In 2026 if you’re still using google and meta you deserve whatever happens, we’ve been discussing this shit for almost 15 years.
Really unfortunate when we start blaming victims for being less informed. Do people not have older friends or family members who don’t understand what the internet is anymore? I have a few people like that in my life and it makes me sad to hear that people think it’s ok if they’re being taken advantage of. Regardless of if it’s age related cognitive decline, or just a general disinterest in tech news, no one deserves to have their rights infringed upon because our government has bent the knee to a company.
I agree that .gov needs to bring the hammer but they’ve shown no inclination to regulate anything digital other than shifting the burden to the user.
I have zero sympathy for anyone when it comes to internet security, we’ve been doing this internet thing for 30+ years.
Some people might’ve been doing this internet thing for 30+ years, but not everyone. It may be difficult for people to imagine, but plenty of people young and old are still without any computing device at home.
I have worked with and in proximity to a lot of people who didn’t have the same resources or access as I did, and it really isn’t realistic to expect everyone to be able to monitor every bad thing companies do. That’s a big part of why we have governments and regulations in the first place.
The uninformed invited this into their life and deserve the results.
I try duckduckgo first but usally have to go to Google to actually find what I need.
I use Startpage, which proxies Google results.
Startpage: ads listed first, with a no-ads upgrade banner at the top
noai.DuckDuckGo.com: no ads, no banner
I’ve been using brave. It was the only non google one that gave me decent results.
That reminds me I need to fix my SearXNG instance
most don’t seem to bother – bless you!
they’re meant to add federation to its self hosted crawler iirc. it’s also a frontend for multiple engines.
Startpage is just google once removed. Its not an independent alternative, just a front end.
I thought startpage was bought by an ad company
I stopped using startpage earlier this year when they announced they were going down the ai toilet.
