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    • Delete 27 August 2023
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    • New note by bobjonkman 3 August 2023
      From a few years ago... All gone now, and I promised $SPOUSE it would never come back. https://gs.jonkman.ca/attachment/221480
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      bobjonkman favorited something by clacke: I tried for over four decades to grow an impressive personality, but it was a lot of effort and not much payoff, so now I'm just trying to grow an impressive beard instead.
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by clacke 3 August 2023
      RT @clacke I tried for over four decades to grow an impressive personality, but it was a lot of effort and not much payoff, so now I'm just trying to grow an impressive beard instead.
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by clacke 27 July 2023
      RT @clacke did you watch Oppenheimer, the film about the moral implications of the things we create, starring an actor who also played a Gotham City psychiatrist who went insaneordid you watch Barbie, the film about the moral implications of the things we create, starring an actress who also played a Gotham City psychiatrist who […]
    • Favorite 27 July 2023
      bobjonkman favorited something by clacke: did you watch Oppenheimer, the film about the moral implications of the things we create, starring an actor who also played a Gotham City psychiatrist who went insaneordid you watch Barbie, the film about the moral implications of the things we create, starring an actress who also played a Gotham […]
    • New comment by bobjonkman 29 June 2023
      @steve Wait, you or Dr. Cooley are at Perimeter? Giving any public lectures? If so, I'll hop on my bike to attend! @Perimeter
    • bobjonkman repeated a notice by steve 29 June 2023
      RT @steve From jodi on Mastodon: I’m looking forward to meeting students at TRISEP 2023 being held @Perimeter!
    • 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 […]
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      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 […]

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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