You must log in or register to comment.
1 yearEhhh. I mean, technically yes, but a proxy for search engine requests is probably functionally equivalent to the end user.
Also, if users don’t know that such a thing exists and goes looking for a “search engine”, they likely also want this.
One of my personal pet peeves is power stations — a big lithium-ion battery pack hooked up to a charge controller and inverter and USB power supply and with points to attach solar panels — being called a “solar generator”. It’s not a generator, doesn’t use mechanical energy. But…a lot of people who think “I need electricity in an outage” just go searching for “generator”. I don’t like the practice, but I think that the aim is less to deceive users and more to try to deal with the fact that they functionally act in much the same role and people might not otherwise think of them.
I am less sympathetic to vendors who do the same with calling evaporative coolers “air conditioners”. Those have some level of overlap in use, but are substantially different devices in price and capability.
- subtext@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
Is it really though? To the common person, it is most important thinking about the intent rather than what the word literally means. Like what people think of as AI may really just be a LLM, or VR may really be AR, or the like.
- theherk@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
I get what you’re saying, but in that case the google.com interface isn’t a search engine; nor the load balancers and proxies between it and the search application backend. And then, maybe those don’t count because there is some special sauce in database procedures that are the real workhorses.
Pedantry all the way down.
- Zink@programming.devEnglish1 year
I cannot help but respect any organization that has “here are the conditions that make our product useless” in their FAQ.
It’s an effective way to describe what their proxy does, for sure. It’s just nice to read public-facing text that doesn’t feel sanitized by committee.
- LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyzEnglish1 year
It’s also underselling what they are providing.
You get to skip all the AI garbage, all the sponsored links, and the “what other people are asking” sections and just go straight to the search results.
Privacy is the primary selling point, but the clean “old school” google interface is what I’m really excited about. I’ve set my default search in the browser to Leta for now.
- LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyzEnglish1 year
Gemini is wrong quite often. You shouldn’t rely on it to tell you facts.
If I need to double check it, then it’s worthless to me.
Thankfully I don’t rely on it for “facts”, just for a quick summary on something or to get a definition of a word. Something like that.
- 1 year
It seems like a good alternative so some of the most popular engines. I think I’ll stick with Ecosia, since on top of being EU based, they also make the world a better place.
- 1 year
Your search query, IP address and iirc fingerprint gets shown to Bing everytime you make a search, so it’s not private at all
- 1 year
Your IP address and search terms are automatically shared with our search partners, Microsoft Bing or Google, when you search.
- myersguy@lemmy.simpl.websiteEnglish1 year
Sorry, I left this ambiguous. My intended context was that the person you were replying to didn’t mention Ecosia’s privacy.
- 1 year
my bad, I always assume not just because we’re on the topic of privacy but because of how Ecosia advertises itself as a privacy friendly alternative on their front page when it isn’t that at all that, much like the difference between apple.com/privacy and apple.com/legal/privacy
- hossein@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish1 year
I’d rather let some EU company like Qwant use my anonymized data, to hopefully someday build their own index, than use Google by proxy (except when neccessary, of course).
- 1 year
Good news, they are doing just that (in cooperation with Ecosia)
Edit: And it is supposed to be released this year (as early as Q1 apparently) https://betterweb.qwant.com/en/2024/11/08/ecosia-and-qwant-join-forces-to-develop-european-search-index/
- VonReposti@feddit.dkEnglish1 year
That is some unexpectedly good news. I’m looking forward to see the results of an EU based search index.
Good moves from Ecosia. They used to get some flack for using Bing and Google.
- 1 year
The entire reason I stopped using them was because they agreed to share more user data with Google and Microsoft in return for being allowed to keep using their search results. If they had an independent index without those kinds of tracking for big tech companies, I’d switch back in a heartbeat.
- hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish1 year
Mojeek (UK-based) is trying. I wasn’t super impressed by their index yet, though.
Not exactly, they are search engines in their own right that have their own crawlers, but also use the Bing API. Leta is literally a proxy, it searches on the google (or brave) search website on your behalf and serves you the results. That way the only data Google gets is Mullvad’s.
Someone explain to be why this is better than using DDG or Qwant or SearX?
- elric@lemm.eeEnglish1 year
Honest question: how can it be better to search Google through a proxy than using Google? You’re still feeding the beast?
- 1 year
The beast eats personal data and sells it as ad revenue. If you are searching via proxy they can still collect general interest stats but not link it to an individual. It is not as profitable for them.
- Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish1 year
The Beast is fed by collecting data about you and then serving you back ads accordingly. This strips the data and the ads, so you feed them nothing.
I genuinely feel that Google’s search results have gotten really bad, over the last years especially. I find DDG results to be much better generally. If Mullvad Leta also proxied DDG for another layer of privacy then I’d use it, but not even it’s only search engines are Google and Brave.
- 1 year
When you search google it fingerprints your browser then attachs that to the other information it amasses from tracking your other activities from other websites.
By not giving them the search content you reduce what they know.
Scenario a) you search up particular health issues on google, for the US say “how do I know I’m pregnant” then you go to an online pharmacy (Walgreen is the big US one I think) and order “plan b” (anti pregnancy drug). Google doesnt even need to know from walgreens what you ordered it will infer a pregnancy test and/or plan b then from later activity
Scenario b) you use proxy and thus google knows nothing of your search, then you go to walgreens, for all google knows you ordered makeup or hayfever tablets.
Scenario a is or will be illegal in some US states - best not to leak it.
Not a perfect example, i can poke holes in it. The point is searches are usually sensitive info, keeping them out of the hands of the most egregious activity collator keeps more privacy then if you don’t. The proxy buries your senstive search in with thousands of others that can’t be attached to you
- null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish1 year
Searx can provide a much better experience.
For example, on the instance I’m using if a search result is a Google thread, the link will direct you to a redlib reddit proxy.
- Bz1sen@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
And do you reveal which instance you are using? Or is it a private one?
‘Better’ is relative :) is it better than using something like SearXNG? No. But for those people who insist on using Google, its better to do a proxied search than a first-hand one. Mullvad are European, are one of the very few orgs I personally think are trustable and have shown no signs of enshittification, Leta has been audited by a 3rd party - for those looking for a private Google experience this is about the best there is.
- ozymandias117@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
Finding a searxng instance and entering a random search term, the first 10 pages of results all came from google.
Checking the preferences, there were 4 search, and 6 of the other toggles enabled.
Even enabling all engines and rerunning the search, the first 13 results were listed as google
Is it meaningfully different from this offering if all the results it picks seemingly come from Google?
If I disable all but mojeek and qwant, all the results came from mojeek
- padge@lemmy.zipEnglish1 year
I wonder if they’re using the (paid) Google and Brave APIs, and are running Leta as a loss leader, or if they have some way to get around it
- null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish1 year
Surely it has to be the paid APIs. You can’t build a service hoping Google won’t notice your bots running searches.
- padge@lemmy.zipEnglish1 year
I guess you would need a lot of proxies. And they probably need to be on Googles good side to keep their VPN extension in Chrome
- 1 year
The Leta FAQ confirms this:
Did you make your own search engine from scratch? We did not, we made a front end to the Google and Brave Search APIs.
Our search engine performs the searches on behalf of our users. This means that rather than using Google or Brave Search directly, our Leta server makes the requests.
Searching by proxy in other words.
Never gave this much thought. I’ve been considering subscribing for Kagi again, but basically they are paying for a Google API subscription, meaning that Google directly monetizes my Kagi searches?
To be completely honest, I’m less worried about privacy and more worried about what kind of world I’m contributing to with my internet usage. I Mullvad sends money to Google for every search, it’s probably not for me.
Switched to Qwant now - rather Microsoft than Google, and at least they are working on their own engine.
Can you please link to the paid Google API you’re talking about? I wasn’t aware they had an API for web search.
- 1 year
Leta acts as a proxy to Google and Brave search
Great! As much as I love DDG, Google is unfortunately still superior and I had no choice but to suck it up and use the latter from time to time. If I could use Google by way of proxy to preserve privacy, then this is great news!
- theherk@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
DDG has been superb for me for a few years now often returning results I prefer over Google. I’m really pleased with it.
- 1 year
It probably depends what you’re looking for, but I find DDG to have fewer up-to-date results than Google.
- Scrollone@feddit.itEnglish1 year
I think Kagi si better than Google, but under the hood it just mixes results from Google, Bing and Yandex.
SearXNG
Always wondered how the fuck I’m supposed to say that.
Seeks’nn’jnn?
Sur X N G?
Search engine?- Crozekiel@lemmy.zipEnglish1 year
I’ve never thought about it until now, so thanks for that…
I’ve said it in my head as “Seer” and then the letters X N G. I didn’t even CONSIDER part of it is supposed to sound like “search”…
- Zeoic@lemmy.worldEnglish1 year
Same here. XNG isn’t pronouncable in english, so it will always be Seer X N G for me
- fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish1 year
Searching. XNG makes the “ch” then “ng” sound in some languages.
Thus Searx was “Search”
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected]So…I guess it kinda seems like a .gif vs .gif sorta situation, we’ll never come to a consensus, there will forever be disparate camps chuckling under their breath at all the “idiots” that can’t even pronounce SearXNG right…the fools…
Well, guess I’ll sleep on it and join a camp some day… le sigh
I’ve been paying for Mullvad for a while and didn’t realize this was even a thing until this announcement.
- 1 year
Nice! I’ve been wanting to get off startpage for a while now. This is a perfect replacement.
- bedouin@infosec.pubEnglish1 year
Are you referring to Privacy One Group? Seems like that was cleared up and PrivacyTools went back to recommending them
- 1 year
System1 specifically, which is also mentioned in the article you linked. Privacy Tools has also lost their reputation recently. Privacy Guides is more of the standard now. I know they cleared up their position, but ads and privacy together just doesn’t sit right with me. I’m just glad there’s an alternative.
I don’t like how it tells you when the results were cached. You can tell if and when a query was searched for by someone else.
I do like it because when I’m trying to find out more information about break8ng events I want to know if I’m getting outdated information. Also, knowing that someone, somewhere in the world entered the same search terms as you within the last 30 days tells you absolutely nothing about that person.
Unless the terms include a name or location. Plus Leta is not widely used.
Suppose you tell someone in secret that you were arrested. You know they use Leta, so you look up “John Doe arrest” later and see that it was just recently cached. You only told one person so it must have been them. You now know what someone searched because they used Leta.
Unless the terms include a name or location.
This is somewhat valid but it still doesn’t really tell you anything about who searched for that thing. You only know that someone else searched for it and how long ago it happened. You have no idea who they are, where they are, or why they entered that search term.
Suppose you tell someone in secret that you were arrested. You know they use Leta, so you look up “John Doe arrest” later and see that it was just recently cached. You only told one person so it must have been them. You now know what someone searched because they used Leta.
No, you don’t know that. You are assuming it.
You don’t have a comprehensive list of Leta users and you aren’t the only person who knows about your arrest. There’s at very least the cops, whatever support staff they have around at the time, and anyone they talked to. Then there’s any witnesses to the arrest, everyone who could have seen you in the back of a cop car, and everyone they talked to. Even if you were somehow arrested and processed by a single officer in total secret and then he killed himself in front of you before he could tell anyone else, there’s still the possibility that your friend betrayed your confidence and told other people about your arrest.
It was just an example but ok, let’s fix it.
You want to see if someone is nosy so you lie and tell them you were arrested in 2006. You check and see “John Doe arrest 2006” or “John Doe 2006 arrest” is cached.
You get the idea.
Ok, cool. You successfully proved that a person you suspect of being nosy actually is. You probably could have figured that out based on their reaction to you telling them about the fake arrest. Also, your nosy fake friend is a real idiot. They are apparently privacy focused enough to be using Leta but ignorant of the fact that this search is going to be cached and the time logged. The arrest is from 2006 so it’s unlikely anyone else would have searched it. Leta isn’t widely used so the smart play is to use literally any other search engine for this one search because the only person they need to keep it a secret from is you. Or maybe they just don’t care if you know that they searched for more info on your arrest because everyone already knows they are nosy.
All of this is besides the point though because none of these super specific scenarios are what we’re talking about when we discuss privacy on this level. This is meant for keeping Google from harvesting your data. If you decide to use it for baiting people into searching specific things so you can have a weird little gotcha moment that’s on you.
A privacy-focused search should not potentially reveal to others that you searched something. My examples prove the possibility that it can do that. I’m sure there’s other examples that are less “weird”.
- z3rOR0ne@lemmy.mlEnglish1 year
Its cool seeing the Mullvad team keep pushing forward with privacy related services. If I ever need to search Google with JS turned off, I’ll use…SearXNG, but this is cool too.
