Central Queensland Linux User Group

For those who care about their privacy there are search alternatives to Google, which do not log your personal data against every search you do. One I would like to suggest is Ixquick, which has a strong privacy policy and EU certification: https://us2.ixquick.com/eng/aboutixquick/

To use Ixquick you can just go to their home page: https://us2.ixquick.com/
Note that https is supported.

Firefox users can also install the Ixquick search engine plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12389/

For me though, I prefer to set Ixquick as the default search via the Firefox address bar. To do so you type about:config in the Firefox address bar, accept that you will be careful, then in 'Filter' put: keyword. That should let you find keyword.URL. Double click on the value and set it as: https://us2.ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl?query=

Ixquick will now be used when you do a a search from the Firefox address bar. You can follow the same steps to set any search engine of your choosing, just change keyword.URL value to suit. An alternative to consider is Scroogle http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm

You can also generate a custom search/display string under 'My Settings' on the Ixquick page, to further refine how the meta search is conducted and displayed.

Happy searching!