A new, trackless search engine has recently arrived on the block -er pond.

The new critter is called duckduckgo.

Yes, really.  Duckduckgo.com.  Wierd, funny, (is this a joke, huh?)
And somewhat memorable, and evidently no joke.

She, or he (gender of duck yet to be determined) purports to respect your privacy by not remembering everything you do, as opposed to those neighborhood busybodies, Bing and Google, who love to gossip by passing on your search terms to sites that you visit.

Not only does she promise to not save your search history, she promises to not even save your IP address, nor pass on your search terms (in most circumstances), nor assign a ‘unique identifier’.

WHAT? A search engine that isn’t out to make money off your lack of direction in life, your need for speed, your thirst for knowledge, your seeking of truth, or at least the best price on the latest gizwangbam gadget?

And not only that, she will also encrypt your search by merely adding an “s” onto http. Whoa, doggies!  Er, Whoa duckies!

How about that, folks?

Give ‘er a spin!

https://duckduckgo.com

While you are at it, check out her privacy page for an enlightening discussion about search engine privacy, or rather, the lack of it.

http://duckduckgo.com/privacy.html

Recently, Startpage.com made encrypted search the default.  They now use SSL for all searches.  Previously it was optional.  This may be of interest to anyone who doesn’t care for having extensive online search profiles stored by Google or Bing or other search engines.  We recommend it.

Opera?  No

Chrome? No

Firefox? No

Safari?  No

Internet Explorer 9?  Yes

As per the following source article, Internet Explorer is by far the best browser at keeping Malware off our computer. (But you do need to listen to it)

In this competition, IE9 was effective at preventing 92% of malware infections.  IE8 blocked 90%.

The nearest competitor only blocked 13%.

Note: SmartScreen Filter must be ON.

(this is about stock, off-the-shelf browsers, not security enhanced browsers such as Dragon, or add-ons and security and privacy plugins, etc.)

Source

Smarphones are great devices, but their convenience brings significant privacy concerns.

Check out this Computerworld article for more information and some ways to help increase your privacy.

Startpage.com in now providing google search results without sending identifying information to google. And that is a good thing. For even more privacy, startpage.com is available using SSL encryption, by using HTTPS:

https://startpage.com

Startpage is one of the few search engines that does not record your every move; your every search and what you click on.

“Practice safe surfing”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has produced a small add-on for Firefox, called “HTTPS Everywhere BETA” that causes Firefox to favor the SSL encrypted version (HTTPS) of a number of popular web sites.   We have tested it and found it works very well for the limited number of sites it supports. But then again, not many sites give you the option of connecting via SSL.

Source:  https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

Yes, it’s true.  With a few relatively simple programming tricks, a web site can effectively discern your browsing history.  Any web site, if they so desire, can figure out quite a lot of information about where you have been on the Internet as well as what you have searched for on well known search engines.

How:  Most people who surf the net have their browsers set to remember several weeks of browsing history, and they could visit a lot of web sites over that period of time. 

Well, unbeknownst to you, you may be letting on a lot more than you realize.

Cookies can also be used to spy on your browsing habits, but this techmique has nothing to do with cookies.  Therefore even if you diligently delete cookies, you may falsely believe your browsing habits will not be passed on to some other site you visit. 

How is this done?  All it takes is a simple bit of CSS and/or JavaScript code, and a database of links to test.  They can test up to a million links per minute.  That is right, I said a million links per minute.  And you won’t have a clue it is going on.

Now, what do you suppose a web site would want to test for?   Huh?  Just use a little imagination and you will answer that question for yourself.

The results can be added to another database that includes your I.P. address and whatever other identifying info can be gleaned from cookies and standard data that all browsers give out.  This standard data includes the brand of browser you are using, screen resolution and enough other information to uniquely identify your computer with a high degree of accuracy.  And that is not all.  Other techniques can test for content in your browsers cache.

 How to combat this?  Some suggestions:

• The most reliable way is to set your browser to not keep a browsing history (or to keep a very minimal history, say a day or two), and delete the history you already have.  
• Set your browser so that new and visited links have the exact same color.
• Keep your cache relatively small and delete it regularly, if not for every session. 
• Surf with a variety of browsers.

For more info, and to test your browser, you may visit the following links:

 http://www.whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com

 http://startpanic.com/

Remember: Practice Safe Computing!

Our favorite search engine, Ixquick, is now also known as Startpage.   Actually, Startpage and Ixquick are really one and the same.  Startpage is simply an easier name to remember.  Why is it our favorite search engine?  Privacy, Accuracy, Speed.  This is the only search engine awarded the European Privacy Seal.  It does not record your searches, and it does not even record your IP address. Give it a try.

http:startpage.com

or

http://ixquick.com

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Use this handy search box to

search “Google” securely via “Scroogle”

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Firefox 3.5 has a new “feature” that may allow web sites to more accurately pinpoint your location on the planet.  This feature is enabled by default.

When you visit a location-aware website, Firefox will ask you if you want to share your location.  You will have the opportunity to accept of decline this option.

But if you want to permanently disable this feature, do the following:

Open Firefox:

• In the URL bar, type about:config
• Type geo.enabled in the "Filter" box
• Double click on the geo.enabled preference so that it is set to “false”
• Location-Aware Browsing is now disabled

Source: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/geolocation/