Why DuckDuckGo is my new search engine

This is not old news. Google has been concerned about Facebook’s rise and has been wanting to come up with a social product of its own. So they create Google+ and we all joined enthusiastically. They have impressive growth in numbers and I also supported G+   until I remembered what happened more than 15 years ago.

So Microsoft did not get internet back in the 1990s while Netscape was dominating the browser market. Then Microsoft decides to use its dominance in the desktop space to thrust IE on its users. Not many liked this move but here we are in the future knowing that Microsoft killed Netscape.

I realized that our support for G+ is similar to supporting IE when Microsoft is trying to kill Netscape through unfair means instead of building a good product. As soon as Netscape was dead, Microsoft IE also stopped its innovation until Firefox came along. Do we want the same thing by supporting G+?

I also realized that many like me were interested in supporting a competitor to Facebook thanks to Facebook’s heavy handed dealing with our privacy on the site. So it was Facebook that was making us support its competition.

Now Google comes up with “Search Plus Your World” (SPYW) which apparently is great for us. I have been worried with all the junk that shows up in our search results on Google. Now Google wants to pollute the search with G+ results? No thanks.

Google learns from Facebook and decides that it knows what is best for us. I liked how Sarah Lacy talked about it here. So Google is now emulating Facebook too?

From now on, it is going to be DuckDuckGo.com as the search engine for me. I hope they continue with their privacy first philosophy.