No gmail, no gargletube, no search engine. Giggle is evil. If the service is free, YOU are the product.

The G-word is an integral part of the surveillance economy. It slices! It dices! It sells you all over the world!

Use Startpage or Duck for searches.

I don't have time to waste on tubeos anyway.

if it is, aren’t we back to the same issue?

because their search algorithm broke and returned a lot of chaff.

Yes, these search engines don't charge the user. That's still an issue. Startpage relies on advertising and "sponsored" links at the top of the search list, so their source of income is transparent. They don't record and/or sell search info. Their search engine is more reliable than Duck, too. Here's their readable privacy policy:
https://www.startpage.com/en/privacy-policy

The thing is, the Garglesphere makes a lot of money building profiles of their users across their platforms and selling the results. How did their C-suiters become billionaires from "free" services?

What's far scarier is this recent article in The Guardian. Companies (at least one they know of) are using the microphones in our "smart" devices to listen to all nearby conversations, and selling filtered and analyzed results to advertisers. Big Bro is the smartphone. Alexa is ALWAYS listening. I wonder if the RNC or the NSA are buying that product.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/04/yes-it-sounds-like-a-conspiracy-theory-but-maybe-our-phones-really-are-listening-to-us

I'm no technophobe; I wrote code and fixed electronics for decades. But using the convenience of gadgets to turn control of our lives over to tech bros is scary.

"O brave new world!"

Maybe in the Computer group. Not here, I think.

Use the browser and search engine you prefer. Leave others to do the same.

The GD Forum is for politics, issues, and current events. This OP doesn't fit either of those categories.