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    • New note by bobjonkman 8 June 2023
      Several other authors of software that accesses the Twitter API have come to that conclusion as well. When #Twidere, my phone app to access Twitter stopped accessing Twitter back in January I pretty much abandoned Twitter. I still check Twitter with its WebUI, less than once a week, but I no longer post or engage […]
    • Favorite 8 June 2023
      bobjonkman favorited something by steve: I finally had a chance to figure out why my social bridging software was no longer able to talk to Twitter. Indeed, it's because under Twitter's new leadership, python-twitter has been deemed as violating something in their terms of service. It says I can submit a ticket, but they make […]
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by steve 8 June 2023
      RT @steve I finally had a chance to figure out why my social bridging software was no longer able to talk to Twitter. Indeed, it's because under Twitter's new leadership, python-twitter has been deemed as violating something in their terms of service. It says I can submit a ticket, but they make it impossible to […]
    • Favorite 8 June 2023
      bobjonkman favorited something by steve: Got weirdly hung up on a simple problem involving the Poisson equation, and still have not resolved it. Who knew an isotropic collisionless gas in a spherically symmetric gravitational potential would be so IRRITATING? https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/7fcc02ad3df2ed9843b945250eef98bff9f7892a5da3711780562d1c81133b64/view
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by steve 8 June 2023
      RT @steve Got weirdly hung up on a simple problem involving the Poisson equation, and still have not resolved it. Who knew an isotropic collisionless gas in a spherically symmetric gravitational potential would be so IRRITATING? https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/7fcc02ad3df2ed9843b945250eef98bff9f7892a5da3711780562d1c81133b64/view
    • New note by bobjonkman 30 May 2023
      I'd be more inclined to say "people voting the way the polls said they should..."
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by hubert 30 May 2023
      RT @hubert I have to laugh and shake my head at Smith calling it a "Miracle on the Praries". No, you were leading in the polls pretty much the whole time. You're in a strongly conservative province. I mean, if you're saying that it's a miracle that the majority of Albertans chose to ignore your […]
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by blacksam 28 May 2023
      RT @blacksam I’ve been getting more into the game Gaslands with my son and also with adult friends. It’s a Mad Max-esque tabletop game where you’re expected to create your own game pieces by kitbashing with toy cars. I already have all the crafting, painting and 3d printing supplies I need from my other wargaming […]
    • Favorite 28 May 2023
      bobjonkman favorited something by blacksam: I’ve been getting more into the game Gaslands with my son and also with adult friends. It’s a Mad Max-esque tabletop game where you’re expected to create your own game pieces by kitbashing with toy cars. I already have all the crafting, painting and 3d printing supplies I need from […]
    • Favorite 28 May 2023
      bobjonkman favorited something by blacksam: Here are a couple more cars I've made for #gaslands

IxQuick and DuckDuckGo, alternative search engines

Posted by Bob Jonkman on 30th April 2012

Screenshot of IxQuick in Mozilla Firefox

IxQuick search engine

A friend mentioned that

I’m concerned about Google having a monopoly on search, and tracking their users for search terms, and much more.

So use another search engine.

I’ve been using IxQuick on-and-off for years, and almost exclusively for the last six months: https://ixquick.com/

First, I set the default Search Bar plugin to IxQuick from one of the many selections at the Mycroft project .

Then I also set Firefox’s address bar to do keyword searches on IxQuick:

  1. type about:config in the address bar
  2. Acknowledge the potential for damaging your system
  3. Search for the keyword.URL entry
  4. Change it to https://ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl?query=

Now any keywords you type into the address bar will be looked up by IxQuick.

IxQuick is a metasearch engine, which searches All the Web, Digg, Qkport, Ask/Teoma, EntireWeb, Wikipedia, Bing, Gigablast, Yahoo, Cuil and Open Directory. Almost everything except Google. IxQuick claims that it does NOT collect or share your personal information, and keeps logs no longer than 48 hours.

All in all, I’ve been very pleased with the results IxQuick provides.

Screenshot of Firefox displaying the DuckDuckGo home page

DuckDuckGo search engine

DuckDuckGo (https://duckduckgo.com/) is another alternative search engine that claims it does not collect or share personal information.

To put DuckDuckGo in the Search Bar, browse to the DuckDuckGo site, pull down the list of search engines, then click on “Add DuckDuckGo”.

To set up DuckDuckGo as the default search engine for the address bar:

  1. type about:config in the address bar
  2. Acknowledge the potential for damaging your system
  3. Search for the keyword.URL entry
  4. Change it to https://duckduckgo.com/?q=

I haven’t used DuckDuckGo much at all, but I’ve only heard favourable reports…

Note that there are many other references to Google in the about:config settings, so if you make only these changes you’re still not Google Free.

–Bob.

Screenshot images created by Bob Jonkman, and released to the Public Domain

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Posted in Google, Google Free, Internet, privacy, search engines | 3 Comments »

 
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