Alternatives to Google search

[freakazoid]

\*Interesting*/

StartPage results for TRASIR with/without proxy

https://startpage.com/do/search?q=trasir

Choose the first link at the top,

Then,

Right-click 'View by Ixquick Proxy' and 'Open in new tab',

Compare,

Sweet...

Yup the proxy for all search results on Startpage is a nice feature indeed!

[guinness]

This doesn't look good for DDG >> http://www.ghacks.net/2012/04/13/bing-t ... api-calls/

[carbonize]

I didn't even realise that DDG used Bing. Anyway here is a story I read that you may find of interest Can Microsoft Come Back?

[freakazoid]

Came across another Google scraper - Privatelee - https://privatelee.com (basically an alias of http://qrobe.it)

This site scrapes both Google and Bing. Search also uses infinite scroll so no paginated search results needed.
Privatelee also has built-in WOT support and claims to have enhanced privacy.

Be sure to read the terms of service for privacy nuts:
http://www.striquent.com/termsofuse.aspx

A nice alternative to Startpage.com.

[Toxteth O'Grady]

http://www.etools.ch is a meta-search engine with a good privacy policy.

Under "preferences" you can select which search engines should be used. Some of you seem to prefer Google: simple enable it, disable the rest... (although you might get some German\Swiss results mixed in) another "safe" method of using Google.

[webfork]

Another interesting DuckDuckGo article http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-really-c ... uckduckgo/

[dot]

http://www.etools.ch is a meta-search engine with a good privacy policy.

Many thanks for mentioning this one! It's quickly become my favourite SE over the last days. Probably the main reason being: it's incredibly fast (the fastest SE I've ever come across). Also, there are no "sponsored links" when I search from within FF's search bar. Provides interesting "status" information for every result and has a nice "preview".

At first, I didn't quite like that pale blue color they use (it doesn't provide much contrast) and I hope the will offer an optional different display with more contrast, but I've almost grown used to it.

[m^(2)]

Indeed very fast.
But unfortunately it does show ads here and unlike ddg it doesn't seem to allow to turn them off.

[dot]

Just got one lonely ad (on top) too. So far, only one promotional link was on top ("you can place an add here", something like that).

BTW, I'm not using their official plugin, but that FF add-on "Add to Search Bar". It also seems to remember (most of) my settings without me having to use their cookie. Not sure whether that add-on is responsible for the lack of ads (or only the one ad, now). If I search via their website, I get several ads too.

[m^(2)]

Not confirmed.
Tried the addon and I still get ads.
Can you post a full link to a sample search that doesn't come with ads when you search via addon, but does otherwise?

[carbonize]

I see an ad banner at the top and a sponsor ad at top right. Ad banner is an iframe and uses tradedoubler.

[m^(2)]

I looked closer and I appear to have 3 ads. One is top right, 1 just before the actual results and 1 blocked by AdBlock.
The top right is for their hosting site and the one before the results - for their ad services ^^.

[carbonize]

Yeah never saw the one before the results before. To be honest I don't care how fast it is as it's damn ugly and not particularly user friendly.

[dot]

Not confirmed.
Tried the addon and I still get ads.
Can you post a full link to a sample search that doesn't come with ads when you search via addon, but does otherwise?

I just typed this text "for the most part" (with the quotations mark, I'm trying to improve my English ), and, again, I don't see any ad. Just that one self-promotional "Sponsored Links:" above the results that says: "This could be your advertisement!". On the top right, I can now see "Sponsor Ad" with just some tiny text that doesn't look like an ad. Here's my link:

http://www.etools.ch/searchSubmit.do;js ... nguage=all

My settings are Country "worldwide" and Language "all" (also used like that within the add-on I mentioned). If I type the same text ("for the most part") in the search field on their site, I get three ads on top.

[freakazoid]

The major cons, in my opinion, with using eTools.ch is there appears to be no pagination (can't get past the first twenty results) and Google search is restricted to the Swiss domain (google.ch).