Look a no spy private browser. Stop putting money in Google and Yahoo pocket..

www.startpage.com...

You can add this to your toolbar and search without being spied upon... I got this link and use it everyday! No more popup ads and sneaky bar ads.. No more money for Google and Yahoo.. this is better!

www.startpage.com...

I use firefox with a add-on called ghostery, its very good, it blocks all advertising,trackers,widgets etc. it pops up on corner of each page with the list of stuff it has blocked. look it up, i would recomend anyone using firefox to use this add-on. also just to add, ATS is one of the worst for advertising,trackers,spyware etc

A couple of things to add:

* StartPage does use Google, but anonymises your browser for you. The people behind StartPage offer another search engine called IXquick which provides even better security (it uses their own proxies backend servers).

* For anyone who's interested, the StartPage/IXquick team are launching their own email service at the end of this month. StartMail is promoted as 'the Internet's most private email service', and I understand it encrypts the emails in such a way that only the sender and rceipient can decrypt them. Looks very promising.

reply to post by bluestar.ranch


Startpage is good, and so is IXQuick .
Neither engine saves your IP address, which is a Godsend these days.
Used to use scroogle.org until they got in all kinds of legal hurdles.

I love how PC's come preloaded with all sorts of google and yahoo software.
Then you must manually change the home address to something different.
All that spyware and adware come preloaded !

So use Firefox and ghostery, or any other means possible.

Don't use or support Google.

I don't see how people don't know this from two years ago . It was all over the news ,that google would be collecting data ,and to find another search engine . Was everyone asleep ?
This is not new .
And do note,google runs YouTube ,why do you think so much damming stuff gets removed now ?
If you're in the USA,they run mapquest .
They know what you read,watch and where you go. If you have version ,and they have your GPS records,they know where you are when you're doing it too .HELLO .

This is the search engine I use . There's another ,but I like this one better.

www.dogpile.com...

reply to post by bluestar.ranch


Call me naive, but the instant Alex Jones started hawking startpage I deleted it from my list of software I might try. I'll stick with firefox. Hell, even chrome in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, is secure.

Remember kiddies, it's against the T&C of ATS to using add blocking/script blocking software while using the site, and it's also a grey area to even suggest you do so.

I thought you were going to tell us about a Browser.

not a search engine.

It's all moot anyway, if you turn off all the bunk they throw at you, you are browsing a broken internet. Hardly anything works any more if you don't let them stick their fingers up your butt.

Try using an old PC with an old browser. The internet has gone from the information superhighway to vaudeville. Everyone sings and dances and the ladies procure you from their kerbs. If you don't pay then you're beaten up by thugs in white hats.

I've got an old P3 that cries when it sees me going near the power button. Luckily I've gotten it addicted to electricity so it gives in for it's fix. Dirty little beast..

So, it's good that startpage basically takes the heat for you. They get the shifty eyes when you look up Squirrels and Glad Wrap. But you can't use it in any consistent way. Not if you actually use the net...

It's time the internet had a spring cleaning. Googles left it's rubbish all over the place and bings no better. Yahoo is a yahoo and everyone else just tags along, hanging off the coat tails for the ride.

We need a REAL search engine, a REAL alternative, and we need websites that adhere to a NOGOOGLE policy. No adsense, no cdns.. none of that rubbish "Oh but I am a poor web developer and its the only way I get paid" lies and baloney.

No one pays to simply look at a book cover. So Why do they think just passing by their website should get them cash. Put the work in, make a website worth a nominal donation, and stop the nonsense. All of you!!!!!

My website will simply read "Serverless and hungry. Please send me a bitcoin."

reply to post by PtolemyII


the search engine you use, and the browser you choose to do it from, spying on you or not, is kind of meaningless once you understand that for the past, oh 10 to 12 years, the NSA has been tapping all communication at the ISP network level. All of it. Every packet of traffic is routed through their system to be collected and stored.

Sure, you can protect your little bucket, make it all fancy and stealth, but when the whole well is poisoned, you are fooling yourself.

Been using Firefox with start page and search directed at IXquick page.

Use Ghostery too, have done for a couple of years now.

Not watertight, but makes it a little harder for them to keep tabs on me.

And no, i don't have anything to hide, which means they have no reason to spy on me.

Call me strange, but I just prefer my private business to stay my private business unless i decide to make it public.

Originally posted by phishyblankwaters
reply to post by PtolemyII

 

the search engine you use, and the browser you choose to do it from, spying on you or not, is kind of meaningless once you understand that for the past, oh 10 to 12 years, the NSA has been tapping all communication at the ISP network level. All of it. Every packet of traffic is routed through their system to be collected and stored.

Sure, you can protect your little bucket, make it all fancy and stealth, but when the whole well is poisoned, you are fooling yourself.

But you could still bury your communications under a few layers of encryption, and be selective about what you communicate in plaintext, if you wanted to make things difficult. Sure, it's no secret that everything's tapped at the ISP level, but there are ways of dealing with that

Usually it's not the NSA you have to worry about, but the people who actually will use your information against you, like criminals, insurance firms, recruiters, etc. People that Google et. al. have no reservations about selling your profile to.

interesting .. using android .. Rooted and DeGoogled .. Custom Rom jellybean .. but noted on the new search ...

Just changed my default search engine to IXquick. I have an extension added to Chrome called Do Not Track Me and it seems to work pretty well. It stops [ hopefully ] sites from tracking you and shows how many trackers from each site it has blocked

reply to post by XeroOne

Usually it's not the NSA you have to worry about, but the people who actually will use your information against you, like criminals, insurance firms, recruiters, etc.

believe me, if I was doing anything nefarious, it wouldn't be tracked back to me. There are various means of doing so, encryption being one, proxies, hacked wifi and a spoofed mac address make you basically invisible.

But, lets think about the data they are actually collecting. Bank info? Nope, that's on a secure encrypted platform. Email? other than my throw away spam account, nothing to be gleaned from stealing my mails. Search history? Again, plenty of ways to ensure that's not being tracked without using a third party. Medical history? There is no way they can get that data from my browsing.

When talking google and actual companies, it's marketing, plain and simple, they want data on the heard, and we're the heard. You aren't important, in fact, as an individual you are useless, but as a demographic, you are important to them. They aren't tracking Joe Blow directly, they are tracking 30ish males, etc etc.

And for all the hating you guys do on google, they are pretty damn open about their data policies and as such are extremely open about government requests for data. I'm not worried about that type of tracking, it's easy to negate, and in the end, is mostly useless information that in the end only serves to serve targeted advertising.

NSA style spying is something completely different, and if they have their way, any means of circumventing it will become illegal. There was talk a few years back about either the NSA or CIA trying to pressure the computer industry into making one standardized encryption system, to which the Feds would have the key. We fought and pushed back and they backed down. They are talking about it again. I don't think we can stop them this time.

here's something to ponder. If a site is hosted in the US it's subjected to US laws. In some cases even if the site isn't hosted in the US but serves the US, it's subjected to US laws. An HONEST proxy site will tell you, if they are hosted in the US, you are not safe, they would have to retain and hand over your data if asked. I'm talking sites you pay to access to hide your tracks, can't hide you if the US asks for the data.

Where is startpage hosted? Who actually owns this company? Has anyone done anything other than hear about it and start using it?

P.S. it's really bugging me. Startpage is a website, not a browser. Gawd

Startmail is coming out soon! Can't wait. You can sign up for the bets at StartMail.com.

How is this different from TOR?

I use Firefox with the TOR package and that is supposed to be anonymous.

But, lets think about the data they are actually collecting. Bank info? Nope, that's on a secure encrypted platform. Email? other than my throw away spam account, nothing to be gleaned from stealing my mails. Search history? Again, plenty of ways to ensure that's not being tracked without using a third party. Medical history? There is no way they can get that data from my browsing.

Assuming you've checked the server certificates and you're absolutely certain there's no banking Trojan on your PC. Assuming there's no way of matching your identity to any medical/counselling-related sites you might have an account with.

When talking google and actual companies, it's marketing, plain and simple, they want data on the heard, and we're the heard. You aren't important, in fact, as an individual you are useless, but as a demographic, you are important to them. They aren't tracking Joe Blow directly, they are tracking 30ish males, etc etc.

Well, Google has their 'real name policy' for Google+, and my GMail account got suspended last year because I wouldn't provide my cellphone number and full name. And I couldn't use some basic features of Android out of the box without registering the above details with Google. That makes me a little uncomfortable.

And for all the hating you guys do on google, they are pretty damn open about their data policies and as such are extremely open about government requests for data.

Recently leaked documents suggest otherwise.

There was talk a few years back about either the NSA or CIA trying to pressure the computer industry into making one standardized encryption system, to which the Feds would have the key. We fought and pushed back and they backed down. They are talking about it again. I don't think we can stop them this time.

Security researchers have a habit of finding and publishing security weaknesses, which the bad guys will exploit until people will stop using whatever product. No bank's going to accept the liability of using crypto that doesn't provide any security. The only way around that would be for the NSA to have its crypto peer reviewed over the course of years by the wider community.

An HONEST proxy site will tell you, if they are hosted in the US, you are not safe, they would have to retain and hand over your data if asked. I'm talking sites you pay to access to hide your tracks, can't hide you if the US asks for the data.
Where is startpage hosted? Who actually owns this company? Has anyone done anything other than hear about it and start using it?

Quite true, but the laws governing this are a bit weird. Hypothetically you could run a proxy service and not maintain any logs, and therefore still comply with the law without handing anything over. My understanding is IXquick is hosted in the European Union, where the Data Retention Act applies only to ISPs, plus there are laws prohibiting certain information (especially medical records) leaving the EU.

Originally posted by phishyblankwaters
reply to post by PtolemyII

 

the search engine you use, and the browser you choose to do it from, spying on you or not, is kind of meaningless once you understand that for the past, oh 10 to 12 years, the NSA has been tapping all communication at the ISP network level. All of it. Every packet of traffic is routed through their system to be collected and stored.

Agreed. I believe one of the slides released on the Guardian site shows that there are additional programs in place and the physical lines of data are being tapped. It was an instructional slide explaining that users of the data should access both the communication line (the physical cable) data and then cross-reference that with the data gathered from the destination too.

So, the NSA is basically harvesting all communications information traveling across any cable, and also correlating this to the data harvested from the big tech companies.

But, even though switching services is only a partial solution, it still minimizes what the NSA can then do. If you're not using Google, the data they can gather from that source is lessened. They might still be able to use the data from the tapping of the phone lines, but they can't correlate that to your searches on Google.

In addition, it's vitally important to teach these companies a lesson, and make it clear to them that the mere accusation of them handing over access to our personal information and accounts is not acceptable. Google is already too powerful, and I would love to see them knocked off the net totally for the unaccountable control they have. People need to make it clear that Google cannot allow access to this information to an unaccountable agency, and that they cannot even allow it to happen without their knowledge.

Personally, I think these companies might have been unaware of the access the NSA has. Think about this for a minute... Google uses the same infrastructure we do, their staff, CEO and all their offices all around the world all use the same infrastructure - and that infrastructure has been tapped and monitored by the NSA for decades.

If a Google employee anywhere has ever put a password in to access the secure systems of Google, that has been compromised by the NSA.

I really don't think these companies are aware of just how their systems have been compromised.

Also, I've seen Intel being mentioned a few times as being one of those companies "assisting" the NSA. Just how does Intel become involved in this? They're not a service provider to the public, they're tech manufacturer.

Also, I've seen Intel being mentioned a few times as being one of those companies "assisting" the NSA. Just how does Intel become involved in this? They're not a service provider to the public, they're tech manufacturer.

Yes and no. Well, kind of. The NSA needs reliable technologies to protect its own stuff, and to be fair they've also done a lot to help the rest of us improve our security (DES and SELinux being just two examples). From what I gather, Intel's latest chip has a co-processor dedicated to making RSA more efficient, reducing delays in key generation. The NSA had to be sure it was secure enough for themselves.

Originally posted by phishyblankwaters
reply to post by bluestar.ranch

 

Call me naive, but the instant Alex Jones started hawking startpage I deleted it from my list of software I might try. I'll stick with firefox. Hell, even chrome in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, is secure.

Remember kiddies, it's against the T&C of ATS to using add blocking/script blocking software while using the site, and it's also a grey area to even suggest you do so.

I never knew that, thanks for bringing that to my attention.
it might be worth noting then that ghostery has a function where you can unblock a site, just click on the allow button and it wont block anything from that site

reply to post by phishyblankwaters

You cant hide. Thats my point. No matter what you do to hide...we all...all of us...are using the same Internet to travel thru around and under. And theyve been monitring that for years now.

You might be a blank figure sending infoover an unidentifiable ISP...but they are keeping it as it travels because TPTB owns the lines of transmission. While trying to hide...we all have to use the same highways...there is nothing else. Even other means...the sats in space will still pick em up....the govs own those 2.

Thats the real issue.