duckduckgo

[mac98aop]

Using this as my search engine, and rather recommend.

Okay, it lacks a certain speed and panache of Google, but it's not
recording my every move, or any move for that matter, so I rather like
it!

Now, if only Safari would let me edit my search engine options? Why
WOULD Apple lock that down?

Money talks?

[andrew lancaster]

Can it be made the default search engine on, say, Firefox - or is it a case of having to go to it before running a search?

I was rather startled to find how much information is retained. So, every time I google asthma, or alcoholic liver disease, or pancreatic cancer (I always look up what friends or relatives have to see if I can find anything that might help) I could be leaving a trail that would make, for example, BUPA, see me as a really bad risk?

And that is only one example - the ramifications are legion.

Thanks.

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[mac98aop]

Yes, I believe in Firefox you can go to Preferences, enter it as a
search engine and make it default.

You can in Chrome.

Typically, I prefer Safari, where you can't!

Ramifications indeed, not least I hadn't realised that it Google try
to tailor their results to me.. hence if I search for something on my
wife's Mac, different results pop up compared to mine.

That's not useful. It's annoying.

[Paul Russell]

I've become a convert to DuckDuckGo of late. It's much cleaner, faster, simpler and less cluttered than Google - somewhat like how Google was about 10 - 12 years ago. It also seems to give me much better search results - I found a birthday present for my son that I'd been looking for via Google for ages without any lucj.

One thing you can to to make life better in Safari is to (a) set your home page to duckduckgo.com and (b) edit your hosts file so that Yahoo searches go to duckduckgo.com - then change the search box default from Google to Yahoo and it will use DuckDuckGo for all your searches. You need to add a line like this to /etc/hosts:

184.72.115.86 search.yahoo.com

You can still go back to Google if you want to and no one uses Yahoo for searches anyway.

Paul

[andrew lancaster]

Paul,

Where do I find my hosts file? I like the idea of doing this - but it is the how!

Thanks,

Andrew

[Sam - MacAmbulance]

Open Terminal and type "sudo pico /etc/hosts" then type your password in, add the following to the end of the file "184.72.115.86 search.yahoo.com" then push ctrl+x to exit, Y to save, Return to save the same name.

That should do it.

Sam

MacAmbulance

Providing affordable Apple & PC services

Sam Mullen
07747 778022
http://www.macambulance.co.uk
in...@macambulance.co.uk

[andrew lancaster]

I'm afraid I got lost at "Terminal" ! Sorry.

[andrew lancaster]

I found this

http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216447-safari

and did option 1.I have now got a duckduckgo bar! So I have the option of using the duckduckgo bar at the left of the toolbar, or the google bar at the right. Seems OK!!

Andrew

On 1 Feb 2012, at 8:32 am, Sam - MacAmbulance wrote:

[Paul Russell]

Yes - that also works - I tried it but did't like the extra screen clutter (I'm only using a 15" MacBook Pro) so I went for the Yahoo hack of the hosts file.

Paul

[Diana]

Thanks for this information.  I now have DuckDuckGo listed via Glims and made it my preferred search option.  Had forgotten how much Google tracks what you do.  I have AdBlocker installed in Safari as well and seems to work well.