I use Qwant as my default search engine because I thought it was more respectful of my privacy than Google or Bing and DuckDuckGo is not giving so good results in my country (for localization related searches).

I noticed that the engine was removed from the default engines for URL bar in latest IronFox version. So I searched a bit about why so, and found this issue in their tracker : https://gitlab.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox/-/issues/47.

What to think about this ? The message from ironfox dev seems clear but qwant seems to claim that the shared data are anonymized.

  • Libb@jlai.luEnglish
    72·
    9 hours ago

    They sell ads and they work with MS (Bing). But they’re EU (French) and I hope more respectful of our privacy because of GDPR.

    It’s my fallback engine but my main search engine is Kagi, even though it’s US and paid-for (no-free tier, beside free trial).

    I know saying good things about a paid product is frowned upon around here but I certainly won’t lie, or change what I think in order to please some random self-proclaimed vigilante. Imho, Kagi works very well and, as long as you can afford it, is worth every single cent.

    It’s ad-free, tracking and seo-crap free too. Comes with some nifty features (to further filter and control the type of results you see, for example). I also love their ‘small web’ search that focuses, well, on small websites by default. That’s so cool. Plus, it gives excellent results that must be among the most useful I’ve ever gotten… like in the 90s and 00s when Google used to be disruptive and useful to its users, not to advertisers ;)

  • Sebo@lemmy.one
    6·
    10 hours ago

    I’ve never trusted Qwant some reason so i use a public SearXNG instance instead. I sometimes Startpage or 4get too.

  • sanpo@sopuli.xyz
    21·
    17 hours ago

    The issue seems a bit misrepresented by the dev.

    The mentioned section of the privacy policy is true only for the logged in users that have agreed to voluntarily share their data.

    Without logging in they don’t even store a single cookie on my device.

    • celenityEnglish
      4·
      9 hours ago

      The issue seems a bit misrepresented by the dev.

      I don’t believe I misrepresented it. Others (ex. Privacy Guides) also don’t recommend Qwant for similar reasons.

      It doesn’t matter whether this type of data collection is only for logged in users/optional/etc. Selling data and profiling users in any way, shape, or form is unacceptable. We’re trying to reserve our default search engines for the best of the best, and it’s clear that Qwant doesn’t align with the values of the IronFox project by engaging in this behavior, so it can’t make that cut. Users are of course always welcome to manually add Qwant if they trust it or wish to use it.

      Also, I just tested creating a Qwant account, and I received the following prompt:

      Welcome to Qwant ! In order to offer more diverse advertising and better align with your browsing, Qwant and its partners use limited data to improve your user experience, ensure the proper functioning of our site, and analyze how we can enhance our features. You can modify your cookie preferences at any time via our cookie manager by clicking on our Privacy policy. If you wish to maintain browsing without any processing and/or sharing of your personal data with our partners Qwant recommends that you click on “Refuse all”.

      This is extremely vague, doesn’t mention that the partner is Microsoft, that this data is used for tracking and profiling users, etc. - it reads to me like something I’d see on the CMP of Google or YouTube… I don’t think it’s fair to say that users are voluntarily sharing their data or consenting to this.

      • fievel@lemm.eeOP
        1·
        8 hours ago

        This is fair, as long as you still allow to add own search engine it’s good enough (I re-added qwant but I’m testing out alternatives a bit (searxng (public instance first), startpage and re-give a go to ddg to see if it improved a bit for local results)

    • fievel@lemm.eeOP
      3·
      12 hours ago

      This is how I interpreted the policy too but wanted to be sure about it. It’s so easy to get lost in juridic language.

  • Substance_P@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    17 hours ago

    I’ve been trying out Searx search lately and preferred it over Qwant. From some quick research, I found that Qwant does not track your search history or create personal profiles based on your searches. Seems like good news meaning users can expect a certain level of anonymity while searching online.

    However, and this is why I avoid it, it’s worth noting that Qwant does share some data with Microsoft, particularly regarding ads and search results. This includes sharing your IP address and browser details for fraud detection purposes. Personally, sharing IP information with Microsoft isn’t something I’d want in a search engine, as it raises concerns about how much user data is still being shared despite their claims of anonymization.

  • kekmacskaEnglish
    1·
    10 hours ago

    I use Ecosia and Duckduckgo. Searxng only if i need all possible results, since this is much slower than the other two

  • merde alors@sh.itjust.works
    4·
    17 hours ago

    i was asked about https://search.lilo.org/ recently. They’re trying to attract attention through solidarity, kind of like Ecosia.

    They claim “nous ne conservons et ne revendons aucune donnée personnelle” but Clarity is there under the hood and when you read further (more click/touch is necessary to see this)

    le navigateur que vous utilisez (le User Agent) ; vos préférences de session (afficher les résultats en français par exemple) ; votre adresse IP ; La zone géographique approximative à l’origine de la recherche (déduite de l’adresse IP) ; et éventuellement des données sur votre comportement de navigation, comme le temps écoulé entre 2 clics par exemple (toujours dans l’objectif de vérifier que l’utilisateur n’est pas un robot qui clique à la vitesse de la lumière 😉) Afin de vous fournir des résultats pertinents et de générer du revenu que nous pourrons transformer en argent pour financer les gouttes d’eau, nous avons un partenariat avec Microsoft Bing (qui respecte le Règlement Général sur la Protection des Données) pour la fourniture des résultats de recherche et des publicités. C’est pourquoi Lilo peut être amené à transmettre ces mêmes données à ce partenaire. Dans ce cas, conformément à sa politique de confidentialité, ce partenaire peut être amené à conserver ces données sur une période maximum de 18 mois.

    Same as qwant: We respect your privacy, but we’re giving all this information to Microsoft

  • tyler@programming.dev
    33·
    15 hours ago

    If you care about utmost privacy, you probably want to use Kagi, then generate privacy tokens and move them to a different computer and search from there. It’s pretty much guaranteed privacy. https://help.kagi.com/kagi/privacy/privacy-pass.html

    Kagi is also just the best search engine around at this point, at least that I’ve found. Worth paying for privacy in my opinion.