A list of online services to regain control over your privacy online

CaffeineAddict

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2024
Messages
1,931
Reaction score
1,491
Credits
15,905
Over the last months I've been testing various online services that I find to be among the best alternatives to mainstream services:

1. DuckDuckGo or Searx instead of Google, Bing, Yandex, Yahoo and others
2. Rumble instead YouTube
3. Lingva Translate instead of Google Translate, Bing translate or Yandex translate etc.
4. OpenStreeMap instead of Google Maps or Bing Maps
5. Proton Mail instead of Outlook, Tutanota, GMail and others

Bonus to these is software and addons which is used to access these services as well as other web sites since they affect your privacy as well:
1. Firefox instead of Chrome, MS Edge and others
2. uBlock Origin and Noscript to block ads (I use both)
3. Cookie Auto Delete to auto delete unwanted cookies
4. Linux OS instead of Windows or Mac

It will take some time to get used to these, but once you do you'll feel their value and won't miss mainstreams, I assure you.

Please do share your alternatives if you have them or believe they may be better than these.

TODO:
Alternatives to social media
 
Last edited:


1. DuckDuckGo or Searx instead of Google, Bing, Yandex, Yahoo and others
Or Kagi.

I've been experimenting with it but I still mostly use Whoogle.
5. Proton Mail instead of Outlook, Tutanota, GMail and others
I host my own mail setup and I use Nextcloud for hosting my own calendar and contacts.
2. uBlock Origin and Noscript to block ads (I use both)
I only use uBlock Origin, I've had bad experiences with NoScript where it breaks most websites so I don't find it easier friendly enough to use because it causes more frustration. I also use this with my Firefox.
 
I've taken a look at sample screenshots on their page about how search results are getting rigged by commercial web searches.
Well if you compare my search result below made by DuckDuckGo you'll notice I don't suffer from this problem exactly because of NoScript + uBlock, here is sample screenshot to compare results with the one on link you gave:

search.png


I only use uBlock Origin, I've had bad experiences with NoScript where it breaks most websites so I don't find it easier friendly enough to use because it causes more frustration.
NoScript requires you to "train" it, that is, whitelist sites you care about and block everything else, it takes some time but NoScript is powerful provided you whitelist sites and block others. this takes some time and constant work but it's worth it.

I also use this with my Firefox.
I'll check it out and test to see how it performs, thanks for sharing!
 
I've taken a look at sample screenshots on their page about how search results are getting rigged by commercial web searches.
Are you talking about this?

If so did you see that the left is Kagi with no sponsored search results and the right is Google with sponsored search results?
 
yes. right hand part of the screenshot is flooded with ads.
If so did you see that the left is Kagi with no sponsored search results and the right is Google with sponsored search results?
Left is Kagi, right is Google they did that to give you a comparison to show what the difference is.
 
@f33dm3bits
Kagi brings a new model to the market - pay for your search with your wallet instead. For only $5/mo (Starter plan) or $10/mo (unlimited search plan) you can now search with a peace of mind, knowing the results are always shown with your best interest in mind.

$10 a month? it's not free, why would I pay if I can get the same for free?

Looks very clean with relevant results only, I like it.
 
$10 a month? it's not free, why would I pay if I can get the same for free?
Because search engines like Whoogle, DuckDuckGo and Searx all use some other search engine(s) to give you back to the search results and to support an independent privacy friendly search engine where you pay with money instead of with your data, so there you pay for what you get instead.

Since DuckDuckGo SEO is known to use Bing and Google results, it helps to know how inbound links for those search engines.

In Bing the number of links seems to have a greater effect on ranking, and exact-match anchor text plays a greater role compared to Google. This means that links coming to your site with anchor text keywords that you want to rank for, will be more valuable. Google is different since it prioritizes quality links over the amount of links

DuckDuckGo uses over 400 sources to provide results for searches – including other search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Google.


Let's be crystal clear about what "free" really costs:

  • Google generated $76 billion in US ad revenue (2023)
  • They make $277 per user annually in the US
  • That's $23 per month someone pays to influence your results
  • Your attention is literally being auctioned to the highest bidder
I do understand why you prefer to use a free one though, I use a free one still myself as well but it might be worth a thought.
 
@f33dm3bits
I'm aware that proxy search engines have deals with mainstream engines to provide results, sadly this can't be avoided.
However with whom does Kagi partner with? they fail to mention that. I doubt they run their own massive index like google or bing.
 
Please do share your alternatives if you have them or believe they may be better than these.
1 DuckDuckGo
2 Newpipe Privacy focused on watching You tube videos (https://flathub.org/apps/net.newpipe.NewPipe)
3 Crown Translate (Deepl, DuckDuckGo, Reverso) https://flathub.org/apps/org.kde.CrowTranslate
4 Organic Maps (https://flathub.org/apps/app.organicmaps.desktop)
5 Betterbird (https://www.betterbird.eu/)
1 uBlock Origin
2 Floorp (https://floorp.app), Mullvad (https://www.linux.org/threads/mullvad-browser.44588/post-193317), Brave (https://brave.com/)
3 Station (https://getstation.com/features/)
4 Linux OS instead of Windows or Mac
 
Last edited:
All of the above.

But let's not forget the user's behavior and application of logic and common sense.
And also worth to look at is having a decent hosts file so thing you don't want are blocked system wide.

The thing with (online) security is that with an increase of security comes a downside when it come to common usability which most people will only accept up to personal limits.

Always remember: "KNOW what you do and WHY you are doing it". The user is the greatest vulnerability.
 

Members online


Top