For several years I’ve been using DuckDuckGo instead of Google Search, and I’ve been overall quite happy with the results. Only rarely had I to resort to Google search (!g).

During the last month or two, however, I’ve found myself using the !g switch and Google search more than half of the time. DuckDuckGo shows no or few results where Google shows more (and useful) ones.

Still I don’t want to give in. So:

  • Have you also experienced this worsening of DuckDuckGo?
  • Which other more privacy-respecting alternatives do you recommend?
  • stravanasuOPEnglish
    0•12 days ago

    I remember reading that there was something “fishy” with Startpage, which is why I abandoned it quickly. But don’t remember where.

    Luckily I don’t often search for videos, but I agree that it seems difficult to find good search alternatives there.

    • ZeroCoolEnglish
      0•12 days ago

      For what it’s worth, Mullvad recently opened up Leta to people without Mullvad VPN accounts. It a google/brave search proxy so pretty much what Startpage claims to do, but I trust Mullvad to actually respect my privacy more than I do Startpage.

      • @[email protected]
        0•12 days ago

        I use Startpage and I get decent results. I never google anymore except maps. What is wrong with them?

        • ZeroCoolEnglish
          0•12 days ago

          Ah, sorry, I guess I implied there’s something nefarious going on with Startpage. But there isn’t as far as I can tell. I just trust Mullvad more based on their track record. If you’re happy using Startpage keep using it.

          • @[email protected]
            0•12 days ago

            Startpage having a good track record is one of the main reasons why I’m happy to use them. Nothing sketchy so far and decent results. I am also a Mullvad customer for the same reasons.

      • @[email protected]
        0•12 days ago

        This is awesome. Is there a DDG !bang for this? I would love to use it in place of !g for the few times I resort to !g.

        • ZeroCoolEnglish
          0•12 days ago

          I just checked and it doesn’t look like it (if you want to search for DDG bangs here’s the link, just scroll down a bit.. But you could always just add Leta as a search engine in your browser preferences and set a keystroke for it. For example, type L into the URL bar then space and it’ll use Leta for your query. (Note, I use Firefox, not sure if it’s the same with Chromium based browsers).