Changing default search string in browser on 4.x

Platform Development
#7

What happened to ddg?

#8

They want to become more like Google, e.g. start censoring information they don’t agree with.

1 Like
#9

I saw this yesterday and immediately changed…I hope they get the message.

3 Likes
#10

I was not aware, thanks for sharing.
So, alternatives?
Qwant?
Startpage?

Regarding how to change the default search engine:
Just go on the search engine main page and into Settings, click on Search on, then install.

2 Likes
#11

I’ve heard a lot about brave in this context but it seems to be rather new so no idea how usable it may be.

1 Like
#12

Thanks :–), gonna try.
Btw, has someone a link/article about the ddg politics change?
Sure it’s not a rumour?

#13
2 Likes
#14

https://swisscows.com

1 Like
#15

… and in case that doesn’t do what you want it to do, it’s relatively easy to make a custom search engine XML and add that.

Duplicate one of the default ones to a new file from /usr/lib/mozembedlite/chrome/embedlite/content, and edit it.

Put it in either that folder, or ~/.local/share/org.sailfishos/browser/searchEngines

Example for custom DDG settings:

<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
<ShortName>CustomDuckDuckGo</ShortName>
<Description>Search DuckDuckGo with custom parameters</Description>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<LongName>Custom DuckDuckGo Search</LongName>
<Url type="text/html" method="get" template="https://duckduckgo.com/">
    <Param name="kn" value="1"/>
    <Param name="kae" value="r"/>
    <Param name="kz" value="-1"/>
    <Param name="kam" value="osm"/>
    <Param name="kt" value="h"/>
    <Param name="kl" value="h"/>
    <Param name="q" value="{searchTerms}"/>
</Url>
<Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" template="https://ac.duckduckgo.com/ac/">
    <Param name="q" value="{searchTerms}"/>
    <Param name="type" value="list"/>
</Url>
</OpenSearchDescription>
2 Likes
#16

“Family Friendly”

So also censorship, just citing different moral grounds.

Technically worse than the DDG thing: DDG downranks some results while siwsscows refuses to index them at all.

1 Like
#17

Why must it be so hard for these companies to simply leave their opinions/agenda out of search results is beyond me.

1 Like
#18

Companies routinely do ‘virtue signaling’ as part of PR. But, it’s also a company, after all and who knows if shareholder pressures or public pressure is involved. Sounds more like a personal decision by the company founder?

#19

Whoever writes the search algorithm decides what the search results will look like. Even though the developers may not realise it, these decisions are purely political. In this case, the CEO of DuckDuckGo openly discusses part of the politics behind their algorithm. Other search providers who show different or differently ranked results for the same query simply used different politics to create their algorithm.

All search providers ‘censor information they don’t agree with’. This is not always a bad thing. I wouldn’t want to have the top ten search results for “good financial investments” be clever scam sites, because the higher the result is ranked, the more trustworthy it appears. Is it right or just for search providers to censor scam sites to protect the easily fooled from falling for them? Or are they censoring those sites because they assume their users would not be interested in scams?

By the way, if you were serious about it: being located in the United States, DuckDuckGo was never an option in the first place.

2 Likes
#20

Exactly. Threat modelling: Choose the search enginge in regard of what you want to find. One can always switch to Yandex for russian sites, some are good for images, some for confidental stuff… No need to use just one.

1 Like
#21

I think there is still a slight difference between simply using one search algorithm or another and deliberately skewing search results either for profit or because the entity running the software does not agree with where the results would link to.

1 Like
#22

It still comes down to the same thing: someone at some point decides what is shown and what isn’t, and what is ranked higher and what is ranked lower. Algorithms are created by humans, and all humans have ideas on the way they think the world should work, which they either consciously or subconsciously rely upon to partake in the world. That by definition makes it impossible to escape search engine censorship, because all humans censor things they don’t want. @apozaf makes a great point: if one search engine doesn’t show the results you’re looking for on certain topics, just look those topics up with another search engine.

1 Like
#23

I went to the duck duck website and the duck duck engine automatically appeared in the browser settings

2 Likes
#24

I can only repeat myself here. There’s a difference between a search algorithm having one algorithm or another coloring search results in an unpredictable way and consciously censoring information.

1 Like
#25

I can affirm this. The same goes for the above mentioned swisscows search engine …Thanks ! (^_^) b

#26

We need to be pragmatic here. Let me show what you just know:

  • Google is Google in bad or good, they shaped the idea of a search engine but because their success, they were heavily put under political agenda and this will happen to any other single entity worldwide and no matter what.

  • Bing is the Microsoft answer to Google and now it is powered by AI as long as people register themselves with a Microsoft account which brings us to the most exposition to be profiled, is this that bad? Usually and for most of the people, not so much because in being exposed to “alternative thruts”, they easily fall in scams due to their lack of critic sense and factual reasoning¹.

  • DuckDuckGo about performances, user experience and reliability of the results stays at the same level of the two big brothers above. In fact, it offers its own browser also. It is applying a screening on the results but it cares about privacy, as far as their claims fit with reality. SFOS is focusing on privacy not about delivering revolution-prone smartphone².

  • Swisscows is about privacy and it claims to be family safe. Both are good things because unless you are searching specifically some contents, it is supposed you would not be exposed to them. It is about freedom when you are searching for a technical problem and two big boops show up in front of you or a huge african penis? I do not think so³. The real problem in using Swisscows is that recently cannot deal anymore with the relative huge search queries that they are receiving.

  • Brave, like DuckDuckGo, they offer privacy and their related browser. I haven’t used it long enough to have formed an opinion about it. More can be learned by Wikipedia. Anyway, it is a belonging of a USA company, like DuckDuckGo, because Brave Software’s headquarters are located in San Francisco, California.

Feel free to report every other search engine that claims to be privacy respectful.

SUMMARY

As far as I know DuckDuckGo and its browser is the best choice for those care the privacy because their browser/services are available for every platform that worth some kind of interest. Possibly Brave with its browser as well.

Improving the native browser wouldn’t be such bad idea⁴ and find a good way to expand the Swisscows capabilities would be even better. The first goal here cited, is going to be appendend in a long list of requests while the second is out of the scope here.

CONCLUSION

Please, keep in consideration that SFOS is about privacy, not about freedom or security. One day, maybe but not today. Therefore, do not push your agenda on others people agenda otherwise you are going to behave like the every political governance that you are blaming. Everyone is on the right side of their agenda and of their belief. The day you will got this, the path of freedom will start to be clearer.

Something essential about freedom: it is a ideological belief that it exists. In fact, we are part of a society, we live and work among others people and moreover all of us are subjugated by real world even if we are used to ignore it. Therefore, freedom is an illusion of prosperity but as far as the prosperity is not shared with many people around, it stops to be an illusion also. Therefore, fighting for a fair search enginge will not bring you something as good as fighting for a fair society. Just in case “fighting” is the proper verb, as you like. The total freedom is the last achievement of those worth nothing or nothing anymore.

All of this stuff, is about politics. Feel free to feel hurted and write a harsh reply to calm down your nerves. The objective fact is that SFOS is about privacy and those are searching for something else should take care of their own configurations because a default choise is a mass-orienting strategy by definition. Are you prone to accept a mass-orienting strategy for yourselves? Or are you trying to impose your {belief, choice, agenda, will, etc.} to others?

Please keep focused on the main goal: privacy. Then security. Then social fairness. Then freedom, when our time will be expired.

REAL CONCLUSION

Also considering their brosers which is the best performant and privacy respectfull service between these two search engines?

  • DuckDuckGo
  • Brave

Is there any other viable alternative?

  • Startpage is a Dutch search engine company that highlights privacy as its distinguishing feature. The website advertises that it allows users to obtain Google Search results while protecting users’ privacy by not storing personal information or search data and removing all trackers. Wikipedia

Here a list of 21 alternatives to Google and Bing search engines:

in just three articles. Moreover, this github project will keep you informed about privacy respectful projects, software, tools, services, etc.:

About the browser, I would list:

Those like me that are using a VPN at OS level, MullVPN is redundant then Bromite. About VPN for privacy, we can open an entire new chapter. However, also that topic is quite fundamental for the privacy like the ability to limit and inspect the network traffic like NetGuard does.

I hope this helps.

NOTES

¹ someone can say that free sheeps managed to survive despite wolf population but surviving is different than living. On the pastor/herder side, it is better protect the sheeps from the wolves for the benefit of the whool harvesting. Most of the sheeps usually agree also when the pastor/herder sacrifies/takes some of them.

² trust me: they do not exists and if they exist are almost useless for the 99.99% of the people

³ we born naked and we are spending the rest of our life arguing and bothering about dressing and its etiquette while we are watching porn or doing that or falsely denying! :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

⁴ including fixing that crap-out-of-standards that works with the others broswers because used widely. Obviously, it should be implemented as an option because purists should be respected and left free to uncheck an option.

⁵ surprisingly in Bromite website homepage on the right top corner there is a strip with Ukraine flag colors saying: “Help Ukraine Now” linked to a stand-with-ukraine site in .ua top domain. Whatever you might think about the topic itself, this is politic stuff and it is one of the worst because biased by dualism with-or-without paradigm. It seems that also Bromite people got involved in… :wink: