Wow, it’s been ages since I’ve used google without a layer of privacy in between and haven’t realized how comfortable it would be with all its spying power enabled. But anyways, I find it scary that companies like google try to get so much information about you that they then sell to third parties. I’d rather have less comfortability if it means I have control over my own data. And I guess Kagi could be better in this regard if they value your privacy while still having some data on you.
Honestly, if I could get Kagi to slurp up all my Google data and use it without any extra clicks, I’d probably switch. I don’t like having it sold to third parties, but it saves a ton of time when used for the actual reason they ought to have it in the first place.
I also don’t imagine that stopping using google would have a tremendous effect on the amount of data gathered on me at this point. Like, I’ve taken my personal projects off of google so they won’t scrape the data, but half the internet is gathering metadata. It’s not going to stop all the sites I visit from gathering it all together. Admittedly, uBlock might in cases where tracking is built into ads.
But like, weighing it against making my ability to move through the world more functional, my spite for Google’s information vacuum isn’t so great that I can’t just like, use the thing anyway. There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, and I’m not really sure there’s such a thing as a moral or ethical human society. There’s already a lot of other shit I’m forced to tolerate out of necessity just to be a human being, and while I don’t love something else being added to the pile, at least it’s not like tortured animals or intentionally bombing children.
To be clear, I would love an alternative and have actively sought one. Within the past 6 months I’ve tried both DuckDuckGo and Kagi. I stopped using both out of frustration with the need to constantly specify my location.
Yeah, I get that. While “no ethical consumption under capitalism” shouldn’t be used to justify passivity, each individual person has their own limits to what they can reasonably achieve. Sometimes when I’m traveling and my anxiety peaks, I also eat dairy products/eggs because I cannot mentally afford to search for vegan alternatives. It’s so hard to always keep the balance between doing what you can and trying to stay sane.
I’ve been using startpage for years and don’t really miss the missing location features. But I hardly leave the house anyways.
