Swisscows private internet search engine
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Anyone using swisscows.com for their search? It seems to be extremely private, and having its jurisdiction in Switzerland seems good for avoiding the 14 Eyes nations and their spying. I've been trying it out recently - fast, good search results. It runs static banner ads for swisscows' own products and services built into the page, but they aren't flagged by ublock as tracking or nefarious ads in any way. More like the static banner ads that Distrowatch runs. Maybe I'm wrong though, maybe it's not as private or decent as it seems - anyone have any good or bad experiences with swisscows?
Never heard of it until now. Do you know where it gets its search data? That would make or break my opinion of it.
If it's just another proxy search engine that gets its search data from another search engine, then I don't see any reason to use it over Searx. It is non-functional without JS, cannot be self hosted, and seems at first glance to return lower quality results than a well-configured Searx instance. As far as ads go, static ads are definitely more ethical than what most websites do, but Searx does not have ads at all.
If it's not just a proxy search engine, and actually has its own web crawler/index, then that changes things, and this is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
No, these are Bing search results. I don't think it would be one you would be interested in. For me, privacy is a bigger factor than anything. When I use Searx, I like to use the main instance out of Switzerland for privacy reasons.
https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/search.html
=> Swisscows : "Shady as fuck and contrary to their privacy policy of not sending your data anywhere"
So what is a layman to believe when the smart fellows disagree clearly ?
There seems to be only one manner to saveguard one's privacy on the internet: stay away from it.
Well, life does not go without risks, for me it is some sort of a principle to at least try to maintain some dignity ( hence privacy ) while still roaming on the wwspiderweb.
> while still roaming on the wwspiderweb.
You have a crucial asset we mere crawling creatures can only dream of: you can fly.
You are right, I found the smartredirect ads also. That is shady. I was able to use ublock element picker to get rid of the smartredirect elements, but this search engine has fallen a good bit in my estimation.
I ran some deeper analysis with wireshark and some other network monitoring tools today, there was zero communication with the redirect ad slinger showing up anywhere. I'm thinking the digdeeper guy may be full of crap, which wouldn't be the first time. I've emailed swisscows for clarification. For now, till I see otherwise, they look plenty private for my purposes.
> Searx
But what instance to use? searx.me?
Also what about startpage.com? - Privacy Browser's default search engine
The deepdigger is not positive about startpage either, and that is an understatement :
https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/search.html#startpage
"To be honest, I've always felt something was off about these guys; their image was "too clean" if you know what I mean."
Alternatives with potential would be : Moojeek and Wiby.
"Privacy Browser", is that the "Epic" browser ?
I remember vaguely to have read that it was rather dubious, and that it does not even run on linux (!).
> built its own index for the German language
That's not nothing.
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