A change is as good as a rest and with New Year Resolutions fresh in my mind it’s time for me to recommit to Firefox and DuckDuckGo. This year I’m determined to separate work from personal life, not only physically but also my online footprints. Personal freedoms and privacy commodities are in short supply. Time for a Change.
UA | Browser: Mozilla Firefox
I was a huge fan of Firefox in it’s early years, by 2010 I wasn’t. Their CSS division was making some rather odd choices and this hindered design, everything was far too ‘bold’. It would seem common sense has prevailed and these issues have been addressed.
Far more interesting are the changes in attitude. Mozilla have made a protect your privacy promise. Whilst not airtight and the Mozilla Corporation are far from perfect it still seems a plausible decision moving in the right direction.
Other benefits include the Quantum Project making it blazing fast, a smaller memory footprint and a truly excellent Page Inspector.
Search Engine: DuckDuckGo
The second big change is to make a concerted effort to use DuckDuckGo as my primary personal search engine.
From their “Help Spread The Word” page
- Explain how Google tracks you and we don’t.
Search secrets should remain private and away from the targeting of advertisers. - DuckDuckGo apps block Google’s hidden trackers.
Google trackers lurk on 75% of the top million websites. No thanks. - Get unbiased results outside the Filter Bubble.
We’re committed to unbiased search that’s never based on your search history. - Stand up for a pro-privacy business model.
The world needs an alternative to the collect-it-all business model.
It’s taken some effort to extract myself from the Google ecosphere. At first I missed the almost uncanny ability of Google.com to “read my mind” and present me with what I was after immediately. When remembering how they do so DDG seems a far healthier choice.
Firefox and DuckDuckGo, Way To Go
In conclusion it’s not always going to be easy, but without effort I see a bleak future looming and I do not wish to contribute to that. If you have any comments or feedback please do get in touch.
Further Reading
- Download Firefox (mozilla.org)
- Firefox Quantum Project (wikipedia.org)
- DuckDuckGo Home (duckduckgo.com)
- Help Spread The Word (duckduckgo.com)
