Good question! I wish I knew, but unfortunately this is outside the scope of my knowledge. Someone on !privacyguides@lemmy.one could probably tell you immediately

You can do it that way if you grab that URL from the “cookies” section. Otherwise, it can save your preferences in a cookie.

It makes those old geocities sites look tasteful by comparison

My eyes!

You can easily spoof the location on most search engines by using a VPN, but I’d much prefer my search engine solely respond to deliberate input from the user

Try this one: https://searxng.no-logs.com/

I’m unhappy that Kagi uses geo-location data to provide certain types of results

Sounds like he’s just bitter that he can’t spout transphobia unchecked

Same on android 13. There’s not even a “Mobile data & Wi-Fi” category, just “Mobile data.”

You could use an app like NetGuard to block internet access, but I’ve not found that to be a very practical solution, especially for VPN users.

Edit: Looks like it’s a Samsung thing.

I really wish I didn’t have a Samsung. What a horrible way to treat consumers, removing a basic function of the OS.

I strongly suspect that if one actually had to relocate with a new identity, that the last place I’d seek guidance would be from some click-thirsty YouTuber.

https://blog.ecosia.org/where-why-how-does-ecosia-plant-trees/

Yeah good point, I don’t know

No, it appears you are correct. Looks like they’re being bullied by Google and Microsoft.

I only use Ecosia as my search engine at work, so I’m not too concerned since I’ve got bigger fish to fry at work, such as Zoom and Google Drive.

Not to mention, in most communities I choose to be part of, I trust the judgment of the admins and moderators far more than the state’s “justice” system.

Agreed. Having choices is a good thing. I’m quite happy with Bitwarden, but I was happy to see that Proton is offering a password manager as well.

If you were sitting on a hot iron, would you not jump off just because you’d already sustained third-degree burns?

That data may have been harvested, but that’s no reason to continue the trend.

Yet another reason not to use Chrome

On one hand, you’ve provided sourced information with supporting details, and I’ve also successfully used DDG as a search engine.

On the other hand, ultratiem on Lemmy says it’s not a search engine, so I don’t know who to believe…

First search engine I ever used in the 90s

Kinda bummed about that because some of the instances I liked were SearX, but I guess it’s time to move on.

I used Startpage for a long time, and I’m perpetually connected to VPN on both my PC and my phone (different nodes at different times)

Never had a problem with my VPN

Uhhhh … c/unethicalLPT?

That’s why I had my fingertips removed and stored in a secure location. If your fingers are still attached to your body, that’s just like 1FA

https://bitwarden.com/help/import-from-lastpass/

Here’s how you do it with Bitwarden, in case you decide on that

I vow to never use anything you create because you’re clogging everyone’s feed with your spam

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Brave

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Yeah true, but some sites do break in Tor. I’m not that concerned about some specific sites. I just want control over the choices that I make instead of having a search engine try to do the thinking for me.

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True, but there is no requirement for a search engine to use such an algorithm to net results. I know this because I’ve been using search engines since the Windows 95 era. It’s possible to have what I seek. I’m just starting to question if anyone makes it.

I’m going to try the .onion version of DuckDuckGo later and see how that goes.

Update: This is … extremely odd. Simplified explanation: Tor connects you via a specific circuit of nodes, which you can see by clicking an icon next to the address bar. The last node it connects to is the exit node. But here’s the thing: Even the Tor edition of DDG insists on providing location-biased results that match the location of the exit node. I tested this by running a search on DDG and then connecting via a different circuit several times. Each time, the results were tailored to the location of the exit node. This is very disappointing. I’m going to do some searching and try some different search engines, but I think it’s safe to say I will not find what I’m looking for in any fork of DuckDuckGo, not even the .onion version.

Update 2: Ooops, I was using the clearnet version. I switched to the .onion version, which it turns out has to be done manually. I’m still getting very different results based on the exit node, although it’s much less obvious now. I’m thinking there might be some other .onion search engine that does what I need.

Nice. After work today, I plan to download Tor, and I’ll try these out! Iirc DDG is the default search engine in Tor, so that should be the first I try!

It will be a bit of a pain having to open Tor to search, but since it would just be for searching I don’t think it will be too complicated. Do you think there’s a way to set Tor to open clearnet links in normal Firefox? That would be ideal if I could search within Tor but open the links in my regular browser.

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I know you mean well, so have an upvote. It’s true there is a setting in DuckDuckGo to select a region, or to leave it set on “all regions.” Unfortunately, it is functionally useless since I’ve confirmed that it does provide data tailored to my IP. In fact, not just my IP, but the name of my exact county and home town. The HTML fork does not have such a setting, but it was only more subtle about providing location-tailored results. At the end of the day, I can’t rely on it.

Qwant doesn’t have such a setting, but at least it gets as general as “United States” (which would be fair enough for me – like you said, and it’s also occurred to me about searching in English – but searching English terms is also deliberate input from the user and would fall under the category of “keywords and syntax.”) However, Qwant does not simply provide US-based results, but actually targeted toward my exact location. I’m not aware of any setting in which I can change this. If you know of one, please let me know where to find it, because it’s not in the regular settings page.

Kagi is the same as Qwant, but with the addition of an “international” setting. Again, it is non-functional since it persists in providing very specific results to my location. In fact, Kagi is one of the worst I’ve tried so far. It even presents the results in a style reminiscent of Google, including starred reviews and all.

I find it ironic that I avoid toxic algorithms like the plague by not using Facebook or Twitter, yet I am seeing data manipulated by the very search engines I use every day. There’s got to be some obscure old-school search engine out there that works like they did in the 90s, right?

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