[zephyr]

I am on a PC with Windows 7. I generally use Mozilla Firefox for most of my browsing. Some sites that I go to have a lot of ads and I visit these in Firefox's Private Browsing mode. This browser does a great job of ad blocking for one thing. I will also open an Internet Explorer browser to look at some sites. I.E. has always been a bit slow, but in the last couple of weeks or so, it's become ridiculous--to the point of unusability. (Wonder if anyone else noticed?) So now I am looking at other browsing options. What about Opera? A friend suggested it tonight. I have been reading up on it some. From what I can tell, the search engine is Google. I really want to avoid Google products if possible. Does anyone know if I can switch the search engine to Duck Duck Go? That's the one I use on Firefox. Just trying to reduce somewhat the tracking that goes on. Also when I went to search for the Opera download, I found a ton of alternate sites that said download this, download that. No thank you. I believe I have found the correct site. Is this the one to use? Thanks, ~z

[Tom]

I assume you meant that you're using adblock for Firefox? You should be able to install adblock for any of the major browsers. Similarly for choice of search engine, you should be able to choose whatever default search engine you want. I don't really worry about what ad service is tracking me since their ads will just be blocked, so rarely use private browsing. Seems overkill. Opera has a very low desktop market share (in the 1% range). I'd probably pick Chrome if you want to switch browsers. Not sure why you want to avoid Google products. They are the probably the least of the evils lurking. IE is the worst. MS Edge is supposedly much faster but not available for Windows 7. Even if it were available I wouldn't recommend Edge just because MS is the devil, not to mention it doesn't matter how fast Edge is when it's still broken in so many ways, just not as bad as IE. If your web browsing experience is slowing to a crawl it might be time to upgrade to a new computer. I had a 10 year old laptop that worked great until about 1-2 years ago when everything started to get sluggish. It got to the point where I couldn't even browse Yahoo Mail unless I used the "classic" version. Web pages have become so bloated. Got a new computer and amazed how much faster browsing the web is.

[Randito]

Chrome + Adblock Plus is decent for browsing clickbait sites for me. Opera may have a tiny market share, but one of the clients of the consulting firm I work for just contracted for an opera specific version of their app. That might just be yet another of their crazy poorly thought through decisions. (But hey its all billiable hours!!)

[moonspots]

[cdestroyer]

I use an older version of opera and have for years because I still use an older os...I like opera because I can use the cache part of google returns and not get all that ad/vid/pic junk just the text which is mostly all I want anyway. Also opera has a limited build in irc which I use a lot. as far as using ddg or any search engine just type in the url. I think then you will probably find ddg install program..

[zephyr]

[Randito]

Given that congress just voted to allow ISP's to sell your internet history to advertisers or anyone else: https://www.recode.net/2017/3/28/15080502/house-trump-republicans-congress-vote-overturn-privacy-fcc I'm not sure what difference it makes which browser or search engine you use on whether you'll get bombarded with ads targeting your interests or not. I suppose you could use a VPN in Romania or somewhere to mask your activity -- but every packet ultimately has to get routed through your cable/fiber modem. I'm always entertained by the fact that I see tons of ads for the exact item I just bought on Amazon... I already have one -- how good of an investment is advertising targeted toward me to buy another? A competing model maybe, but the exact same item? It would be more concerning if they more competent. (advertisers, politicians)

[zephyr]

[Tom]

[Sore Feet]

[zephyr]

Thanks, Sore Feet. I will look into this. I appreciate your thorough comment. And Thank you to everyone else who took time to reply. ~z

[mike]

ublock origin and disconnect

[Sore Feet]

You actually don't need Disconnect if you're using uBlock Origin; the same set of filters that Disconnect uses are baked into uBlock Origin's filter list (you might have to go into Settings to enable it though). The two extensions can fight with one another if you have them both installed and enabled.

[Backpacker Joe]

Thanks for the info SF. Hey, I wouldnt mind you smart guys listing all the extensions you guys use. Im not great at finding stuff like that.

[Tom]

I used uBlock for a while after it was recommended here. It was OK but really hated the fact they make it such a PITA to temporarily disable/enable the extension. With Adblock you can just click on the icon and it gives you option to disable/enable everywhere. With uBlock you need to click menu, addons, exensions, find ublock, then click disable / enable, or jump thru similar hoops. I would have put up with it if the darn thing just worked as well as Adblock but it doesn't. So many times I'd click on links and it would block pefectly legit pages. Went back to Adblock and haven't looked back.