The majority of visitors that find this website via a search engine are coming from 1, DuckDuckGo (DDG) and 2, Google. It's a bit interesting to me that DDG has, on average, been winning out over Google for several months now. This tells me that a lot of you have become more aware of the threats to your privacy and that's a really good thing. Thank you!
Given the several scandals that have hit DDG however, it is time to stop using DuckDuckGo. For example, from my Alternative Search Engines That Respect Your Privacy page:
DuckDuckGo has openly admitted to censoring and de-ranking search results as well as working with Microsoft's Bing in order to influence their results (DuckDuckGo relies heavily on Bing). In one instance they blacklisted voat.co, a former free speech social platform, and on March 10, 2022, DuckDuckGo's CEO, Gabriel Weinberg, tweeted the following:
Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create. #StandWithUkraine️ At DuckDuckGo, we've been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.
Weinberg apparently had no problem when the U.S. invaded Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc., nor any problem with Black Lives Matter and Antifa terrorists burning and looting cities throughout the U.S., but he suddenly developed a selective crises of conscious when Russia invades Ukraine, which happens to be full of U.S. supported terrorists.
DuckDuckGo also admitted to influencing Microsoft's Bing search results according to a New York Times article:
DuckDuckGo said it "regularly" flagged problematic search terms with Bing so they could be addressed.
DuckDuckGo continues its race to the bottom. From an April 15, 2022, TorrentFreak article:
DuckDuckGo 'Removes' Pirate Sites and YouTube-DL from Its Search Results:
Privacy-centered search engine DuckDuckGo has completely removed the search results for many popular pirates sites including The Pirate Bay, 1337x, and Fmovies. Several YouTube ripping services have disappeared, too and even the homepage of the open-source software youtube-mp3 is unfindable.
On or around 25 May, 2022, it was discovered that DuckDuckGo was allowing tracking by Microsoft:
DuckDuckGo is not safe to browse as Microsoft tracks user data | Technology News – India TV
DuckDuckGo's founder Gabriel Weinberg has admitted to the company's agreement with Microsoft for allowing them to track the user's activity. He further stated that they are taking to Microsoft to change their agreement clause for users' confidentiality.
It is still possible to use DGG through a proxy however. See the Alternative Search Engines That Respect Your Privacy page for possibilities. One such example is eTools.ch which is a meta search engine that grabs results from 17 other search engines, including DuckDuckGo, Google, Brave, Mojeek, Yahoo, etc..