It uses Google’s search results, but it doesn’t have targeted ads and deletes search logs a few months after the searches are done. Is it good?
Unfortunately Startpage may now be fingerprinting it’s users. See this recent discussion here:-
https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/startpage-has-apparently-started-to-fingerprint-users/18434
I just use DuckDuckGo. I tried startpage and startmail. Big let down.
Well, that all depends on your operating system and browser of choice. If you’re trying to move away from Big Tech (not just Google but all of them), then you’ll be using Firefox (or Midori) browser (Chromium-based browsers are too Google-controlled, except Brave); and make sure you have uBlock Origin extension installed, as this alone will stop a lot of pop-up ads everywhere. As for search engines, here’s a variety of them, and you should experiment with them all. I’ve used Startpage a lot; it’s fine.
Id highly recommend searx, mainly searx.be . Even better if your capable of self hosting your own instance.
And you can view sites anonymously
Brave or duckduckgo are better
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(Necro) It’s worth reading that thread all the way down where Startpage provides information about the code. Startpage says due to frequent ddos attacks and bot activity, they require captchas regularly, which annoys a lot of users and even accidentally blacklists some. Their work around was the code in question which collects minimal data to better delineate real people from bots, while still keeping all their normal privacy standards (no cookies, no ip tracking, etc.).
It is still shady that they never mentioned it until being called out, and that there wasn’t an opt out option, but they also said that they since recalled the feature. TLDR there’s no way to know if they’re trustworthy or not aside from gut instinct. Personally I’ll keep using it until I finish my home server and start running SearXNG.
Instance browser is also a great option
Use 4get.ca, it can scrape results from both Brave and DDG and it is anonymous
Do you really want to trust that they aren’t fingerprinting you another way?
What other way?
You should be using a VPN, no matter what you do, online.
I’m not suggesting a VPN isn’t a good idea. I’m suggesting that tons of metrics including what extensions your browser users and even the resolution of your window can be used to fingerprint you. If you’re trying to avoid fingerprinting, know that it’s impossible to always avoid all sorts, and so it’s a bad idea to work with a “privacy-friendly” company was caught fingerprinting.
I do and just recently Startpage started with Chaptchas so I moved so SearxNG.
There’s plenty of ways to fingerprint, honey
True, but all you can do is all you can do.
Still, I doubt that window resolution is an effectively useful identification metric, and there are other browsers apart from FF and Chrome, where customization doesn’t require extensions.
With Linux, you can even rotate your MAC address.
But, essentially, if someone is absolutely intent on tracking what you do, It’s even possible to trace what you’re typing on a screen, through frequency measurement, which, with easily acquirable tools, ain’t that hard to do.
Even everything we do here, on reddit, is currently being harvested to feed LLM development. Everything we do here is already reddit’s property to use as they want.