@kyle @purism @LibreSolutionsNetwork Trading #Google support for #Microsoft-DDG support is the wrong direction. Supporting either is harmful but Microsoft is far less ethical than Google. You can’t feed #DuckDuckGo without feeding Microsoft.

@koherecoWatchdog @LibreSolutionsNetwork @purism You seem to be using some pretty strong language such as "loyalty" for some reason. I simply am unaware of a better alternative at this point but would be happy to consider one if it becomes available. If you know of better options please let me know.

@kyle @purism @LibreSolutionsNetwork Censorship of factual information that is critical of #DuckDuckGo is nothing short of loyalty. #Sercxi (https://sercxi.nnpaefp7pkadbxxkhz2agtbv2a4g5sgo2fbmv3i7czaua354334uqqad.onion/) is the single most privacy respecting search engine by far.

@LibreSolutionsNetwork @purism @kyle Sercxi is what you should suggest to advanced users. For novices, you could arbitrarily pick any #searx instance and it will most likely avoid the strong ties to Microsoft (#GAFAM in fact).

This may sound pessimistic, but it’s starting to look like full-web search is an unsolvable problem. @aral Correctly points out that replacing big-tech tools makes falling into the same abuses inevitable. This is part of the reason https://codeberg.org/gabe/Interverse was made. It’s a start, not a complete solution, but it is vital we find ways to build truly decentralized and interoperable tools.

In terms of search engines #searx is notable but there are always trade-offs.

@LibreSolutionsNetwork @purism @kyle @aral I wonder what you mean by full-web search. If you mean you want to search without limit & yet avoid the tech giants, that would be a contradiction in requirements. I don't want to search the full web; I want to search a narrow portion of the web that excludes privacy abusers. We're far from having that but Sercxi has taken the lead by filtering out the worst sites: #Cloudflare sites

I don’t want to search the full web; I want to search a narrow portion of the web that excludes privacy abusers.

This is a fantastic goal, which should be encouraged and adopted as much as possible. Specifically when it comes to ‘full web search’ the challenge is that for many users there is information trapped on some of these privacy abusing sites that they may want to access. (Especially as previously-great sites adopt new awful methods) In many cases (ie journalists) the information may be worth more than the privacy costs. Hopefully there are enough tools to mitigate those problems (ie #nitter #teddit ect)

@LibreSolutionsNetwork @purism @kyle @aral Well that’s all true but it gets outside the scope of search engines. A search engine that excludes privacy abusing sites is delivering on the goal to avoid privacy abuse. Bringing privacy abusers back into the search defeats that objective. Other tools are needed to reach walled garden content (e.g. archive.org). Indeed there is a strong need for projects that unjail content.

@aral @kyle @purism @LibreSolutionsNetwork Sercxi addresses that need by offering an archive.org link for every search result. When you click on the favicon of the result, you're taking to the archive.org mirror of that site.

@LibreSolutionsNetwork @purism @kyle @aral BTW, this where the #DDG factsheet project was before #Purism censored it silently without warning, redress, or recourse → https://source.puri.sm/toolauditor/CEAP/-/blob/master/audits/ddg.md

@koherecoWatchdog @LibreSolutionsNetwork @purism @aral Oh I think I remember this! From what I remember we were trying to protect ourselves from liability since the goal with source.puri.sm was to host our own development projects and help outside contributors contribute to them.

We didn't intend on it being a free public GH replacement, or a generic web host for arbitrary content, and didn't expect people would use it for things like that. That would take much more infrastructure.

@kyle @aral @purism @LibreSolutionsNetwork The 1st step you took was to block public visibility to the project & presumably configure the forge to disallow new non-Purism projects. From there, there was no good reason for blocking /internal/ access and then delete the content without warning or rationale.

@LibreSolutionsNetwork @purism @aral @kyle The project was in fact facilitating Purism, as it was proposed in another Purism repo that DDG be removed as the default search engine. DDG loyalists didn't want that conversation to take place -- they wanted DDG to remain the default browser w/out discussion.

@koherecoWatchdog @aral @purism @LibreSolutionsNetwork Again we didn't intend on this platform being used as a public repo for everyone. I understand you still are angry about this but I assure you it this was not out of "DDG loyalty" as you put it, or some conspiracy, but instead from discovering: "people are using us to host their own projects and as a platform to attack other companies? We aren't set up for that."

@kyle @LibreSolutionsNetwork @purism @aral Again, you have DDG as a default search engine for one of the Purism projects. The DDG fact sheet was there to facilitate better decisions by that Purism project. It was only after proposal to the Purism project that the DDG audit be used stop the use of DDG as a default search engine that the project was wholly deleted.

@koherecoWatchdog @LibreSolutionsNetwork @purism @aral That's because it was only after that proposal that we discovered the project existed and that our repo was being used in this way. We were surprised and (perhaps naively in retrospect) didn't expect people would use us as a generic public source repo.

@kyle @aral @purism @LibreSolutionsNetwork Again, the DDG audit was being used to facilitate a Purism project /before/ the repo was deleted. The bug report suggesting removal of DDG as a default search engine triggered removal of the project that fed that bug report. It was not a “general public non-Purism” project at that point.

@LibreSolutionsNetwork @purism @aral @kyle BTW, the source.puri.sm registration page still today is all inviting & states no restrictions on use.

@aral @kyle @purism @LibreSolutionsNetwork Sercxi also shows indicators when a non-CF site is Tor-hostile. If think the only thing holding Sercxi back from making even bigger strides is lack of publicity & support. Well, sercxi is actually CF a focused project, but if it had the popularity of DDG it would stimulate search engines going truly in the privacy direction (as opposed to DDG's fake privacy propaganda).

Good points, Not a fan of DDG either. Thanks for the info! The write-up seems good for showing someone the many ways google has crept up into their lives and potential ways to mitigate that.