I swear to god you guys.
Everything you wanted to know about search engines by Fravia (R.I.P.) http://searchlores.org
After you finish there you will understand all you need to know about search engines to understand what's happening.
It doesn't really matter if you go pick up copernic free or create a custom start page (my style.) You don't need to depend 100% on google. How many of you when searching for a file use ftpsearch http://proisk.ru after lycos killed tronda?
How many links to you really have that you use? I bet if you start paying attention there's probably only 30 places you visit on the web each day. The rest of all those links are static cache hits and ads. Sure if your job is to track things down all day long for people this won't be so. But for most of you, even the techs, it's about 30 websites. You going to tell me you can't copy fravia's basic search start page and edit it to fit your own life? I have one going from way back, it's the same one edited over time. It has the same tables but nearly everything in it has been replaced over time. Did anyone ever play in the fravia's phplab You know the wands, and the search engine dat files? That thing rocked if you got it lit on your own box. today the .def files are out of date, then again so are some of the ENGINES themselves which are no longer with us. Baa, edit.. Make your own search engine! Make your own spider.
Bottom line is search engines like google don't give away things for free. Your paying for it somehow. Your name, IP habits, custom ads, whatever they want, You agree to it, and You pay for it.
But beyond this there's more insidious activity, and it's not just google.
http://cryptome.org/isp-spy/online-spying.htm
If you are like me, you have (or I can now say had) a lot of stuff tied to gmail. domain contacts, webhosting contact, paypal, ebay, amazon, and on and on. Between the NDAA, PIPA and the rest of the fascist nonsense, I had enough. I should have known better but apathy got me cause I been surrounded by bad news 24/7 for the past decade, and I just didn't feel like going off the grid yet.
Last week, I finally separated, it took several days, it teaches you a lot about just how deep you are in, and also for example how annoying changing your email can be. You will also note that when you delete your google account completely, they say something about how your still responsible for any money owed.
Whatever google, Goodbye.
Actually a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I can really feel it! Try it. Feel FREE.