Google is the 2,000-pound gorilla among the search engines out there.
It should come as no surprise that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other big tech companies are amassing a lot of data with each online search and purchase. Ever notice how if you search for some product, it suddenly appears in ads and banners in multiple applications?
DuckDuckGo is a search engine which purports not to collect and store personal information about its users.
Our privacy policy is simple: we don’t collect or share any of your personal information. Ever.
– from DuckDuckGo’s homepage
I’ve been aware of DuckDuckGo for some time, but reading this piece from DuckDuckGo’s CEO, Gabriel Weinberg has convinced me to try using the DuckDuckGo search engine instead of my default Google search.
I’ll report back with my results and observations after I’ve given DuckDuckGo a fair trial.
Here are some reviews of DuckDuckGo vs. Google:
DuckDuckGo vs. Google: An In-Depth Search Engine Comparison – SearchEngineJournal, April, 2019
DuckDuckGo Vs. Google: What You Need to Know – Hackernoon, February, 2019
DuckDuckGo vs. Google – Is one really better than the other? – Lifewire, October, 2019
Do you use DuckDuckGo or anything other than Google? Would you consider scrapping Google as your default search engine? Send me your comments!
Blatant Calm 
I’ve been using DuckDuckGo as my default search engine for several years now and it has worked out well for me. (In other words…I’ve minimized the degree to which I’ve been feeding the google monster and I’ve not noticed a change in the quality of my search results). I’ll be interested to see what you think after you’ve used it awhile-
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So far, the first couple days using DuckDuckGo on all four (yes, four) browsers on my work computer have gone fine. Your experience gives me confidence I will stick with DuckDuckGo for the long run.
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I’ve also been using DDG as my main search engine on all my devices for several years. I rarely resort to the !b and !g shortcuts to (re)run a search on Bing or Google. It does happen, but mostly DDG finds what I want.
I try to stay out of the Google ecosystem; I’ve resisted Google Photos, have no interest in Android, and don’t use Gmail as my main address. (But everyone else does, so half my email ends up on their servers anyway…) Maps & Waze are the ones I have not given up.
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After using DuckDuckGo for two weeks on all my computers and mobile devices, I am satisfied with the performance and don’t miss the Google or any other search engines at all. I encourage everyone to try DDG out and consider making the switch.
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