Privacy in search engines is rare. This is just sad but true. Mostly, because the best results from the hyped information super highway turned out to be selling focused ads. One reason Apple announced DuckDuckGo as a default browser choice in new Safari releases yesterday is privacy. I am not pretending that Apple is an angel. The contrary is true.
They’re all about selling too, with the iTunes Store and a myriad of other properties. Apple is all about brand and capturing market share. But the people at Apple have a keen sense of the customer. Customers want privacy. People need security. With all of the data breaches at big footprint businesses people should be careful.
Google of course is and has been the leader in Internet profitability. AltaVista, shortly after the launch by DEC in 1995 was the search leader. It was great because it was fast and effective. No one really worried about privacy in search engines then. Read more about AltaVista. Bear Claw Technology had a short lived venture called sort.net, sorting out email mostly for college kids after graduation. This was before DEC introduced email in ’96. The entry into email heralded the age of search clutter until Google came along. They handled and still handle search extremely well. But their is that nagging privacy issue.
DuckDuckGo.com gets back to the basics. Its number one feature is privacy. Privacy in search engines doesn’t even make the top three list in article quoted below. What most people want out of a study of 290 search engines for internet beginners is one that delivers these three key features:
- Relevant results (results you are actually interested in)
- Uncluttered, easy to read interface
- Helpful options to broaden or tighten a search”
From http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/navigatingthenet/tp/top_10_search_engines_for_beginners.htm
Most people who are not Internet beginners, and some who are have noted the persistence of ads that come their way from the big search providers. It is not coincidence. But what to do about it. When I search for my doctors by name for his phone number, I don’t want to see a bunch of quacks. That’s the beauty of privacy in search engines. After the recent redesign, DuckDuckGo is more user friendly. It is the first search engine to implement SSL in all searches. Follow the Duck and put some more security into your online routine.