Saint Andrew’s Hacking Paradise

How to Browse the Internet Without Being Tracked

How many people use the big search engines here? I'm going to estimate 90% of everyone uses one of the following on a regular basis: Google, Bing or Yahoo! Search. The question is: are you in that 10%? You should seriously consider dumping Google search for DuckDuckGo. Why? DuckDuckGo does not track you.

Here is a short demonstration on how Google tracks you:

You searched for the word "herpes" on Google Search. That will then show up on Google Analytics as a referral with information about your location, browser and other data such as your IP address.
When you search "herpes", it may lead to targeted advertising being associated with a user profile and how that could "potentially show up in unwanted places like insurance, credit & background checks".
Google saves searches to its Web History tool (disable it here) and the saved searches may be requested by legal authorities. Google employees have also been caught snooping on users.

How to Change the Default Search Engine in Firefox

Do you often use the URL bar in Firefox to search your query? Well, you aren't alone on this one. The problem is that Google is the default search engine. Therefore I have made this tutorial to demonstrate how to change the default engine, plus how to add perimeters to make the search results more relevant while not taking away your rights to privacy.

In the URL bar enter:

about:config and accept the warning.

Search for keyword.URL and put in https://www.duckduckgo.com to get results from DuckDuckGo. To make the search results more relevant, see here. You can now generate a custom perimeter that will suit your search needs. An example perimeter is this:

https://duckduckgo.com/?kb=t&ke=-1&kh=1&kz=-1&k1=-1&k3=lifehacker

This perimeter will now be entered into keyword.URL so that you can get the results that will meet your needs.

Tips

Not sure what perimeters to use? Easy. My suggestion is to enable HTTPS (a secure connection), disable advertisements, and click on the country you live in to get the most relevant results. Just remember: DuckDuckGo doesn't track you, and it doesn't record your Internet Protocol address while Google does.

Do you have questions, comments, or suggestions? Feel free to post a comment!