Daily reminder that
- Brave’s CEO donates to homophobic organizations and
- Brave is connected to the BAT pay-to-surf scam
Don’t use Brave.
- Brave is based on Chromium and therefore helps contribute to Google having hegemony over web standards.
Always use a Firefox-based browser, even if you think Mozilla sucks.
At least until Ladybird is ready. I hope they are not under too much pressure to rush things so we get a truly independent web browser.
What about on iOS where it’s all forced WebKit?
Ideally don’t use iOS it’s a walled garden, you don’t really control your device
What about Vanadium?
If it relies on Chromium as a base in any way, it is still beholden to Google’s design decisions.
Yup! It is noted in the highlighted text in red. I’ve had several people respond that they didn’t know about it, and would be making the switch away :)
Never had a good feeling about that one.
It’s a shitty “secure” browser to begin with imho
Also reminder that StartPage is majority-owned by American ad company Sytem1
stop promoting brave. oh my god it’s 2025 how good is their propaganda… they were never cool.
Worth noting about Startpage: they’re part of System1, an American advertising/marketing company. Sytem1 claims that privacy is one of the biggest focuses though. Make of that what you will.
Removed by mod
What kind of storage space does it take up, and how good are the results?
Removed by mod
This is exciting, TBH.
I’m going to try it out! Storage space be damned 😂
looks really good, something to rewrite in Rust some day!
They’re basically all compromised in one way or another. 😞
For Search, it is about finding the least bad option and hope that they will become more independent. Mojeek (fully independent but poor quality) or Qwant (building own index, but dependent on Bing)
Not a search engine, but last week I learned of the European Open Websearch project, which builds a new free and open search index. It should already be ready to try out. Hopefully we will see some search engines implementing this soon.
For now I’ll stick with SearXNG, it’s among the first things I get up and running when I distro hop, but I’m glad there are other non-US options to try.
yeah I wish decentralized search engines were more common
I recommend Ecosia!
Very strange to put Kagi as “less private” when it’s the only non-self-hosted option that allows for completely private searches with their Privacy Pass tokens. You can access them with Tor, pay with crypto (not really that private though), and sign up with a fake email. https://kagi.com/privacy#anonymity
It isn’t marked as less private. It is grayed out because it is not based in Europe. I personally use them as I find them the best option with what is out there.
The text at the bottom says “kagi doesn’t collect any identifying data, but does require an account, so it is considered less private than the alternatives”.
I think that’s Walnut’s nod to the fact that PrivacyGuides still hasn’t wrapped their head around the concept of paid search.
I haven’t seen any legitimate evidence that Kagi’s Privacy Pass is any less private than any other search option on the market, but long ago PG defined private search as “not requiring an account” and are completely locked up on that concept.
Even though just about every VPN on the planet (and all of their recommended ones) require accounts, as do most of the other services they recommend. The world is just so used to “free” search (which just sells your data or your time) that they don’t know what to do with a new business model.
With fingerprinting and even just IP tracking, I think the question is more whether they can be trusted to not track you (i.e. whether it makes business sense).
But they allow access over Tor and their privacy tokens means they can’t tie your search to your account, so they both don’t get fingerprinting nor know who is even making the request.
Bitcoin isn’t private at all. It’s a very transparent cryptocurrency.
I didn’t say bitcoin and I called out not really private in my comment.
I’m just adding extra info to your comment. They take payment in Bitcoin, but crypto like Monero is private, which they don’t take.
Oh ok
I changed to Ecosia when I last saw this chart. It’s working really well and is my main search engine across all my devices now.
But now I’m considering moving to Mojeek if that’s better for privacy.
Ecosia is based in the EU and it’s working together with Qwant to build an European index. But Ecosia’s mission is planting trees, and in order to do that they need revenue, which comes from targeted advertising.
@Scrollone @cRazi_man But I think it’s contextual advertising. If you search for “lawnmower” you get lawnmower ads.
I want to support an EU company and the eco mission, but I also want privacy. I used to use Brave but I want to move away from that and still avoid leaking my data to Google.
I think the difference between “targeted” and “contextual” is an important one to make re: privacy. “Targeted” means they’re tracking you and using your characteristics to customize the ads; “contextual” means they’re just showing ads related to the search term.
brave has ties to homophobic owners, and peter thiel. i wouldnt be surprised if brave starts incorporating palintr at some point.
Ecosia is a better balance between experience and independence. Mojeek sadly will be a hit in terms of quality of results.
I switched from duckduckgo to ecosia based off your graphic :)
I’ve been happy with DDG for so long. Uuugh.
Honestly I shopped around a lot and tried various services for 7 days each. In the end I came back to DDG because it’s the most useful engine to me. It delivers results I look for and doesn’t get in the way.
As a result I’m not quite satisfied, but it will have to do for now.
It’s a marathon not a sprint. DDG is a big improvement, keep using it till you find something better that works for you
I really wish Kagi wasn’t American. Kagi is such a good product, and I’d be willing to pay for it, but in no universe am I willing to pump more money into silicon valley.
Stract is impressive I don’t know what more people don’t know about it
Thanks. This I nice little guide, easy to suss and helps me figure my priorities.
