this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
1092 points (98.1% liked)

Technology

59427 readers
3085 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

On Safari (iOS), Apple makes it easy to switch. Settings > Safari > Search Engine and select which one you want. I’ve been using DDG not quite a year and at first the change felt a lil jarring, but knowing I’m contributing less to Google’s ad revenue and their long list of privacy violations, I’m comfortable now sticking with DDG. Change isn’t always easy, convenient, or comfortable, but it can be done with just the tiniest bit of effort.

[–] Polar@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

All browsers make it easy. In fact, Chrome on Android is quicker.

Settings > Search Engine > and select which one you want.

Currently you can pick between;

  • Google
  • Yahoo
  • Bing
  • DuckDuckGo
  • Ecosia

That's not the point at all.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The point is MOST users don't change it or even know how. I seriously doubt anyone in my family would even know that it is possible, know that there are other search engines, or that Google knowing everything about their searches is not a good thing. And yes they all use Facebook too.🤦‍♂️

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think the tech community should come to the realization that most people (no, not in your immediate circle which is mostly tech) don't want choice; they want ease of use, which means guidance.

Why would a person, who can't differentiate between google, a web browser, an app, or even the internet, want to change their device settings on their own which requires 10 clicks when their experience can be configured by zero clicks by a mega corp? This is a systemic issue in our society and needs to be corrected at school level in some sort of "Social media awareness/IT class".

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I agree completely. The biggest issue is it requires critical thinking which is unfortunately not a common skill. Maybe this is one of the first things that needs correcting.

[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would imagine you can add your own in as well, the same as Firefox allows.

[–] droans@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

That's a bit more difficult. It doesn't allow you to manually type in the address so you need to keep visiting it until Google recognizes that it's a search engine.

[–] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

this is a very poor argument. every browser I've used, even Chrome, makes it easy to change the default search engine in the settings.

[–] Rambi@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Were they making an argument?

[–] Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I wasn’t making any argument, merely offering advice how to change something and my experience in doing so. But my comment clearly upset a lot of Chrome users because I mentioned Google not respecting your privacy, which is a given for a lot of companies.

[–] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As I understood it, they were implying that Apple's default is Google but they still care about privacy because they make it easy to switch to Duckduckgo.

I pointed out that this has been an essential feature in web browsers for years.

[–] deur@feddit.nl 0 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't agree with that being the correct interpretation, just so you know.