What do you think about qwant.com?
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Hi,
what do you think about the search engine qwant.com? It is mentioned on privacytools.io
According to themselves, it's a privacy-respecting search engine from France that doesn't store or sell users' data and doesn't track users in any way.
Their promises sound good, but I wonder how credible they are.
I stumbled over some things that sound rather strange:
- German company "Axel Springer" holds a 20% stake. For those who don't know, "Axel Springer" is a publishing house with a dubious reputation (their newspapers have often been criticized for yellow journalism and tending to right-wing political opinions). There are no evidences that the publishing house influences QWant, however.
- they cooperate with the Microsoft Bing Ad Network and show ads, but promise to do with "responsible and respectful behavior". They deny to give any personal information to Microsoft/Bing. See here: https://help.qwant.com/help/overview/how-does-qwant-make-money/
I couldn't find out if they have released their source code yet. They say that QWant "wants to put its source code in the hands of the developers community, when its publication does not put the safety of users personal data or Qwant’s infrastructure at risk...". See here: https://help.qwant.com/help/overview/how-to-contribute-to-qwants-open-source-projects/
Does anyone have further information?
I don't know what are Google, Duckduckgo, searx or qwant... Because I am in China.
The best usable search engine is Microsoft Bing. Thankfully I can still visit Bing's English version from China.
Traxter:
> They say that QWant "wants to put its source code in the hands of the developers community
Looks like either open-washing or security-by-obscurity. The GH page only has the source code for a few trivial add-ons, none of the core web search code seems to be there.
nadebula.1984:
> I don't know what are:
* Google: a web search engine run by a US corporation, like Bing. Google also runs a web ad network (AdSense) and many other services including YouTube and GMail. Well known for data-farming its users and wrapping them in filter bubbles based on things they seem to have liked on any and all of its services in the past.
* Duckduckgo (DDG): another web search engine run by a US corporation. They claim to respect user privacy, not collect user data, nor create filter bubbles. DDG are known to have partnered with Yahoo, another US corporation that runs their own web search engine and is know to be unethical. DDG are known to promote iPhones, handheld computers made by US corporation Apple that are known to restrict and spy on their users. I really like the DDG !bang searches (I got them to make !fsd seach the Free Software Directory), and I used it regularly for a long time, but now I mostly use Searx.
* searx: a free software package for running web search engines. Searx instances do meta-search, that is, they send anonymized queries to a range of other commercial search engines (like the above) and use the results from those to return a list of websites to the Searx user. You can try searx at searx.me or search.disroot.org
* qwant: another commercial search engine that claims to be privacy-respecting. StartPage is another one. Unlike DDG, who release much of their source code under free code licenses (https://github.com/duckduckgo), we don't really know if Qwant or StartPage successfully protect our privacy or not.
> ... Because I am in China.
Me too! Is there much of a Free Software community in China? I haven't managed to make contact with the community yet.
> I can still visit Bing's English version from China.
You can also visit searx.me and search.disroot.org from China. There is a list of other public Searx instances here:
https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/wiki/Searx-instances
... or you can let this page choose a random one for you:
https://searx.neocities.org/
Both those pages work from China.
> Looks like either open-washing or security-by-obscurity. The GH page only has the source code for a few trivial add-ons, none of the core web search code seems to be there
Yes, unfortunately...maybe they'll release the complete source code sometime soon, but it would surprise me
These sites are blocked or what is the problem?
Just like strypey, I'm interested about the free software community in China. Please tell us something.
I am a translator!
>What do you think about qwant.com?
I think it's awesome. It works incredibly well without javashit, it is amazingly smooth (I come from 3 years..or is it 2? of searx instances - they slow) and it looks very good.
Do I trust it? Nope
Do I still use some searx instance instead? Yep
SuperTramp83
> It works incredibly well without javashit
Have you tried using DDG without JS? Works pretty well, just lacks the buttons for narrowing search to Web, Images, Videos, News, Meanings, Definition. Also, quite a bit of their software is actually free code, much more than Qwant:
https://github.com/duckduckgo
I use its HTML version: https://duckduckgo.com/html including when I type words in the URL bar ("https://www.duckduckgo.com/html?q=" as the value of "keyword.URL" in "about:config").
I use it all the time (it is the default one in my browsers), BUT...
I don't forget to use other search engines because you haven't got the same replies (Bing gives you a lot of replies but this is not may favourite one).
Even a Yacy install is a good idea.
But I think Searks sould do a better graphic job on his page. Qwant and Duck Duck Go do.
Google comes in last ressort.
Thanks for the replies, interesting input so far.
Another thing I noticed (with the non-Java Script version lite.qwant.com) is that when I move the cursor at a search result, it doesn't show me the actual URL in the lower left corner of the browser window. Instead, the actual URL is always integrated in a very long URL starting with a redirect. This long URL can't be completely displayed and so I don't know if I will end up on a https or on a plain http site.
Is there a way to handle this?
Also, I'm still not sure what to think about the cooperation with the Microsoft Bing Ad Network.
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