Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Opera. These five are probably the most widely used Internet browsers for searching all kinds of web pages and public information. But are its search engines really the safest to protect our privacy or that of our company/entity?
Although in all of them it is possible to activate the “incognito mode”, which allows browsing without cookies being installed on our device or creating a tracking record of our visited pages, the truth is that, by default, they do not apply this privacy functionality in their searches, we have to activate it ourselves.
However, there are other lesser-known search engines that do take our privacy very seriously and, especially, that the pages we visit do not force us to install unnecessary cookies in order to continue browsing.
In this way we will avoid being victims of a cyber-attack known as “SQL injection”, which is based on manipulating web pages so that, among other things, fraudulent cookies are installed, which can record confidential information on access to on-line sessions or our browsing habits. And on the other hand, by accessing several times to certain booking pages (e.g. flights, accommodation, offers), it recognizes us as a user and automatically increases the price shown.
These search engines are:
- DuckDuckGo
- Startpage
- Ecosia
- Mojeek
- Qwant
- Peekier
- Swisscows
- Giribu
- MetaGer
IMPORTANT FACT: There is no such thing as 100% privacy and cybersecurity, so even if we use incognito mode or any of these other browsers, we must remain vigilant not to access unsafe web pages, and obviously not to engage in activities that could be considered unethical, fraudulent or criminal. Since we will always leave some trace, no matter how small, when using the Internet (digital shadow).