Apple embraces privacy-focussed DuckDuckGo kicking Google aside: Is DuckDuckGo really turning to be an alternative search engine?

It's small but not ignorable!

“If Google doesn't find it, probably it don't exist at all!”, “May be you should google it” - We all have heard this at one time or another from people we know to the people we don't. One may call the former line as height of Google worship but nor can I nor could you deny the effect this one phenomenal search engine is having on our lives. From that new shopping place to that up-to-this-time unknown person you met in office to sweet purring cats to porns, it offers all that you could think of in an instant, literally. Now a days, it even feeds you with its search queries over your voice commands, yes just the command! Times have taken such a leap now that we check if our Internet connection is at place or not by entering Google.com in address bar. Don't we? Only the other day, I called my office technician over slow Internet connectivity and what do I tell him? “Check what is it with my machine, even Google is taking hours to load!” Googlers are we and clueless will be our generation without the phenomenal search engine that Google is!

With larger roles comes the larger responsibilities and that is where perhaps Google is taking us for a ride knowing fully well that we now can't escape its bait albeit knowing what it really is. With vast capabilities and intelligence, an algorithm that boasts of personalized and never ever disappointing results, Google in a way has made us its slaves but all in all, is it safe? Nah, am not referring to the eye strains or stalking tool it provides it provides in your hands but the shadowy ways in which it follows and tracks us. What was the primary purpose of searching? Wasn't it to know the unknown, to find what we seldom knew but longed to discover? It indeed was and in the early stage Google to did its job of searching for us splendidly well and brought what we were searching for at our finger-tips. More or less, it simplified our lives by saving our time and energy which other wise we would have wasted in some old countryside library searching through the dusty pages of Britannica! Those who have searched though the pages of Britannica know how useful a search proves, it not just zeroes you at what you were searching for but also takes you through the world that you seldom knew if existed or not, in short it does serves its purpose of providing what you were looking for but doesn't confine you to that one particular thing alone, instead it lets you discover what you never even heard of, forget existed for that instance. On the other hand Google creates a bubble around you, the one in which your world is limited. You search and get what you want but rarely what you search for and get is same as what other person is getting in his machine. For instance, try googling a particular word in your machine and then let other guy Google the same, are both the search pages similar? I sparsely hope they will be one! The search page you got is filtered for your taste buds and what the other person got is of his depending upon the way you both have used Google earlier. Yes the results other guy got are available for me provided I take pain to scroll and dig next pages but there are very few of us who go beyond first page! From time you don't-know-it-did to the time now when you-wonder-why, Google has been tracking you, mining your data and building your virtual profile, and probably selling the same through what they call smart advertising. Don't feel annoyed or helpless, for it's the price you pay for the luxury that is free and fluid search engine called Google.

Not that all who google feel the same. For there are people who argue over ease and quickness, it has brought into our lives. With all the experience of searching on the go, will you ever think of going through the tedious process of encyclopedia surfing? I never will, not until I believe in Benjamin Franklin's 'Time is Money' quote! My friend who in more ways is fan of what Google caters to him though his mined data says, with alerts of distance he needs to travel home to information regarding dispatch of deliveries which obvious Google provides (thanks to Google now!) after going through your mails to those random suggestions based on our previous searches, all in all it is helping us in simplifying our lives by saving our time and energy with the help of same mined information that rest of us are cribbing on! Okay, so all in all it's both, it has its highs and concerns at same time that obvious have become hard to ignore for now. But then, do we have any alternative search engine, that provides us with real search results and not filtered ones by bubbling us in a virtual world created out of our own searches? And please, don't come with Bing. By real I meant not outdated results too! Do we have any search engine that don't bubble us nor track our fingerprints, literally!

Gosh! Looks like it's time for a game of “duck-duck goose!” What do you say? Named after the childhood game, duckduckgo.com offers searches without storing your trace of what you Google for, or is it time to say, what you duckduck at? DuckDuckGo is tiny compared to giants like Google, Bing and Yahoo search. But it doesn't track your searches or mine your data for advertising or other purposes. Catering to folks who want to use web in complete privacy, it offers services that are good but very basic compared to what Google caters.

The New York Times says, it “distinguishes itself with a 'we don't track or bubble You!' policy” while Time magazine puts it in “Top 50 Best Websites.” Company hosts 150 million searches per month, said CEO Gabriel Weinberg, up from the 50 million per month a year ago is no sign to ignore the rise of a search engine that calls itself “the search engine that doesn't track you!” It's minuscule in numbers when you compare it with Google's 100 billion per month searches but certainly not ignorable given the privacy it offers.

Given the rise of reports that many governments of today are interested in your information, well, out of their boundaries or supposed access, DuckDuckGo scores its goal. Following disclosures about the government surveillance leaked last year by former US National Security Contractor Snowden, it in fact got lot of attention. According to its privacy policy, DuckDuckGo keeps no record of users' searches and thereby prevents them from being leaked to other sites, and does not log IP addresses. The site still has ads but they are not targeted using personal details. And perhaps that is where all strength of this slow but steady racer resides.

DuckDuckGo's instant answers are sourced from hundreds of partners across the web through its open-sourced community which if utilized properly could change its fortunes. On Tuesday (May 21) it received major redesign with enhanced search tools including a variety of requested changes like auto-suggest, and local search, similar to Google but with DuckDuckGo's privacy promises still in place. Apple has just replaced Google as it's default search engine in privacy mode to DuckDuckGo in it's iOS 8 and OS X 10 Yosemite. DuckDuckGo team is all smiling over the surprising development. No doubt, it is in no way near to what search giant Google is capable of but nor is it any ignorable peck on wall that you and I could write off straight away for now. And one believes it or not it is here to stay and grow given the spiraling rise of concerns regarding data privacy all over the world. So is it time now or will it be any time soon tomorrow to stop googling and start duckducking, searching how it was meant in the first place?