4 ms·

A caveat: I stopped using StartPage after it sold to an advertisement firm and switched to https://lite.duckduckgo.com/ https://lite.duckduckgo.com/ instead. Th

A caveat: I stopped using StartPage after it sold to an advertisement firm and switched to https://lite.duckduckgo.com/ https://lite.duckduckgo.com/ instead. The sale doesn't necessarily mean StartPage is any less private (because you can sell to an ethical advertising firm, why not) but something to keep in mind. Ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/di5rn3/startpage_is_now_owned_by_an_advertising_company/ https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/di5rn3/startpage_i...

ehnto 6y ago
Certainly food for thought. Unless startpage.com has revenue, and they leave it unchanged, I would have to be cynical and say that it's only a matter of time before the advertising shows up.
- imglorp 6y ago
  They can make money without advertising. Selling your search queries correlated to your browser fingerprint, for example.
  - ehnto 6y ago
    Indeed, which is probably worse. Advertising could in theory could be done ethically, unpersonalized, untracked.
    - yuhong 6y ago
      This is why my history of Google is important: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008_financial_crisis_on_Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008...
    - andrepd 6y ago
      I believe all advertising to be unethical, so there's that.
      - ehnto 6y ago
        I think I am probably not far off feeling the same way, so I am curious what your view is to make that the case?
- AshWolfy 6y ago
  They have ads, but they arent bad, aside from stuff like searx they are about the best ive used
nitrohorse 6y ago
Also worth noting is that since the acquisition, Startpage has added these support pages: - Startpage CEO Robert Beens discusses the investment from Privacy One / System1 [1] - What is Startpage's relationship with Privacy One/System1 and what does this mean for my privacy protections? [2] - What is the Startpage privacy-guarding data flow? [3] Some further context [4]. [1] https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1277/0/startpage-ceo-robert-beens-discusses-the-investment-from-privacy-one--system1 https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic... [2] https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1275/0/what-is-startpages-relationship-with-privacy-onesystem1-and-what-does-this-mean-for-my-privacy-protections https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic... [3] https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1276/0/what-is-the-startpage-privacy-guarding-data-flow https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic... [4] https://blog.privacytools.io/relisting-startpage/ https://blog.privacytools.io/relisting-startpage/
jjd33 6y ago
so you moved from startpage because they sold to an advertiser, to ddg, a company whose owner is an advertiser. look at gabriel weinbergs business history.
djeiasbsbo 6y ago
I would highly recommend Searx instead. You don't have to host your own instance either, there are many available at https://searx.space https://searx.space. It's essentially a "proxy" search engine for many different ones. It has some really cool features aas well as a dark mode.
- notjulianjaynes 6y ago
  I like searx quite a bit. I would ise it exclusiveley if there was a well functioning instance available. Unfortunately some features (search for files, search social media) didn't work on the instances I've tried, and there seems to be some issue with setting it as your default search engine on android. For me it works fine for a few searches, then at a certain point searchong for anything from the browser bar just redirects you to the sites homepage and you have to start over there. Local results are a bit lacking but this is essentially by design and adding a zip code or whatever usually helps.
  - resynth1943 6y ago
    IIRC if you disable POST requests, Chromium should show the searX instance in the Search Engines settings menu.
xref 6y ago
Thanks for the tip on DDG lite, never heard of it. Sounds like it reduces assets from 2mb to 33kb and makes fewer calls to populate the results. Will have to use it for a bit and see if result quality is comparable to standard ddg https://lifehacker.com/use-duckduckgo-lite-for-absurdly-fast-search-results-1841156955 https://lifehacker.com/use-duckduckgo-lite-for-absurdly-fast...
- opensmtpd 6y ago
  There is also something in between lite and full version. No JavaScript. https://html.duckduckgo.com/ https://html.duckduckgo.com/
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
Why not use both? Putting aside what happens if one allows Javascript and uses "modern" browsers, Startpage generally does not seem to require any more data from users than DDG. A small shell script can be used to search Startpage or DDG (or almost any other search engine) from the commandline without sending any unecessary data, like unecessary headers, cookies or hidden form variables. The best part is by not using the "modern" browser to send the search, one can easily automate editing the results page before viewing it in a browser, discarding all the cruft. I like to just return the URLs. (I notice that Startpage also (a) supports HTTP/1.1 pipelining, e.g., multiple page requests over a single TCP connection; Google does not and (b) allows bans to be overcome by solving an easily read captcha and this seems to prevent further bans; Google imposes automatic temporary bans that cannot be overcome by solving a captcha.) The biggest problem I see with the major search engines and these minor search engines that repackage results from the major ones is that they are too often limiting the number of results returned. For example, Google limits to something like 200-300. In the early days of the web, search engines used to brag about how many pages were searched, and they proved their claim by how many results they returned. Today search engines want to localise and limit the results. Not to mention promoting their own websites. I also notice repeated searches where one is collecting the total results not simply the first page yield different results. Not every query is a question and not every user is interested in an instantaneous "answer" or the most popular website. That type of quick searching certainly has its place but it is not "research" and will not lead users to learn much about what actually exists on the web, or how to think critically about the web's content. Some users may want to search for pages and then evaluate the pages themselves. Exploration and discovery. Those users are treated as "bots" in order to justify what can only be anti-competitive practices. The sad consequence of this "limiting" behaviour is to keep curious users from ever learning what actually exists on the web (versus what a "search engine" decides to promote, or demote). I have been playing around with Common Crawl data and it seems woefully circumspect in its scope. A web index should be public information but these search engines sure as heck do not treat it as such.
- Startpage- 6y ago
  You definitely have some useful tips here. But with or without a shell script, Startpage keeps your privacy. Our web app acts as a proxy between your endpoint and the rest of the web. We couldn't collect user data even if we wanted to. You deserve an explanation, and here's why: Startpage is delighted that users are conscientious about our privacy practices, as they should be. Privacy-aware users are the kind of users we enjoy serving. Asking questions is always a good idea. As we’ve stated, System1 is interested in Startpage’s anonymous contextual advertising revenue, not in our data. Mainly because we don’t store any. Even if they wanted to change our privacy policies, it wouldn’t be possible. Our co-owners and Surfboard Holding BV still have authority in our company. Our infrastructure is all in the European Union, where the strict GDPR legislation applies and the US Cloud law doesn’t. Maintaining user privacy is our reason for being. We thank you for your curiosity and your vigilance. We hope you continue to ask questions and enjoy Startpage. We are gladly answering all your questions.
Startpage- 6y ago
Startpage is delighted that users are conscientious about our privacy practices, as they should be. Privacy-aware users are the kind of users we enjoy serving. Asking questions is always a good idea. As we’ve stated, System1 is interested in Startpage’s anonymous contextual advertising revenue, not in our data. Mainly because we don’t store any. Even if they wanted to change our privacy policies, it wouldn’t be possible. Our co-owners and Surfboard Holding BV still have authority in our company. Our infrastructure is all in the European Union, where the strict GDPR legislation applies and the US Cloud law doesn’t. Maintaining user privacy is our reason for being. We thank you for your curiosity and your vigilance. We hope you continue to ask questions and enjoy Startpage. We are gladly answering all your questions.

ehnto 6y ago

Certainly food for thought. Unless startpage.com has revenue, and they leave it unchanged, I would have to be cynical and say that it's only a matter of time before the advertising shows up.

imglorp 6y ago
They can make money without advertising. Selling your search queries correlated to your browser fingerprint, for example.
- ehnto 6y ago
  Indeed, which is probably worse. Advertising could in theory could be done ethically, unpersonalized, untracked.
  - yuhong 6y ago
    This is why my history of Google is important: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008_financial_crisis_on_Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Effects_of_the_2007-2008...
  - andrepd 6y ago
    I believe all advertising to be unethical, so there's that.
    - ehnto 6y ago
      I think I am probably not far off feeling the same way, so I am curious what your view is to make that the case?
AshWolfy 6y ago
They have ads, but they arent bad, aside from stuff like searx they are about the best ive used

nitrohorse 6y ago

Also worth noting is that since the acquisition, Startpage has added these support pages: - Startpage CEO Robert Beens discusses the investment from Privacy One / System1 [1] - What is Startpage's relationship with Privacy One/System1 and what does this mean for my privacy protections? [2] - What is the Startpage privacy-guarding data flow? [3] Some further context [4]. [1] https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1277/0/startpage-ceo-robert-beens-discusses-the-investment-from-privacy-one--system1 https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic... [2] https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1275/0/what-is-startpages-relationship-with-privacy-onesystem1-and-what-does-this-mean-for-my-privacy-protections https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic... [3] https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1276/0/what-is-the-startpage-privacy-guarding-data-flow https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic... [4] https://blog.privacytools.io/relisting-startpage/ https://blog.privacytools.io/relisting-startpage/

jjd33 6y ago

so you moved from startpage because they sold to an advertiser, to ddg, a company whose owner is an advertiser. look at gabriel weinbergs business history.

djeiasbsbo 6y ago

I would highly recommend Searx instead. You don't have to host your own instance either, there are many available at https://searx.space https://searx.space. It's essentially a "proxy" search engine for many different ones. It has some really cool features aas well as a dark mode.

notjulianjaynes 6y ago
I like searx quite a bit. I would ise it exclusiveley if there was a well functioning instance available. Unfortunately some features (search for files, search social media) didn't work on the instances I've tried, and there seems to be some issue with setting it as your default search engine on android. For me it works fine for a few searches, then at a certain point searchong for anything from the browser bar just redirects you to the sites homepage and you have to start over there. Local results are a bit lacking but this is essentially by design and adding a zip code or whatever usually helps.
- resynth1943 6y ago
  IIRC if you disable POST requests, Chromium should show the searX instance in the Search Engines settings menu.

xref 6y ago

Thanks for the tip on DDG lite, never heard of it. Sounds like it reduces assets from 2mb to 33kb and makes fewer calls to populate the results. Will have to use it for a bit and see if result quality is comparable to standard ddg https://lifehacker.com/use-duckduckgo-lite-for-absurdly-fast-search-results-1841156955 https://lifehacker.com/use-duckduckgo-lite-for-absurdly-fast...

opensmtpd 6y ago
There is also something in between lite and full version. No JavaScript. https://html.duckduckgo.com/ https://html.duckduckgo.com/

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

Why not use both? Putting aside what happens if one allows Javascript and uses "modern" browsers, Startpage generally does not seem to require any more data from users than DDG. A small shell script can be used to search Startpage or DDG (or almost any other search engine) from the commandline without sending any unecessary data, like unecessary headers, cookies or hidden form variables. The best part is by not using the "modern" browser to send the search, one can easily automate editing the results page before viewing it in a browser, discarding all the cruft. I like to just return the URLs. (I notice that Startpage also (a) supports HTTP/1.1 pipelining, e.g., multiple page requests over a single TCP connection; Google does not and (b) allows bans to be overcome by solving an easily read captcha and this seems to prevent further bans; Google imposes automatic temporary bans that cannot be overcome by solving a captcha.) The biggest problem I see with the major search engines and these minor search engines that repackage results from the major ones is that they are too often limiting the number of results returned. For example, Google limits to something like 200-300. In the early days of the web, search engines used to brag about how many pages were searched, and they proved their claim by how many results they returned. Today search engines want to localise and limit the results. Not to mention promoting their own websites. I also notice repeated searches where one is collecting the total results not simply the first page yield different results. Not every query is a question and not every user is interested in an instantaneous "answer" or the most popular website. That type of quick searching certainly has its place but it is not "research" and will not lead users to learn much about what actually exists on the web, or how to think critically about the web's content. Some users may want to search for pages and then evaluate the pages themselves. Exploration and discovery. Those users are treated as "bots" in order to justify what can only be anti-competitive practices. The sad consequence of this "limiting" behaviour is to keep curious users from ever learning what actually exists on the web (versus what a "search engine" decides to promote, or demote). I have been playing around with Common Crawl data and it seems woefully circumspect in its scope. A web index should be public information but these search engines sure as heck do not treat it as such.

Startpage- 6y ago
You definitely have some useful tips here. But with or without a shell script, Startpage keeps your privacy. Our web app acts as a proxy between your endpoint and the rest of the web. We couldn't collect user data even if we wanted to. You deserve an explanation, and here's why: Startpage is delighted that users are conscientious about our privacy practices, as they should be. Privacy-aware users are the kind of users we enjoy serving. Asking questions is always a good idea. As we’ve stated, System1 is interested in Startpage’s anonymous contextual advertising revenue, not in our data. Mainly because we don’t store any. Even if they wanted to change our privacy policies, it wouldn’t be possible. Our co-owners and Surfboard Holding BV still have authority in our company. Our infrastructure is all in the European Union, where the strict GDPR legislation applies and the US Cloud law doesn’t. Maintaining user privacy is our reason for being. We thank you for your curiosity and your vigilance. We hope you continue to ask questions and enjoy Startpage. We are gladly answering all your questions.

Startpage- 6y ago

Startpage is delighted that users are conscientious about our privacy practices, as they should be. Privacy-aware users are the kind of users we enjoy serving. Asking questions is always a good idea. As we’ve stated, System1 is interested in Startpage’s anonymous contextual advertising revenue, not in our data. Mainly because we don’t store any. Even if they wanted to change our privacy policies, it wouldn’t be possible. Our co-owners and Surfboard Holding BV still have authority in our company. Our infrastructure is all in the European Union, where the strict GDPR legislation applies and the US Cloud law doesn’t. Maintaining user privacy is our reason for being. We thank you for your curiosity and your vigilance. We hope you continue to ask questions and enjoy Startpage. We are gladly answering all your questions.