Does anyone use this search engine: Link My daughter likes it because they don't track you. On the other hand, I am so boring that I am sure no one wants to "track" me anyway. Frankly, I'd be flattered if they did! Of course that attitude irritates my daughter!

I've taken to using this one: http://blekko.com/
Google follows me despite my not leaving cookies. I eat the cookies then leave turds.

It;s on the list of things I use when China is having one of its periodic hissy fits about Google and blocking their sites. It's OK but nothing special.
I don't know the one Geoff linked but the link didn't work for me which either means it's broken or it's something else that doesn't work here.

Geoff's worked for me, though why it opened to Big-BosomedBabes.com, I have no idea. You'll have to ask him.

I'll ask my DD about yours, Geoff. [For those not in our family, "DD" means "darling daughter."]

I'm with you, Kalleh. I don't care if Google is tracking me. I have the history turned off and all the other privacy settings turned to my liking, but I prefer Google for its ability to find just about anything. They're only tracking us so that they can show us ads along the sides of things we might buy. I'm blind to the ads anyway. I just can't get all upset about Google supposedly spying on me.

Wordmatic

quote:

I just can't get all upset about Google supposedly spying on me.

I don't give a toss either. I suppose if I were visiting child-porn sites or those offering illegal downloads I might worry, but I'm not so I don't.

I can not believe people are not concerned that someone is -- uninvited -- invading their privacy, even though it's supposedly for a beneficent or alturistic reason (although how a company's profit-motive can be either of those things is beyond me). Just because your history is turned off, there are still ways to track anything you do and Google is certainly capable of doing so. Do you think Google would allow you access to their company computers to see what they're doing?

Well, proof, I think it's because people are different. You care; WM and arnie don't; my daughter does.

Now, I can't believe people don't care about basketball or transition to practice in nursing or that Strunk and White is hugely prescriptive. But they don't, while I do. People are different.

I think arnie hit the nail on the head, at least for some people. Some are going to places they shouldn't be and therefore are concerned that they are being tracked. But I realize that there are others, such as proof or my daughter, who just don't like being tracked. I don't consider it an invasion of privacy, though so that might be a difference.

When push comes to shove, those who don't like being tracked should use something like Duck Duck Go. I wonder why the name is so sophomoric. It must come from Duck Duck Goose, right? Strange. I think Bing and Google and Yahoo are bad enough. But Duck Duck Go? They couldn't come up withanything else?

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:
Geoff's worked for me, though why it opened to Big-BosomedBabes.com, I have no idea. You'll have to ask him.

Actually, I like 'em much more modestly endowed. Freudian slip, Proof? And Kalleh's daughter is a DD? Good grief!!! Anyhow, I don't much worry about being tracked. Yahoo keeps placing banner ads for Christian books on my page, probably because I searched some stuff on christian history once. Kinda funny, since that's about the last thing I want to buy! I guess Yahoo thought my digested and excreted cookie looked tasty.

I agree, Geoff. Sometimes it is so funny what Gmail decides to advertise to me. We bought a car in November, and for so long I had all these car ads. I just looked now, and I had an ad for a nurse administrator accelerated program. I must have been talking nursing to someone!

If you use Firefox, get the most popular FF add-on, Adblock Plus. No more annoying adverts!

There is also a version available for Google Chrome, although I don't know if it's as effective.

Admittedly, you are still being tracked and adverts sent to you; you just don't see them if you've got Adblock Plus. There are however various extensions and add-ons for all the main browsers to beef up privacy and prevent tracking.

The ads on the gmail page are all responses to key words in the emails themselves. This also doesn't bother me, since it's just some mindless computer program and not someone actually watching. When I read my gmail on my iPad, I get no ads at all, so that's nice, and allegedly there is a way to turn off the ads, but, as stated previously, I just ignore them.

Wordmatic

I ignore them, too. And I delete a lot. It's interesting to me that others don't seem to be able to do that.