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Don't want to be swept up in a dragnet? Don't want to be a suspect based on normal everyday activities? Then you better not use Google, try DuckDuckGo or anoth

Don't want to be swept up in a dragnet? Don't want to be a suspect based on normal everyday activities? Then you better not use Google, try DuckDuckGo or another private search engine. Edit: downvote all you want. dealing with google is like talking to the police, whatever you say/do will be used against you. in googles case for advertising/influencing you or by the government using the google gold mine. you can spare yourself by using a different search engine.

lmilcin 5y ago
> Edit: downvote all you want. Complaining about being downvoted is shunned upon on HN and is unlikely to cause people to stop downvoting. It brings nothing interesting to discussion and actually reduces density of interesting things.
- annoyingnoob 5y ago
  You only posted a piece of my edit. I did also clarify my point. Was not meant as a complaint as much as a clarification and invitation for discussion. Wish more down votes would comment. My style tends to be terse/short and perhaps I don't always make my point well.
  - stickfigure 5y ago
    It still detracts from the conversation and invites distracting meta-threads like this one (and yes, I'm contributing). It's really better to let your original point stand on its own. Don't be disheartened by a few downvotes in the short period while a comment is still editable. You may get many more upvotes as time goes on. Or not, but don't take it personally either way. There are also people like me that upvote interesting comments even if we disagree with them (especially if they are unfairly negative). Meta-commentary on votes tends makes them much less interesting.
    - annoyingnoob 5y ago
      Fair enough.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    The edit would have been better if you'd left off the first four words in it. It's not your terseness that's the issue.
duckmysick 5y ago
Would not using Google or Facebook be considered suspicious at some point?
CountDrewku 5y ago
I've been de-googling my life as much as possible the last year. I think it's impossible to completely be rid of it but at least I feel I'm doing something. Moving important email to protonmail. I only use firefox and duckduckgo browsers. Pretty much exclusively using duckduckgo for search. I've installed a PiHole on my home network. I've switched to an iPhone... although I considering some custom android ROM now. Using Apple Maps. I wish there was a YouTube alternative that was up to par.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  > Moving important email to protonmail. https://www.thedailybeast.com/secure-email-provider-protonmail-handed-over-user-data-to-europol https://www.thedailybeast.com/secure-email-provider-protonma... Protonmail literally gave up the personal info of some French activists who were later arrested...
  - JasonCannon 5y ago
    Because France had a treaty with Switzerland, the home country of protonmail, and Switzerland gave Protonmail a legally binding warant to turn over information. Nothing that Protonmail could do unless they themselves wanted to be arrested.
    - idiotsecant 5y ago
      Sounds like a valid complaint about protonmail though, right? They choose their jurisdiction, seems like they may have chosen poorly.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    Being legally compelled to hand over data is not the same as actively collecting every single facet of personal info about people for monetary profit bud. Google does exactly what you're upset about ON TOP of a plethora of more insidious things. If you're trying to make a claim that one is equal to the other you're failing miserably.
  - jefftk 5y ago
mdoms 5y ago
Do you have any evidence that the same government orders were not given to DuckDuckGo? Or that they wouldn't be if DDG had any kind of meaningful market share?
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  If your goal is not to be seen, relying on things without meaningful market share is actually fine. Security through obscurity is bad long-term, comprehensive strategy because it's unstable and not indefatigable... Not because it doesn't work in the short run and in one-off cases.
  - ziddoap 5y ago
    >If your goal is not to be seen, relying on things without meaningful market share is actually fine. Except for the cases where you want the exact opposite, because the noise makes it more difficult to find a single person. If there's only 5 people using, say, TOR Browser - you become easy to track. Not saying this is the case here, just that different situations require different operational security considerations.
rstat1 5y ago
You say that as if DuckDuckGo is completely immune to the same sorts of warrants. They're all the same, serving you ads based on your search terms.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Yes. I think people forget that personalization is not used for ads in Google Search - it's always ads for what you're searching for. Your data is only used for things like YT Ads and banner ads via Adsense-enabled sites.
  - ectopod 5y ago
    That's half true. Personalisation informs the search which informs the ads. If I search for a restaurant I get ads for local restaurants.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  > You say that as if DuckDuckGo is completely immune to the same sorts of warrants. If you don't collect data, you can't share it in a warrant.
  - rstat1 5y ago
    But they do though. How else are they going to serve you ads based on your search terms? (which they plainly say on their website that they do) There isn't a single search engine anywhere that isn't collecting some data. Not even DDG.
    - leereeves 5y ago
      DDG's privacy policy says: > When you search at DuckDuckGo, we don't know who you are and there is no way to tie your searches together. > When you access DuckDuckGo (or any Web site), your Web browser automatically sends information about your computer, e.g. your User agent and IP address. > Because this information could be used to link you to your searches, we do not log (store) it at all. https://duckduckgo.com/privacy#s3 https://duckduckgo.com/privacy#s3
shadowgovt 5y ago
Eric Schmidt, as Google CEO, had a habit of saying unpopular but true things. When he responded to a question about how people interact with Google with "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," he wasn't so much offering self-criticism as a warning regarding the overall societal trend, of which Google was merely a part. The context is often left out in that interview snippet, because he goes on to say "... but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it’s important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities." Actions online leave a data trail. The US government has broad subpoena power to acquire that data trail. DDG is a smaller aggregation house, so it's less likely to be hit first, but I wouldn't assume that they don't retain routing info, IP addresses, etc. that could (with some difficulty) be collected and aggregated to narrow the search space for a person.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  Unpopular but true? No. Popular and false.
- _yoqn 5y ago
  Privacy is generally agreed to be a human right. And privacy means that you can do or say something and have a right to have it not be known or made public. If someone with access to you data exposes it, it's a violation of privacy. So no, the old argument of "if you don't want it known, don't do it" is fallacious and dangerous.
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    Doesn't the added context change it from a moral argument to a pragmatic one about opsec as it were? Morally not locking your door doesn't mean you should be robbed. Practically it means you are more likely to be robbed.
    - a1369209993 5y ago

lmilcin 5y ago

> Edit: downvote all you want. Complaining about being downvoted is shunned upon on HN and is unlikely to cause people to stop downvoting. It brings nothing interesting to discussion and actually reduces density of interesting things.

annoyingnoob 5y ago
You only posted a piece of my edit. I did also clarify my point. Was not meant as a complaint as much as a clarification and invitation for discussion. Wish more down votes would comment. My style tends to be terse/short and perhaps I don't always make my point well.
- stickfigure 5y ago
  It still detracts from the conversation and invites distracting meta-threads like this one (and yes, I'm contributing). It's really better to let your original point stand on its own. Don't be disheartened by a few downvotes in the short period while a comment is still editable. You may get many more upvotes as time goes on. Or not, but don't take it personally either way. There are also people like me that upvote interesting comments even if we disagree with them (especially if they are unfairly negative). Meta-commentary on votes tends makes them much less interesting.
  - annoyingnoob 5y ago
    Fair enough.
- fragmede 5y ago
  The edit would have been better if you'd left off the first four words in it. It's not your terseness that's the issue.

duckmysick 5y ago

Would not using Google or Facebook be considered suspicious at some point?

CountDrewku 5y ago

I've been de-googling my life as much as possible the last year. I think it's impossible to completely be rid of it but at least I feel I'm doing something. Moving important email to protonmail. I only use firefox and duckduckgo browsers. Pretty much exclusively using duckduckgo for search. I've installed a PiHole on my home network. I've switched to an iPhone... although I considering some custom android ROM now. Using Apple Maps. I wish there was a YouTube alternative that was up to par.

Mikeb85 5y ago
> Moving important email to protonmail. https://www.thedailybeast.com/secure-email-provider-protonmail-handed-over-user-data-to-europol https://www.thedailybeast.com/secure-email-provider-protonma... Protonmail literally gave up the personal info of some French activists who were later arrested...
- JasonCannon 5y ago
  Because France had a treaty with Switzerland, the home country of protonmail, and Switzerland gave Protonmail a legally binding warant to turn over information. Nothing that Protonmail could do unless they themselves wanted to be arrested.
  - idiotsecant 5y ago
    Sounds like a valid complaint about protonmail though, right? They choose their jurisdiction, seems like they may have chosen poorly.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Being legally compelled to hand over data is not the same as actively collecting every single facet of personal info about people for monetary profit bud. Google does exactly what you're upset about ON TOP of a plethora of more insidious things. If you're trying to make a claim that one is equal to the other you're failing miserably.
- jefftk 5y ago

mdoms 5y ago

Do you have any evidence that the same government orders were not given to DuckDuckGo? Or that they wouldn't be if DDG had any kind of meaningful market share?

shadowgovt 5y ago
If your goal is not to be seen, relying on things without meaningful market share is actually fine. Security through obscurity is bad long-term, comprehensive strategy because it's unstable and not indefatigable... Not because it doesn't work in the short run and in one-off cases.
- ziddoap 5y ago
  >If your goal is not to be seen, relying on things without meaningful market share is actually fine. Except for the cases where you want the exact opposite, because the noise makes it more difficult to find a single person. If there's only 5 people using, say, TOR Browser - you become easy to track. Not saying this is the case here, just that different situations require different operational security considerations.

rstat1 5y ago

You say that as if DuckDuckGo is completely immune to the same sorts of warrants. They're all the same, serving you ads based on your search terms.

judge2020 5y ago
Yes. I think people forget that personalization is not used for ads in Google Search - it's always ads for what you're searching for. Your data is only used for things like YT Ads and banner ads via Adsense-enabled sites.
- ectopod 5y ago
  That's half true. Personalisation informs the search which informs the ads. If I search for a restaurant I get ads for local restaurants.
vineyardmike 5y ago
> You say that as if DuckDuckGo is completely immune to the same sorts of warrants. If you don't collect data, you can't share it in a warrant.
- rstat1 5y ago
  But they do though. How else are they going to serve you ads based on your search terms? (which they plainly say on their website that they do) There isn't a single search engine anywhere that isn't collecting some data. Not even DDG.
  - leereeves 5y ago
    DDG's privacy policy says: > When you search at DuckDuckGo, we don't know who you are and there is no way to tie your searches together. > When you access DuckDuckGo (or any Web site), your Web browser automatically sends information about your computer, e.g. your User agent and IP address. > Because this information could be used to link you to your searches, we do not log (store) it at all. https://duckduckgo.com/privacy#s3 https://duckduckgo.com/privacy#s3

shadowgovt 5y ago

Eric Schmidt, as Google CEO, had a habit of saying unpopular but true things. When he responded to a question about how people interact with Google with "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," he wasn't so much offering self-criticism as a warning regarding the overall societal trend, of which Google was merely a part. The context is often left out in that interview snippet, because he goes on to say "... but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it’s important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities." Actions online leave a data trail. The US government has broad subpoena power to acquire that data trail. DDG is a smaller aggregation house, so it's less likely to be hit first, but I wouldn't assume that they don't retain routing info, IP addresses, etc. that could (with some difficulty) be collected and aggregated to narrow the search space for a person.

jjoonathan 5y ago
Unpopular but true? No. Popular and false.
_yoqn 5y ago
Privacy is generally agreed to be a human right. And privacy means that you can do or say something and have a right to have it not be known or made public. If someone with access to you data exposes it, it's a violation of privacy. So no, the old argument of "if you don't want it known, don't do it" is fallacious and dangerous.
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  Doesn't the added context change it from a moral argument to a pragmatic one about opsec as it were? Morally not locking your door doesn't mean you should be robbed. Practically it means you are more likely to be robbed.
  - a1369209993 5y ago