Leaked Lies at Google

Google accidentally leaked their search API on Github, giving everyone insight into that they:

--Lied that they track users clicks as a factor for search rankings [1][3]

--Lied about using data from Chrome browser for search, including clicks.  This contradicted their sworn testimony to the Department of Justice on anti-trust. [1][3]

--Lied about having a sandbox (to prevent "some" new sites from ranking) [1][2][3]

--Purposefully gave smaller "personal" sites their own category which ranked lower, EVEN IF they had more relevant information.  To favor larger brands. [3]

They after removed the leaked data, but it was already published under an Apache open source license. [2] So now anyone can do whatever with it.  The irony of Google having crappy privacy.

What should you use instead?  Use a variety of engines.

Mojeek: Best privacy, but they aren't as well-funded. You gotta know what you want in advance

MetaGer: On Hetzner, so if you're coming through Tor which Hetzner dominates, its a conflict of interest

SearXNG: FOSS front-end for an aggregate.  Farside.link has many instances.

Duckduckgo: They are not that private, but it pains me to say the results are not that bad.

Brave's Search: It's on Amazon AWS, but not bad indepedent results.  As a heads up, if you use the Tor Onion it lets you do it without JavaScript.

And for Fs sake man, avoid Chrome browser.

(Sources in the comments from a burner account)