A few weeks ago the DuckDuckGo search engine—popular among those who value privacy—announced that it would, essentially, be actively censoring search results with regard to Russia - Ukraine. Users would still keep their privacy, it was announced, but their search results would be deliberately slanted for political reasons. Sites “associated with Russian disinformation” would be downranked in the results—they would be, effectively, concealed. So, presumably, the NYPost, purveyor of Russian disinformation about the Bidens, would be downranked. It’s a judgment call, and the judgment is up to DuckDuckGo—or, just maybe, the Deep State masters who call the shots for DuckDuckGo. That part is left unsaid.
This is America. Correction-this is Amerikka. What has happened to our freedoms? The new rule is-don't believe anything, but there are still a few sites where you can get a glimmer of the truth.
I don't believe you will find a truly independent search engine in the US. I suspect the intel community are involved behind the scenes. There have been a few, but they quickly get bought out by the giants. DDG has always been sort of the "controlled oppo" search engine, and has always just repackaged Google and Bing indices. Search has always been about the power to promote and suppress. That's why they sell ads: you can also pay to suppress results, and these companies are not required to disclose their customers.
For something a little different, in terms of business models, check out https://www.presearch.io
Both maintain their own crawlers and indices, Qwant doesn't say anything about bias which can be safely read as not wanting to discuss their biases -- but they are not typically the same biases as the big US search giants.
I did look at both. That was some weeks ago and now I forget why I didn't bookmark them along with the other three. I think with Mojeek I wasn't crazy about the interface and with Qwant i think I had the--mistaken, it seems--impression that it was a meta-search engine.
I don't really recommend any of them as being the ultimate and final trustworthy authority on the universe of knowledge: it's foolish to accept such an implicit claim from Google or anyone else.
But when researching anything "contentious" in depth, I find it's helpful to check all these different sources from different jurisdictions, including Yandex. Even the meta engines sometimes give very different results, depending I suppose on the changing versions of their bulk indices and how they choose to weight them.
Use Yandex, the search engine out of Russia: https://yandex.com. They have an Android App, as well. I've been using it for years and don't understand why many don't know about it. Benefits: (1) Not only do you not get pushed Recommendations or Ads in search results (because no Ad campaign will spend ad-money on foreign search engines); but, also, Yandex does not propagandize non-Russian web-searchers, by intent. You see, Yandex will propagandize Russian web-searchers, but will absolutely reveal the truth to (ie, not propagandize) foreign web-searchers (especially NATO country web-searchers). Compare, for instance, search results for "Vaccine Research Foundation Kirsch" between Google.com, Bing.com, DuckDuckGo.com, and Yandex.com. You'll see what I mean with the Yandex results. I hope this helps.
I'm the retrogrouch who uses an ancient Android phone. Have used Brave browser faithfully over past few yrs, but updates since end of 2021 no longer accomodate us dinosaurs. Cd be Yandex won't either, but worth a try!
In general, I wasn't impressed w/the Brave search engine. My search results were limited to maybe a dozen or so and entering the exact same search term a 2nd time (to re-find results from first search) brought back a whole new set of results at one pt. Maybe I'm daft - still on recovery leg from Wu-flu.
I've been using the Brave browser for about a year, teamed with DDG. I had not been paying attention. (edited from here on-->) I have just done a side-by-side of ddg and brave search results on the term "Ukraine war" "all regions" results for "today" under "news." Virtually identical, all major commercial MSM, Reuters WP, Newsweek, Guardian, etc.
I have been 100% on Brave now for a few weeks. I had two abortive attempts to use Brave in years past but rolled back onto Chrome due to Brave's issues with synching bookmarks across multiple machines. That issue is no longer germane to me so the news about DDG's finger on the search scales was the final impetus for me to leave Google and DDG behind--hopefully for good this time. Brave's browser is elegant and a very easy transition to make for Chrome users. The search engine seems quite good--and fair--so far. I just pray they hold the line on their commitment to privacy and equanimity.
I set up Firefox on both iphone and my Macs to use Brave Search, though I still use Safari on iphone (Safari ios doesn't allow you to assign search engines outside of its stock offerings) for general reading purposes only because it alone has the text size adjustment option - a feature I use a lot. If I need to do any sort of politically oriented searches, I jump over to Firefox or Brave.
Just saying all this just in case anyone thinks you have to use Brave browser in order to use Brave search.
As an aside, I will never forgive Mozilla for their disgraceful capitulation to the furies with respect to Brendan Eich. That was the first big pelt that cancel culture nailed to their wall. Mozilla can eff off into the sun as far as I'm concerned.
Great points by both of you. The only reason I've stuck with Mozilla is that I'm addicted to Zotero to save (almost) everything I read, and Firefox seems to be the least evil of the browsers that Zotero supports. But this discussion has motivated me to find another way of achieving what I want.
I have been using Brave since the DDG fiasco and am content with it. I like the idea that it uses its own crawler rather than being "meta search." As for the VPNs, Surfshark recently started tagging web page content that it considers "fake news," in particular what it considers Russian disinformation. Apparently you can turn that off (as an option) but be advised the wokeness is strong with this one.
I’ve been using Brave since the DDG announcement you talk about, and while I haven’t tried testing it for political neutrality yet, I do like its interface better than DDG.
Ha! No apologies necessary - it's always good to see people's real thoughts whether they do or do not agree. Plus you added useful info I wasn't aware of, so thanks.
This was written in Feb, found it on Tom Luongo's site, not sure who Joaquin Flores is, but I like the cut of his jib, interesting perspective on the Great Reset and our Globalist Oligarchic Overlords: https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/02/24/is-great-reset-failing-when-great-narratives-fall-apart/
This is America. Correction-this is Amerikka. What has happened to our freedoms? The new rule is-don't believe anything, but there are still a few sites where you can get a glimmer of the truth.
Don't forget Mojeek. It's sort of the French version of Metager, and it's independent as well. https://blog.mojeek.com/2018/08/independent-and-unbiased-search-results.html
I don't believe you will find a truly independent search engine in the US. I suspect the intel community are involved behind the scenes. There have been a few, but they quickly get bought out by the giants. DDG has always been sort of the "controlled oppo" search engine, and has always just repackaged Google and Bing indices. Search has always been about the power to promote and suppress. That's why they sell ads: you can also pay to suppress results, and these companies are not required to disclose their customers.
For something a little different, in terms of business models, check out https://www.presearch.io
Sorry, my mixup. Mojeek is British, Qwant is French.
https://betterweb.qwant.com/en/web-indexation-where-does-qwants-independence-stand/
Both maintain their own crawlers and indices, Qwant doesn't say anything about bias which can be safely read as not wanting to discuss their biases -- but they are not typically the same biases as the big US search giants.
I did look at both. That was some weeks ago and now I forget why I didn't bookmark them along with the other three. I think with Mojeek I wasn't crazy about the interface and with Qwant i think I had the--mistaken, it seems--impression that it was a meta-search engine.
I don't really recommend any of them as being the ultimate and final trustworthy authority on the universe of knowledge: it's foolish to accept such an implicit claim from Google or anyone else.
But when researching anything "contentious" in depth, I find it's helpful to check all these different sources from different jurisdictions, including Yandex. Even the meta engines sometimes give very different results, depending I suppose on the changing versions of their bulk indices and how they choose to weight them.
Use Yandex, the search engine out of Russia: https://yandex.com. They have an Android App, as well. I've been using it for years and don't understand why many don't know about it. Benefits: (1) Not only do you not get pushed Recommendations or Ads in search results (because no Ad campaign will spend ad-money on foreign search engines); but, also, Yandex does not propagandize non-Russian web-searchers, by intent. You see, Yandex will propagandize Russian web-searchers, but will absolutely reveal the truth to (ie, not propagandize) foreign web-searchers (especially NATO country web-searchers). Compare, for instance, search results for "Vaccine Research Foundation Kirsch" between Google.com, Bing.com, DuckDuckGo.com, and Yandex.com. You'll see what I mean with the Yandex results. I hope this helps.
Thanks NYCeyes & DD!
I'm the retrogrouch who uses an ancient Android phone. Have used Brave browser faithfully over past few yrs, but updates since end of 2021 no longer accomodate us dinosaurs. Cd be Yandex won't either, but worth a try!
In general, I wasn't impressed w/the Brave search engine. My search results were limited to maybe a dozen or so and entering the exact same search term a 2nd time (to re-find results from first search) brought back a whole new set of results at one pt. Maybe I'm daft - still on recovery leg from Wu-flu.
You're welcome. 🤗
I've been using the Brave browser for about a year, teamed with DDG. I had not been paying attention. (edited from here on-->) I have just done a side-by-side of ddg and brave search results on the term "Ukraine war" "all regions" results for "today" under "news." Virtually identical, all major commercial MSM, Reuters WP, Newsweek, Guardian, etc.
samo-samo it appears.
I have been 100% on Brave now for a few weeks. I had two abortive attempts to use Brave in years past but rolled back onto Chrome due to Brave's issues with synching bookmarks across multiple machines. That issue is no longer germane to me so the news about DDG's finger on the search scales was the final impetus for me to leave Google and DDG behind--hopefully for good this time. Brave's browser is elegant and a very easy transition to make for Chrome users. The search engine seems quite good--and fair--so far. I just pray they hold the line on their commitment to privacy and equanimity.
I set up Firefox on both iphone and my Macs to use Brave Search, though I still use Safari on iphone (Safari ios doesn't allow you to assign search engines outside of its stock offerings) for general reading purposes only because it alone has the text size adjustment option - a feature I use a lot. If I need to do any sort of politically oriented searches, I jump over to Firefox or Brave.
Just saying all this just in case anyone thinks you have to use Brave browser in order to use Brave search.
True that.
As an aside, I will never forgive Mozilla for their disgraceful capitulation to the furies with respect to Brendan Eich. That was the first big pelt that cancel culture nailed to their wall. Mozilla can eff off into the sun as far as I'm concerned.
Why I try to avoid Mozilla.
Great points by both of you. The only reason I've stuck with Mozilla is that I'm addicted to Zotero to save (almost) everything I read, and Firefox seems to be the least evil of the browsers that Zotero supports. But this discussion has motivated me to find another way of achieving what I want.
I have been using Brave since the DDG fiasco and am content with it. I like the idea that it uses its own crawler rather than being "meta search." As for the VPNs, Surfshark recently started tagging web page content that it considers "fake news," in particular what it considers Russian disinformation. Apparently you can turn that off (as an option) but be advised the wokeness is strong with this one.
I’ve been using Brave since the DDG announcement you talk about, and while I haven’t tried testing it for political neutrality yet, I do like its interface better than DDG.
And thanks for the list - should be good to have.
Brad, I didn't see your comment before posting so I apologize for using the same language :) Maybe our minds just work alike? Kind of scary :)
Ha! No apologies necessary - it's always good to see people's real thoughts whether they do or do not agree. Plus you added useful info I wasn't aware of, so thanks.
Thanks for the ref.
LoL, I was typing the same as you were. 🤗