Home
Posted By: joemikeb Is Anonymized Data Safe? - 07/12/21 02:14 PM
Not according to This DuckDuckGo Blog
Posted By: artie505 Re: Is Anonymized Data Safe? - 07/12/21 04:02 PM
That's helpful. Thanks.
Posted By: ryck Re: Is Anonymized Data Safe? - 07/12/21 10:29 PM
Agree with artie, very helpful indeed.
Posted By: joemikeb Re: Is Anonymized Data Safe? - 07/13/21 10:25 PM
This thread and a confluence of other incidents set me off on a Privacy "Crusade" this morning. The Privacy Information for Google MAPS in the App Store was a shock! 😳 Chrome's report was expected, after all Google makes Chrome and makes major money selling user data. But Google Maps is almost as bad as Facebook and on a par with Amazon! When I checked Apple Maps I was surprised at some of the data collected but pleased to see it is Data Not Linked to You.

That set me on a path to get rid of as much Google influence on my systems as possible. I quit using Google Maps years ago and I have used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for at least a couple of years. So I began with a Find Any File search for files with google in the name and get 439 hits. It turns out that even apple calendar event files are named *googlecom.ics and lots of third party apps use google utilities for much of their functionality. Even my most precise internet search tool DEVONAgent Express utilizes Google search databases. 🤯🤬

The only remaining options are to avoid direct use of Google software including the Google search engine as much as possible and disguising my identity to the extent possible. In this morning's email I found a reference to the Brave Browser and the fact they have their own search engine in beta. There are other secure search engines such as DuckDuckGo and Ecosia (both of which are based on Bing) while Brave is uses its own independent search database. Taken together with Private Relay in Monterey (not to mention TOR routing and signature spoofing) both of which are built into Brave) it would appear to be as secure as possible with compatibility with all but the most esoteric sites.

Will Brave replace Safari in my affections? Probably not or at least not until Brave learns to share with some of my other apps. Will BraveSearch replace DuckDuckGo? It is early days and BraveSearch is still in beta, but it has great possibilities, if it can survive the competition.
© FineTunedMac