“It only takes one step to stop Google from tracking you, and you can still enjoy Google search along with several other Google features,” Zach Epstein reports for BGR. “Plus, there are some great alternatives to Google search that don’t track you, and we’ll cover them here as well.”
“VPN. It’s that simple,” Epstein reports. “If you don’t want to use a VPN and Google’s tracking is off-putting, there are still some great options for search engines that won’t track you.”
Here are four you should check out:
• DuckDuckGo
• Disconnect
• ixquick
• StartPage
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We use DuckDuckGo more often than not.
If only Google took their pledge of “Do no evil” seriously, we wouldn’t have to jump through these hoops.
Alas, Google is evil. Evil to the core. In bed with the NSA. We are the product.
The Gaggle motto was a typo; should read “Do know evil.” 🖖😀⌚️
New motto: “Tracking you from A to Z”
Go-olgle’s motto goes beyond bizarre – it sets the bar for the company’s behavior just above demonic and leaves open the options of being unethical, dishonest, corrupt, thieving, copying, spying (Eric T. Mole, are your ears burning?), etc.
Plus, as markar12 rightly notes, to one’s ears the motto becomes a command to understand and comprehend what it means to be evil.
Go-ogle, a terrible excuse for a company !
I am always interested in being informed about how to avoid being tracked. Especially by the likes of Google who has used their sophisticated technology to become a multi-Billion dollar company as professional Peeping Toms.
It really isn’t just as simple as using a VPN. You have to also make sure you don’t login to any of their products (Gmail, Google Now, Google Docs, etc). If you use your VPN while logged into those services then they will just add the new IP address they see through the VPN as “you”.
Why do you think they give away all those services? It is so you are logged in as you search the web so they know who you are and add to your profile.
You are absolutely right. Google will capture the IP address of the VPN server. The only way to stop Google from tracking you is to stop using all Google service altogether.
Its not that simple, just not using Google products does not slow down Google at all. The primary method of tracking users, gathering their surfing habits and creating profiles of them is actually though the millions of ads that Google has all over the web. If you soil didn’t use any Google product you still would be going to all sorts of web sites most of whom if not all of them, have Google trackers embedded in the ads. Even when it does not look like the ads are served by Google, they still go through Google for processing (because they are so good at it). In addition t not ever using any Google products including Gmail, I use Ghostery to prevent any ads from ever loading, use DuckDuckGo for all searches (they don’t track, they don’t keep logs on you and they encrypt the connection to their site via HTTPS (which behaves exactly like a VPN to them), then I use DNScrypt to encrypt my DNS queries (some spying has been shown to be conducted against DNS traffic).
Consider that most sites use Google Analytics… which records your IP and sends it to Google. Great insight into your users… centralized information gathering.
Hosts file, add Google-analytics.com
Done.
Can’t track you if they can’t get any info from you.
(Search if you don’t know how to edit your hosts file)
Also Ghostery to block Google Analytics
It’s even easier than that for Google to track you when using VPN. They can figure out who you are from your cookies.
I have a feeling Google Search is not long for this world on Apple devices.
You may well be right. Still, I favor maximum choice. What if what you predict comes true and you “want” to use Google on your iPhone?
You will probably have the data-mining option like with Google Maps. Blech, but there it is.
We do have choice right now on iOS. In Settings>Safari you have a choice between: DuckDuckGo; Google; Yahoo and Bing, so you are free to do as you please (all other search engines pay one of these companies for search). Apple’s SIRI uses Bing but I suspect that Apple will switch in the near future. Apple already moved away from Google for their Maps app (which got off to a rocky start but is now rated as being better than Google Maps).
How to stop Google from tracking you:
1) Uninstall that memory hog Chrome, use Safari or FireFox instead.
2) Stop using all Google products like GMail, Maps, Hangouts.
Not good enough, have to add to your host file
127.0.0.1 http://www.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
so the advertisers and website operators don’t fink on you
I too use Duck Duck Go often; right before I use google for the same thing because I can’t find what I’m looking for.
I have not used Google search for a long time!
More than a year ago I turned to DuckDuckGo and never looked back. And I am not missing anything.
Unfortunately I still have to use Google Maps as they (at least in Germany and other parts of Europe) are consistently much better and more reliable than Apple Maps (which has gotten better over time but is by far not as good as Google Maps.
Every time an article like this comes out, I give DuckDuckGo another try; but sad to say, it just doesn’t cut the mustard. Search results are mediocre to downright retarded.
Try considering StartPage then… StartPage gives Google results without the Google tracking.
I didn’t go for StartPage/IXquick because they still use Google, so in essence you are still telling Google what you are most interested in, and yes, its anatomized but I don’t want to help Google in bulk or in any way figure out which sites or products or services are preferred.
I tried very hard to do away with all my Google services. I started using FireFox instead of Chrome. For a week or two I thought it was just as good and thought I would never look back. But then FireFox started to slow down like it always used to do way back before Chrome and I started to long for the speed and little usability benefits of Chrome and I broke down and went back to Chrome. Sadly it provides the best browser experience, by far of any of them, with the exception of the invasion of privacy.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I’ve been using Bing in order to avoid Google as much as possible, and started enjoying those iTunes gift cards that Microsoft rewards (read: bribes) me with for using Bing. But they recently dropped iTunes (but still have Amazon). Maybe I’ll switch to DuckDuckGo.
I’ve recently “cleansed” my iPhone. No FB installed. No Gmail. Set to block all cookies, only use private browsing, and have Purify installed. Convenient? No…but keeps me from obsessively checking my phone, and shows me which sites I can “trust.” My once favorite local new site, for example, doesn’t work with this setup..site won’t load do to “too many redirects “… Sneaky shit.
I am Goople Free as far as I know. lol
Duck Duck Go works well except for image searches.
Ddg image search….. Worst out there.
Ddg normal search.. Mediocre.
I switched to ddg, and found I kept searching for something, and then have to re search for it in another engine.
Switched back to Bing, the bribes and at least it’s not Google. Err… Alphabet.