does similar work behind the scenes in the cookies folder. SDC allows cookies to track you while on the site that the cookies are designed for, and on leaving the website or closing the tab, SDC deletes the cookies, so they don’t follow your other browsing activities. SDC allows whitelisting trusted sites.

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