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View Full Version : [privacy]HELP Is there a safe search engine out there?



radical3
June 30th, 2008, 11:34 PM
ive had enough of google basically.
why?
-they store your searches
-they track you through the web with a cookie that lives longer than some humans(too many people complained of their 36 year cookie and they eventually chopped it down a bit)
-they "scan"(read) all the g-mail
-they help totalitarian govt's sensor the web for their people orwellian style (ie freedom has a price tag) and they will sensor the internet as they please.....

-----despite this they have refused many times to purge their "BLOGGER" website of deliberate racist neo-nazi blogs-----

-they sell your data to anyone who wants to buy it
-they scan popular social networking sites , where people voluntarily make profiles about themselves, and store that data-------

-----and now they have "google operating system" gOS (i know its not but it might as well be "google operating system") aimed at people who willingly make profiles of themselves) (!!!!)-----------

-they have made it well known that they work with the NSA ,ie the same people micro$oft handed a backdoor key for windows to. The ADVAPI.DLL,look it up(they denied it of course)
-they also have ties to internet "phone companies" eg skype, (i wonder what they could be doing there)

--they can use their search engine to trace your IP, locate your whereabouts ie your home address, lookup who lives there,and once they have your full name and address they can have a look at your history, credit cards bank accounts spending habits, educational background. pretty much anything. ALL LEGALLY despite what country you live in.

The list goes on and on if i told you the rest you probably wouldn't even believe me, its not private stuff, they happily publish it .
why....?

im not from america but, i recently heard that they were putting microphones in parks and calling them "gunshot detectors" amazing.

as the saying goes "if you wanna hide something put it in plain view"


over some time ive realised that:
-disabling cookies doesent stop google profiling
-using a proxy doesent stop it either

if you think they would go this length for relevant text ads dont even bother replying.

PLEASE does someone know of a NON-PROFILING NON-orwellian NON-God complex search engine.
the following search engines are relatively the same as google

-live
-yahoo
* AltaVista
* AlltheWeb
* GoodSearch
* Rectifi
(yahoo owned i think)
-lycos
-ask
-aol

once again PLEASE HELP, recommend a good search engine.
thank you

billgoldberg
June 30th, 2008, 11:40 PM
http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm

This one is a good choice.

Also, you could always use TOR or a proxy to search google.

Oh, should have read the whole thing.

No proxies.

Another search engine all together?

http://www.gigablast.com/

Kingsley
June 30th, 2008, 11:42 PM
Clusty the clustering search engine (http://clusty.com/)

lockerhaxor
June 30th, 2008, 11:44 PM
I've never tried this, but someone recommended it to me once.

http://technorati.com/

It's some sort of search engine for blogs and such. It's not really up to general search engines standards, but it might suit your purposes.

Hope this helps,
Lockerhaxor

billgoldberg
June 30th, 2008, 11:47 PM
Clusty the clustering search engine (http://clusty.com/)

A clustering search engine uses other search engines (like google), this is what the OP didn't want.

billgoldberg
June 30th, 2008, 11:50 PM
I switched my home page to gigablast and added it to the firefox search field.

There eco page (http://gigablast.com/index.php?page=green) is worth a read.

And the search results are good.

LaRoza
July 1st, 2008, 12:05 AM
-----despite this they have refused many times to purge their "BLOGGER" website of deliberate racist neo-nazi blogs-----

As long as they don't break the law...



-they sell your data to anyone who wants to buy it
-they scan popular social networking sites , where people voluntarily make profiles about themselves, and store that data-------

That is what search engines do ;)



-----and now they have "google operating system" gOS (i know its not but it might as well be "google operating system") aimed at people who willingly make profiles of themselves) (!!!!)-----------

Wrong. Do your research. The 'g' stands for Green I believe and is not made by google.



-they have made it well known that they work with the NSA ,ie the same people micro$oft handed a backdoor key for windows to. The ADVAPI.DLL,look it up(they denied it of course)

Yes, it is usually advisable to cooperate with the government.



--they can use their search engine to trace your IP, locate your whereabouts ie your home address, lookup who lives there,and once they have your full name and address they can have a look at your history, credit cards bank accounts spending habits, educational background. pretty much anything. ALL LEGALLY despite what country you live in.
Not true. Only an ISP could do anything remotely like that.




[I]im not from america but, i recently heard that they were putting microphones in parks and calling them "gunshot detectors" amazing.

Gunshot detectors are valuable. I live near a bank and Convenient store. This area just got a new camera + gunshot detector (if I tree weren't blocking it, I would be able to see the poll it is on.

You are, essentially, asking for a search engine that doesn't work. They have to index what they see, and to be effective, they have to do it well.

Your facts are wrong and overblown in many cases. If you don't want to have the possibility of losing privacy, don't use the internet ;)

Also, please change your avatar. Read the Code of Conduct, such things are not allowed.

Dr Small
July 1st, 2008, 12:08 AM
http://ixquick.com

billgoldberg
July 1st, 2008, 12:15 AM
As long as they don't break the law...


That is what search engines do ;)


Wrong. Do your research. The 'g' stands for Green I believe and is not made by google.


Yes, it is usually advisable to cooperate with the government.


Not true. Only an ISP could do anything remotely like that.




Gunshot detectors are valuable. I live near a bank and Convenient store. This area just got a new camera + gunshot detector (if I tree weren't blocking it, I would be able to see the poll it is on.

You are, essentially, asking for a search engine that doesn't work. They have to index what they see, and to be effective, they have to do it well.

Your facts are wrong and overblown in many cases. If you don't want to have the possibility of losing privacy, don't use the internet ;)

Also, please change your avatar. Read the Code of Conduct, such things are not allowed.

You're right, the OP did exaggerate a bit (the old google is evil with hidden USA bashing), but their adsense/google syndication goes a bit to far for me.

I used scroogle for a while, but I now switched to gigabyte.

Something new every now and then keeps things interesting.

radical3
July 1st, 2008, 12:22 AM
gigablast has been mentioned twice, but on their management page, it clearly states their vice president used to work for the NSA.

@LaRoza
thank you for your input it helps balance out my biasd views, however i think time will tell if they are overblown or not

@billgoldberg
GOOD GOD im not bashing usa, its just the only example i could think of besides a lot of people on this site are from america, i thought it would make more sense to use an example from america. but thanks for scroogle , read up on them, unbelievable, they can run all your searches through ssl. thanks for that one

btw have you read 1984?

cardinals_fan
July 1st, 2008, 01:54 AM
Ask lets you clear all their data on you at any time... supposedly :D

aysiu
July 1st, 2008, 02:37 AM
Any email host that has a built-in spam identifier scans your emails. GMail is no different. You can read more at the GMail FAQ (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_privacy.html#scanning_email).

In 2006, the US government subpoenaed four major search engines for user searches (http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/177101984). Google was the only one of the four that didn't comply with the request. Yahoo, MSN, and AOL all complied.

Google is not perfect (it is a corporation, after all), but based on what I've seen, it's the most trustworthy of all the major search engines.

ice60
July 1st, 2008, 02:43 AM
i use scroogle as my main search engine. there's blackbox search too.
http://www.blackboxsearch.com/index.php

i also use customisegoogle extensions for both firefox and opera, they have an option to anonymise the Google cookie ID.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/743
EDIT, in the firefox extension go to the customisegoogle preferences>Privacy and check the boxes in that section.
http://www.smir.de/cg/

and there's the manual way of anonymizing the google cookie ID with the googleanon bookmarklet
http://www.imilly.com/google-cookie.htm

radical3
July 1st, 2008, 02:56 AM
ive switched to scroogle now

i was using customise google for a while but i cant put all my eggs in a firefox addon.
and as for mail, if you have your own site (cpanel) you can use your own webmail, thats probably the only way to get privacy, ie pay for it.

LaRoza
July 1st, 2008, 03:17 AM
@LaRoza
thank you for your input it helps balance out my biasd views, however i think time will tell if they are overblown or not

I hope you are wrong...

/me changed name and lives in forest away from google

hanzomon4
July 1st, 2008, 03:28 AM
I trust google over the others, they seem to have a lot of linux folks and linux folks are obsessed with privacy.... Why? because they like really kinky stuff.

bodhi.zazen
July 1st, 2008, 06:05 AM
Google does a nice job and I like the search results they return. i have tried several others and keep going back to google.

Google also gives back, if you wish to make use of their servers, and they support the Linux community better then some.

Just install customize google :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/743

From there you can block ads, change to https, and disable tracking ....

Just block cookies.

Besides, unless you use TOR or tunnel over ssh, it is an illusion to think your browsing and searches are anonymous anyway. Did you not register with an ISP ? Do you really believe no one is watching when you browse ? :lolflag:

the yawner
July 1st, 2008, 06:36 AM
I suggest telepathically connecting to the internet or something to that effect.

Trevorius
July 1st, 2008, 07:05 AM
http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm

This one is a good choice.

Another search engine all together?

http://www.gigablast.com/
Nice tips! I've made Scroogle my default Opera search, and Gogablast looks interesting as well.

fatality_uk
July 1st, 2008, 09:15 AM
they can use their search engine to trace your IP, locate your whereabouts ie your home address, lookup who lives there,and once they have your full name and address they can have a look at your history, credit cards bank accounts spending habits, educational background. pretty much anything. ALL LEGALLY despite what country you live in

That did make me chuckle. :lol:

As LaRoza said, it would mean working with every ISP and having their database at Google's disposal, which would break UK law under the Data Protection Act 1998 Part 1~ Section 1-2~.

phaed
July 1st, 2008, 09:32 AM
How does blocking cookies and using a proxy not stop it? A proxy like tor will change your connection path through the proxy network every so often. The only thing that Google can know is the last node that your connection comes out of. Without cookies, there's no way to trace you.

Plus, there's no reason to be this paranoid. Google tracks users to improve its AdSense delivery, but remember, you're one of 500 million people who use Google. How much do you think they really care about you?

I use Adblock Plus. Good enough for me.

radical3
July 1st, 2008, 10:21 AM
@phaed
LOL if google did all that privacy murduring for text ads why is it that a search for "adsense/adwords sucks" yeild results in the millions. you should really read about what adsense/adwords(ie googles blood) have to say about the service.
LOL the nsa care about googles text ads

phaed its not really paranoia, its looking out for yourself. in secondary school i learned non-stop about, nazi stuff, then tsarist stuff, then a whole sack of british stuff. and when you strip away the names,titles,nationalities and every other division, you get the same thing over and over again:
----people selling their freedom for priveledges/saftey/convenience----

so when you see see the same thing happen in real-time, it kinda scares you, coz you know what follows.

DISCLAIMER: i am NOT saying google is run by nazi or tsars or brutal royalty.

joninkrakow
July 1st, 2008, 11:20 AM
DISCLAIMER: i am NOT saying google is run by nazi or tsars or brutal royalty.

The real problem is not what Google or other companies would do with that info, but what would happen if suddenly these corporations were nationalized (like during the Nazi Soviet govn'ts), and suddenly, all this info/power is in the hands of the government thugs--and don't think that it would be just "Bush" thinking such things... The Clintons were specialists in this area... That is where the danger of having all this personal data in the databanks of every grocery store and web site comes from. How real that danger is? Well.... no one knows... Personally, I tend to downplay it. Much of this data has long been in existence, just no quite so centralized, but the ability to centralize it has also existed for a long time. Look, it happend in the 30s in Germany... Fight it if you wish, but don't expect that your efforts will have all that great an impact if the world comes crumbling down.

-Jon

Trail
July 1st, 2008, 11:50 AM
Mwhahaha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin_Law

joninkrakow
July 1st, 2008, 02:33 PM
Mwhahaha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin_Law

Hm. That is probably one of the most incomplete explanations of Godwin's Law I've ever read. For one, it doesn't mention Ayn Rand at all! :-D For another, it doesn't mention that once "Hitler" and/or "Ayn" have been "invoked" entropy will have the victory, and the conversation will wind to an end. :-)

-Jon