What search engine?

[Mad Doug Biker]

I have been thinking, I currently use one of the better known search engines for things, but on reading up about them, it says they still store your info despite deleting your history. Now, I have nothing to hide, but I do happen to find it vaguely creepy that everything I have ever looked at is stored somewhere.

So, I've been looking about, and found amongst others, 'duckduckgo' which claims not to track you, although that appears to be for ads, etc, but are there any search engines that GENUINELY don't track what you are looking at, or are they all legally bound to store info?

I always have my history switched off anyway, but I am curious, and thought some of you computer peeps might know.


Thanks.

 

[MrJamie]

Google stores your search history if you're logged in with a google account and probably logs enough for governments to check your search history with a little help from your ISP. Using something like noscript should help with the random ads tracking you though.

I recently had to reinstall Windows 8 after a harddisk failure, so logged in with my Windows 8 account clicked Internet Explorer to start downloading programs and it had my settings/history/favourites restored. Smartphones often share same accounts, link into phone books so they can see who our friends/contacts are and link us to other people without us knowing too. So someone with your phone number could be profiled as a friend of that guy who keeps looking up naked pics of nessies :P

It'll be interesting if in our lifetimes they were to allow companies to search our browsing history for insurance/credit analysis like Duck Duck Go suggests and we'll be regretting those times we went too deep into the weirdness of the internet.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Naked Nessies

I am not logged in with any of the web browsers, especially not Google or Yahoo or any of the others!

I just want REAL privacy, is it possible to do??

 

[Finnjävel]

https://duckduckgo.com/ solves that particular worry. Doesn't help with the ISP knowing about the nessies though. You'd need some VPN service for that, but I don't think there are any free ones that work.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

VPN? Sorry, I know nothing here.

EDIT: A Virtual Private Network? That looks like its for corporate users, etc.

 

[Finnjävel]

I use this VPN: https://www.privatvpn.se/. There is an explanation in there somewhere, I'm on mobile phone so it's hard to type long posts, but I'll get back to you when I get to a proper computer.

I used duckduckgo for a while, then realised that as long as my email, instant messaging, calendar and even photos I take on my phone are on Google's servers, my search history isn't going to matter much.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

I haven't been on Google in years, but yes, I'll look into the VPN in the morning when I'm as bit more alert (ha ha!).

Sometimes I wish I could just bleach everything and start off again like the first day I ever went on the internet, but I doubt that will happen!

Thanks by the way!

 

[machew]

If you really want privacy use Tor, this will VPN you to a random Tor server in world

 

[Davidc]

If you really want online privacy don't own a computer or mobile phone of any sort!

 

[Cheddar George]

Even the guys in the search engine industry don't like it !

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJCmmnv8YVo

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Thanks everyone!

 

[Octet]

Personally I use DuckDuckGo as my default search engine.

In terms of a VPN, although it provides a very high level of privacy, VPNs tend to be dedicated to a single person or organisation and therefore anyone watching the exit nodes can normally work out it as coming from you (unless you connect to a public VPN).

A more robust option would to be using something similar to a VPN, called a Mesh Net. A mesh net being a network where your traffic hops between many hundreds of computers, and ends up coming out somewhere else. This is more advantageous then a VPN because it travels across multiple networks, which isn't common with a VPN (a VPN normally goes from your computer, directly to the exit system).

The most common mesh net would be the Tor Network, which is free to use and works on Linux, Mac and Windows. The only disadvantage of using Tor is that because it takes a very long route in order to disguise your traffic, it can be rather slow.

I should however reiterate that using a VPN, or a Mesh Network only masks your traffic from anyone watching between you and the end servers. Anything you post on the end server shall still be stored, and can still be traced back to you!

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

I tried Tor last night but or some reason I couldn't download it. I'll see again today. Also I'm now on DDG, unless something better comes along.

Thanks.

 

[Doseone]

There's more than one search engine?

 

[Octet]

Just found out that DuckDuckGo also operate a Tor Exit Node, which means when using DuckDuckGo and Tor at the same time it should be a lot quicker than Tor alone.