this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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Privacy

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[–] lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I've no idea how I overlooked Mojeek. I'm always on the lookout for privacy oriented alternatives. Seems they exist since 2004 and don't have any controversies surrounding them.

  • UK-based
  • no-tracking privacy policy
  • independent search index
  • first search engine to implement a no-tracking policy in 2006
  • operates its own web crawler
  • infrastructure in a green data center in the UK
  • business model based on advertising, API's and partnerships
[–] BertramDitore@lemm.ee 51 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I haven’t used Mojeek, so I can’t speak to that, but the UK has some of the worst privacy protections and mass-surveillance anywhere. They’re also part of the Five Eyes, so I wouldn’t count the fact that they’re UK-based as a point in their favor.

[–] lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 months ago

Agreed. These weren't meant to be pros or cons, but facts that I dug up in a quick search. Let everyone interpret for themselves. 😉

[–] kixik@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Is it something you have to trust they comply with what they say?

Nice that it has its own indexes, but according to this comparison its proprietary SW, running on UK servers without tor interface, and being backed or debated at least by UK politicians. We're not talking about a not for profit organization either, and they do have individualized answers as well, so they have the mechanisms to individualize results to queries, meaning they keep information about your queries. So in the end, it boils down to the user trusting its service it seems.

Yes, meta search engines do not provide their own indexes, but searxNG is at least open source, you can select the search engines to use, included mojeek, and they serve as a front end preventing the underneath engine to track you (whether it's against their public policy or not) as if you were to use such engine directly.

[–] Mojeek@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

this comparison

the table you've cited is very out of date when it comes to us and other inclusions

being backed or debated at least by UK politicians

We came up in Hansard yonks ago 2011, mentioned by one MP

they do have individualized answers as well

I don't quite follow but if you mean results are personalised can I ask where you got that information? One of our main things is that we don't affect results based upon much more about you than country-level boosts

[–] kixik@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps a misinterpretation from mojeek's wiki:

Mojeek also displays significantly more individual entries in its search results than Google or Bing

[–] Mojeek@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Mojeek also displays significantly more individual entries in its search results than Google or Bing

Ah, yeah, that's from a blogger called Jack Yan who writes a lot on how many results you can actually get out of results 1-10 from n. What he's saying there, which is correct on checking, is that we will always display 1,000 results when we have them, whereas Google and Bing tend to either stop when you get somewhere in the 200/300s, or just repeat results.