Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)
tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> This is nonsense. "The best" without any context is just meaningless.
>
Come on, you yourself write below why.
> Let me put an example: a friend of mine is doing biological research
> (mRNA and that kind of stuff).
>
> She relies totally on Google to keep the research papers she's reading
> in order. Whenever she needs a paper, Google is the entry point. One
> or two words, and presto, the paper she needs is whithin the first
> three hits.
>
> Once she was working at home and tried the same. No luck. Cooking recipes,
> whatever you want, no bio research papers.
>
> I think by now every avid reader will have an idea of what's going on.
> The whole fuzzball of metadata you share with Google (your IP address,
> your browser version, the whole compost heap of cookies, browser metrics
> prior search history with Google and affiliates -- all of that kaboodle
> is part of your search query, without you knowing it.
>
Exactly - this is the best in case you want to get advantage of the metadata
collected.
I am not expert on Google, but AFAIR you better use your account - this way
it doesn't matter what is the IP.
The IP would matter if you are not logged in.
> If you /want/ to get back part of that control, you have to understand
> that. When you search with DDG, you have to ask yourself: "since they
> don't know, how can I narrow the search context?".
>
> After a while, this becomes second nature, and DDG results start being
> more or less as good as Google's.
>
> I know because I tried.
Me too - doing the same - but as you say "more or less as good as
Google's" - it is not as good, because of the metadata.
Now, I wouldn't even think of using DDG, if I was not suspecting Google
abusing privacy. Here DDG comes very handy.
Everything that has to do with technical stuff - goes through Google. The
stuff is neutral. The rest through DDG.
I guess in Google's eyes I will be becoming a geek soon
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