I’ve been using Google since 2001, before it had become popular in The Netherlands. Back then it was a revelation: unlike its competitors like AltaVista, Google’s website was so beautifully simple, devoid of bloat. As the years passed by I’ve seen Google grow, but it has become corrupted in the process. Google has become a danger to our privacy.
That’s why I’ve taken the decision to switch to the Internet search engine DuckDuckGo. Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo aims to respect the privacy of it’s users and does not track you or employ filter bubbles. At the same time, their website also features a simple design which made Google so good. It hasn’t been a complete switch though, because DuckDuckGo’s search results are not as accurate. Local businesses are an example, because I often search for them.
To see the worst case scenario, try searching for “hanting cuisine den haag”. With Google, this restaurant’s own website is the first result. With DuckDuckGo, the first result is the restaurant’s entry on the tourism website of the municipality of Den Haag. Next come the pages of this restaurant on Yelp, Facebook and TripAdvisor. Scroll further down and you see a lot of individual reviews of the restaurant on TripAdvisor. Not totally irrelevant, but of course the restaurant’s own website should be the first result.
That’s why I generally use DuckDuckGo first, but still use Google as a backup when DuckDuckGo can’t produce good results. I also still use Google News, Google Scholar and Google Books, because these services have no competing alternatives from DuckDuckGo. I hope DuckDuckGo will improve its search engine and introduce competitors for these three Google services in the future.