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Time to ditch #duckduckgo
(lemmy.world)
In the last couple of months I have noticed an increasing trend of supplying me search results that are completely unrelated to the current query and tie back to my location or previous searches. I can say this with a high degree of certainty this is without a doubt beyond the 100th instance this has happened.
My browser is configured against tracking and fingerprinting (in fact all my devices are) which would make it fairly difficult to retain any data unless they are profiling me.
Looks like you are using Firefox. Use arkenfox sure, but cut Mozilla off it's 115 server network it uses to track you via FF by using a host deny list, FOSS git clone harden-firefox. You'll have to disable to update ublock origin or remove the extensions line, but it's better to just cut the adverts and tracking by removing it from the networks than by browser interception (slower, loss of performance, still hits your computer). Links included to do that in that repo.
Alternative browers are Librewolf and Qutebrowser. When you really don't want to be tracked for some things use Lynx.
A great search engine replacement is Grasp. It's being funded by Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator and although you only get 100 free searches a months, it can come in very handy. The search results it gives you, unlike Kagi which is just a reformat of DuckDuckgo yet with AI, it's results are completely different than any other engine and imo, on point, surely for anything technical.
My general search engine is an envs.net free hosting of Searx. envs.net is a free Linux shell community with many services like blogs, email, matrix hosting, etc etc. If you do end up using their German Searx as main search donate to them, I did.