Issue 632 • 25 May – 7 June 2022 53GOLD AWARD
DuckDuckGo
https://duckduckgo.com
With only a 0.85 per cent
share of the UK search-engine
market, DuckDuckGo lags way
behind Google and Bing in popularity,
but it’s the best way to search the web
anonymously. It doesn’t share details of
your searches, collect personal data
that can be used to identify you or
tailor your search results to favour
pages it thinks you want to see – the
so-called ‘filter bubble’ we mentioned
on page 52.
When you click a search result,
DuckDuckGo takes you directly to the
relevant website, but doesn’t reveal
what you searched for to get there, and
will send you to the secure HTTPS
version whenever possible. Unlike
Google, DuckDuckGo doesn’t store
cookies in your browser, which means
your searches can’t be tied to you,
and you always start searching from a
blank slate. The search data it does
save is merely used to improve its
performance, such as by recognising
misspellings.
Rather than use your searches to build
a profile of you that can be sold to
advertisers, DuckDuckGo takes a simpler,
less intrusive approach. It’s still funded
by advertising, but uses keywords to
decide the type of adverts you see. For
example, if you search for ‘HP laptop’,
DuckDuckGo will show ads for that
model of computer, but fewer than on
Google. If you’d prefer not to see any ads,
click the menu button in the top-right
corner, choose All Settings and switch
off the Advertisements option (see
screenshot below right).
As well as using the DuckDuckGo
website, you can install its extension for
Chromium-based browsers and Firefox
as well as its free app for Android and iOS(www.snipca.com/41847). You can also set
it as the default search engine in your
browser. DuckDuckGo has just released a
beta version of its first desktop browser,
but currently only for macOS (www.
snipca.com/41879).
DuckDuckGo compiles its search
results using its own web crawler and
more than 400 other sources, though
primarily Bing. It swiftly returned
accurate results for all our test searches
(see box above), with Microsoft’s own
specifications page top of the list for
Windows 11 system requirements, and
ticket-booking site Trainline ranked first
for our travel search. The ever-reliable
BBC Food site was top when we searched
for a recipe for cottage pie.
Particularly impressive was the
measurement conversion, telling us
that 81kg equals 12.75532 stone in a box
at the top of the page (see screenshot
below left). The World Cup start date
was less clear, but was mentioned in a
summary of the first link (to a Sky Sports
News story).DuckDuckGo provided an instant answer to our
measurement-conversion query
SILVER AWARD
Brave Search
https://search.brave.com
Although it only launched last
year, Brave Search has already
impressed us with how seriously
it takes its users’ privacy as well as its
near-total rejection of Google’s methods,
earning it second place in our ranking of
the best alternatives.
Instead of relying on search results
from Google, Bing or another ‘big tech’
company, Brave Search uses its own
independent index, which it has built
from scratch. However, it may include
results from other search engines if its
own data is insufficient – you can check
by clicking the Info link at the top of
the page.
Regardless of where your results
originate, Brave Search won’t collect
information about you, your search
queries or the links you click; and it
won’t share any data with advertisers. It
will show adverts once it’s out of beta,
but these won’t be based on a personalDuckDuckGo displays
ads, but these aren’t
personalised and
you can easily switch
them offsuch as suggesting ticket-booking sites.Cottage pie recipe
Recipe sites are often accused of using
SEO tricks to boost their rankings, but
would these search engines fall for them?World Cup 2022 start date
Google provides the kick-off date above
its search results, so we wanted to see if
other search engines were as helpful.81 kg in stone
Google instantly converts measurements,
but we’d prefer to use a private search
engine that didn’t log our weight.We searched for the same five queries
using each search engine to discover the
relevance and variety of the top results,
the speed they were returned, the clarity
of presentation and if they provided any
useful additional content. Here are the
search terms we used and why...Windows 11 system requirements
To find the latest information about the
operating system from reliable tech
sources, preferably Microsoft itself.Train from London to St Ives
To see how the search engines handled
a travel query involving UK destinations,How we tested the search engines
Search
STOP
USINGWHICH SEARCH ENGINE SHOULD YOU USE INSTEAD?