What's the difference between hiding behind a proxy like scroogle and searching through TOR while logged out?

What if you object to being tracked, but also realize that no other search engine comes close to matching Google's results?

Tough. Google's results are, in part, created from their tracking. If you object to the tracking then you shouldn't use the output of said tracking.

>Tough.

It's not my job to look out for Google's interests. "You're the product, not the customer," remember? Why should I concern myself with the quality of Google's product?

Why? I doubt it has any negative impact on Google if a tiny fraction of their users go through a proxy, and I'm having trouble thinking of another reason to oppose doing so.

Use Tor? http://torproject.org/

I'm not sure that's true, but in any case, being tracked is the price you pay for using Google.

The way I see it, there are three options:

* Accept it and keep using Google

* Use DuckDuckGo, Bing or some other search engine

* Struggle to use hacks like Scroogle

Tracking users is a key part of Google's business model. If you use their services, they're going to track you and target ads to you. And they're going to keep implementing things like throttling to frustrate sites like Scroogle.

the disconnect extension http://disconnect.me/ includes an option to depersonalize searches (which seems to work by killing google's cookies).

there's also http://www.googlesharing.net/ which is an anonymizing proxy service, but i think it's firefox specific.

personally, i just stopped using their other services (i tried disconnect, but vaguely remember various issues when otherwise logged in) - as far as i know, they don't track you when you're not logged in (to be more sure i also use ghostery - that, together with disconnect, prevents a lot of tracking).

Killing Google's cookies will not make your search anonymous, since you can still be identified by your IP address.

Not just IP address but also browser signature, screen size and resolution, javascript settings and anything else in the HTTP header. See http://browserspy.dk/ for details.

yes, i know (and also browser fingerprinting if they really wanted to), but do they do that? as far as i know, they do not (likely for various reasons - bad press, confusion of people behind NATs, etc).

[i mean, more exactly, that i have heard nothing about them updating personal information with data from searches when not logged in; i am not talking aggregate info like typical searches from geoip locations]

>but the answer is not a hack like Scroogle

You sir, are an astroturfer.

Scroogle was a proxy, that is all it was. Scroogle performed nothing more than many other firewalls, content filters and proxies, including TOR, do by default.

>If you disagree with Google, don't use their services

And how exactly do you do that when all Android phones, gmail, doubleclick, and several dozen other services you don't even know you use send your information to Google?

Where is the EFF when you need them?

Android phones: F-Droid ( http://fdroid.org/ ) is a great resource for FOSS applications, all installable without going through the Android market. The F-Droid app can download updates for you. GMail: You seriously can't think of a non-GMail email service? (cough http://fastmail.fm ) DoubleClick: Ghostery ( http://www.ghostery.com/ ) has extensions for all major desktop browsers and iOS.

Yes, there are several other services. Yes, it's difficult to find alternatives to them, but it's not impossible. And if you really can't, you can build it yourself. And if you're not keen/able, let the HN community know - they love a gap in the market.