this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Privacy

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[–] [email protected] 104 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

Everybody with basic reading abilities already knew that "incognito" is just "not saving stuff locally". Sites can track you regardlessly. With any browser.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

99.99999% of users don't know this... People who work in IT knows it and that's about it.

This is also why Google search is still popular too, people don't know about any alternatives and are afraid to use something else even. They don't even know why they may want to use something else. It's ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Google search is still popular because it works the best for most people. Bing and the others pretty much suck.

I know I'll get downvoted but it's true. I try to use DDG where possible, and I'm not paying for Kagi. It's quite expensive and I'm not too sure I'd like it. Half the time DDG doesn't find something Google easily finds.

And yes I know Google is worse than it was like 3 years ago, but DDG results are way worse.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Fyi: this also depends on local factors and the kind of stuff your looking for.

In my experience ddg is awful which is strange cause its powered by bing results while Bing result are ok, on par with google for searching and finding websites/services

Startpage wich is deanonimized google works great on premise but its unusable If you want to find local services/stores or governments sites. (It makes total sense though, its the tradeoff of sharing location data). At some point the top result was a starbucks on the other side of the planet and i had actually provided the settings with my nationality and main language.

Google remains king when it comes to digital shopping, results list almost all the major local retailers for me. Bing seems to pick favorite more selectively.

In all seriously of late the tools ivebeen the most happy with are:

  • wikipedia search
  • wolfram alpha
  • gpt-4 (with healthy skepticism)

I seem to be naturally moving away from search engines in favor of just a few bookmarked sites where the real content is. Most of the internet that i havent seen is either not my thing or feels dead

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Right, yeah it does depend. In general though, DDG is just bad about half the time for me in general. Do you know if startpage has a !g kind of directive like DDG? I may have to give that one a shot if so.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Not sure, but if you use Firefox this functionality comes by default and is customizable.

you can add other search engines shortcuts trough add-ons https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/startpage-private-search/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I just tried a search on startpage that gave me a lot of issues on DDG last night. Immediately found what I needed! Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

When did you try DDG? I'm newer to it and have heard it get alot of grief but I've never had much issue.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

Pretty much daily. On my phone it is my default search engine but it often doesn't work out for me.

I gave up with that plan on desktop and reverted back to google as default since it seems especially bad at finding software solutions, and I'm doing most of those searches for my job and side projects on my desktop.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well I used the Kagi free trial and loved it, and now I'm a very happy subscriber. It's better than everything else, and it's not owned by shitty big tech as a bonus. :)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I need to give it a shot I suppose. Thanks for this response.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeah you get 200 free searches I think, enough to see if the results are better for you. You can also raise or lower or remove certain sites in the results so you can get rid of the sites you never want to see.

I love their listacles format too when searching for best movies or car reviews etc.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

Yeah, but "not knowing" is not (entirely?) Google's fault.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yes, often misunderstood, you do the same with Cookie Autodelete or Site Bleacher extensions.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Honestly I thought it would send out a no tracking flag. I wouldn't be surprised if it is or will be illegal to ignore that flag in some jurisdictions.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Do-Not-Track requests is nothing but a header on GET. at best, it's useless, with exceptions from websites that already barely track you. at worst, it's another data point for fingerprinting your browser.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Ya so a good reason to include it in the next wave of legislation, if it wasn't already in one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So, how much to buy a couple of lobbyists to get this ball rolling?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Ehh just sit back and wait for the EU to lead in privacy once more.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

yeah that's fair

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

The Please don't track me Mr Google flag

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The change is being made as Google prepares to settle a class-action lawsuit that accuses the firm of privacy violations related to Chrome's Incognito mode.

This won't change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including Google."

The stable and Canary warnings both say that your browsing activity might still be visible to "websites you visit," "your employer or school," or "your Internet service provider."

We asked Google when the warning will be added to Chrome's stable channel and whether the change is mandated by or related to the pending settlement of the privacy class-action suit.

Incognito mode in Chrome will continue to give people the choice to browse the Internet without their activity being saved to their browser or device."

On December 26, 2023, Google and the plaintiffs announced that they reached a settlement that they planned to present to the court for approval within 60 days.


The original article contains 545 words, the summary contains 154 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

google is olny ducktaped to a requirement in the privacy community because of YouTube pretty much nobody in the privacy community is using google or is even planning to use google but there's YouTube and mabye google forums

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Some Google analyst is rubbing his hands together gleefully as I show him where all the good hentai is.