Search Engines: Are There More Other Than Google?

Either Duck-Duck-Go or Startpage are better choices than Google. I prefer the results that I get from Bing, but Bing does not protect your privacy so you'd still be subject to ad tracking.

 

I'm sorry but that's nonsense. It's a search engine and most search engines will prompt you to make them your default search. All browsers have a simple way to change that, and it can usually be done simply be using another search engine that you'd rather have as your default and answering in the affirmation to its prompt.

Actually, your problem might be that you are using a Microsoft OS. Given that Bing is a Microsoft search engine, Microsoft probably includes it as its default search engine and may have other ways to encourage its use. So yeah, perhaps it can be more problematic for those using Windows. When I get home, I'll start up my Windows machine and see if things are different with Windows.

I will say, however, that although I am using a Mac, I can use whatever search engine or browser I want, and switch my choices whenever I want to.

 

After doing some research, I see that it's not exactly nonsense. I don't know that it's necessarily Bing that's doing it, however, and I doubt that it is. As I mentioned earlier, since Bing is a Microsoft product, Microsoft very likely has come up with ways to encourage its use on Windows machines.

However, the bigger problem seems to be that there are malware programs that will install Bing as the default search engine on computers whose owners did not willingly choose to do so. I haven't yet found out why the malware is installing Bing as opposed to some other search engine, but my guess would be that the third-party malware creators are using these installations to earn Bing Reward points for themselves. Switching your search to Duck-Duck-Go or Yandex wouldn't give them a payoff.

There are also apps that will install Bing on your iPhone or tablet, and they might include malware as well. When I use Bing on my iPhone or Kindle, I get even more points for my searches than I do on a computer, probably because they are encouraging people to use Bing. However, if I am going to do a search on Kindle or my iPhone, I do it from a browser.

Bing Rewards can be cashed in for gift cards for Amazon and a bunch of other places. I earn quite a few Amazon gift cards just on what I do, so I would imagine that a malware creator could do quite well for himself if he had hundreds or thousands of other computers unwillingly earning points for him.

That would also explain the difficulty in getting rid of it as your default. I haven't used Windows much lately but I don't remember it being particularly difficult to change my default search engine. However, if a separate malware program was responsible for making Bing the default search engine, simply switching it back to Google wouldn't solve the problem since the malware program would still be in place.

I have a Mac, so I don't get viruses or malware.

I doubt that Microsoft (Bing) is doing it, but it seems like it would be in their best interests to come a security system that doesn't allow it to happen, or at least a simple fix for it.

This is the last day of my workweek so I have to get some work done but I'll see if I can figure something out this weekend.

 

My wife tells me that her Bing account has been suspended twice, requiring her to prove that it was actually her doing the searches. I haven't had to do that but, although we both work for the same directory, we work differently. She does all of her searches at once, and then writes the site descriptions and so on, while I do mine one at a time, so my searches are more spread out while hers are all at once. This might be because they are getting automated searches connected to a Bing Rewards account.

 

I had acknowledged that in the post right after the one you are replying to, which I posted only a half hour later. I still think it's a third-party malware rather than Microsoft. It's not that I have any particular love for Microsoft but I can't imagine them risking the fallout that would come about if it were proven that they were producing malware.

 

I just read an article on a new search engine called Luxxle, and comments mentioned Brave.

Luxxle advertises a "better search" and "more privacy" on their About page. There is also a FAQ page. The intriguing thing is that there are Filters you can set depending on the political leaning of the results you want. You can also filter out MSM and WIKI sources. Here's a screen shot of their "Lenses" page:



They have an extension you can download for the popular browsers (including Firefox) to make Luxxle your default search engine and to open new tabs in Luxxle, but my Firefox lists Luxxle among the Default Search Engine choices. One odd thing is that their extension download page says "Please note, Brave uses the Chrome extension but it does not share any data with Google." For some reason Luxxle makes mention of Brave on their page. I can find no evidence that they are related. ZDNet has a very recent article on the best browsers that includes a review on Brave, but does not mention Luxxle either in their reviews or as being affiliated with Brave.

 

Thanks, Thomas.

I have Startpage bookmarked, but have not really used it. There's not much I do that rises above casual in nature.

So https://scholar.google.com/ does not have the legendary Google thumb on the scale, huh? I was unaware of its existence. I'll have to see if there are medical papers on there.