Vivaldi Metasearch for Global Good

sbzsolt

I am quite certain many of us have been search engine-hopping from time to time, and there are a plenty of alternative search engines to choose from.
Probably many of you have stumbled upon many of the ethical/charity search engines, and wanted to use them all to contribute to their ad revenues, but eventually settled with just one.

There are metasearches that can include results from many alternatives, but they have a no ads policy, therefore you can't have any of the ethical ad revenue options.

But what if you could?

This is my proposal:
A metasearch that aggregates results from ethical/charity alternative engines as any other metasearch does, but also deliberately serves the search ads, if possible aggregating the same ads as one result entry, and triggering a revenue click for all the engines from where that result is served.
But only when the ad is clicked, as bot clicks are meaningless, and probably would end up in Vivaldi getting blocked, and we don't want that.

That way the average search user could fund all these search engines doing good for the Earth and the people.

And for an extra gamification, if the engines allow it, have an impact counter integrated into the Vivaldi Account page for private view, and optional public view (and maybe in the forum as well, and probably on Vivaldi Social too, and a pre-generated banner for the blog).

From the top of my head, the engines that could be included are:
Ecosia
OceanHero
Good (good-search.org)
Swisscows
Lilo
Ekoru
Rapusia
Goodsearch (goodsearch.com)

Please let me know what you think in the comments.

edwardp

@sbzsolt Welcome to Vivaldi.

Ecosia is one of the search sites already available in Vivaldi. I use Startpage and DuckDuckGo.

It is also possible to add your own to Vivaldi, if you wish: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/93469/impossible-to-use-third-party-search-engines

Also see https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/

sbzsolt

@edwardp yes, I know it is there, and it is the same as "settling with one", when many more could benefit from search ad revenues from one single metasearch. People who want to be "brand loyal" could stick with whichever they like, but charitable ad revenue maxis could have the option to simultaneously support as many as possible.

sbzsolt

A good example of things done quite right would be Kagi. However I'd prefer something coming from within the EU/EEA/EFTA.

Dborhanian

@edwardp duckduckgo's self-proclaimed "privacy" policies are kind of a lie, although based on the research i just did it's not as bad as i thought it was. Technically they do send all of their search queries to Micro$oft, but apparently that's bc "their" search is built upon Bing, so...

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/duckduckgo-privacy-browser-facing-backlash-over-microsoft-trackers

and from: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/duckduckgo-what-to-know-about-google-searchs-privacy-focused-rival/

"How does DuckDuckGo work?
For starters, DuckDuckGo does not track searches made through its browser extension or mobile app. Other browsers, including Chrome, allow you to use private or incognito windows that don't track your search history, but their default windows do. (That's the basis of every "embarrassing search history" joke.) Instead of making you navigate to a different version of its app, DuckDuckGo never tracks your search history.

Searches made through DuckDuckGo also automatically connect you to the encrypted versions of websites wherever possible, making it harder for anyone else to see what you're looking at online. This is another scenario where both options (encrypted and unencrypted) exist on other search engines, but the default isn't always the privacy-friendly option. DuckDuckGo saves you the extra steps of manually navigating to encrypted connections.

DuckDuckGo was criticized in May 2022 when researchers discovered some Microsoft tracking scripts while using DuckDuckGo's browsers. The presence of Microsoft trackers seemed to fly in the face of the search engine's privacy promise, and DuckDuckGo's founder and CEO clarified on Reddit that the company was "currently contractually restricted by Microsoft" from stopping Microsoft scripts from completely loading. This is because the company uses Microsoft's Bing to power its search results. The company followed up in August, however, by announcing that it would further restrict Microsoft trackers in its browsers.

However, DuckDuckGo remains ahead of other popular privacy options when it comes to blocking tracking data, and the company has clarified its app store descriptions to better clarify limitations in its privacy protections. DuckDuckGo had also previously disclosed its partnership with Microsoft, and its CEO said in the Reddit post that the company is working to get that restriction changed.

DuckDuckGo also actively blocks external trackers from following you around online. For a more detailed explanation of DuckDuckGo's privacy features, check out DuckDuckGo's blog. "

so idk anymore. personally i almost always use https://swisscows.com or https://www.startpage.com although in the past I've used/tried a ton of others (ecosia, gibiru, startx, searchencrypt [ https://www.searchencrypt.com/home ], and i'm sure legions more. VPNs are wonderful things, too.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.protonvpn.android

*edited spelling

edwardp

@Dborhanian I don't use DuckDuckGo's browsers for search, only their web site through Vivaldi.

It is the default search for Vivaldi, in a Private window.

supermurs

I realized just recently that Vivaldi gets revenue from the use of alternative search engines, so I changed my default search to Ecosia on all devices.