Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
Avira have a free QR reader app that checks the links for phishing and malware before letting you open it.
There is also a similar FOSS solution available from KIT - Secuso Research - Results - Privacy Friendly Apps
Similar functionality for sanitising/de-obfuscating tracking links could be done easily using the same principals as existing browser extensions for the task.
However this would only be a partial solution as often people will need to use a specific app to scan the code.
When it comes to finding hidden results in the search engines, the best way is to aggregate your searches from multiple engines and to be able to search within a specified category.
Once apon a time I relied on Copernic agent and Dogpile (yes that puppy still exists but the mutt has been neutered somewhat).
The answer is perhaps not as indicated in the show, a matter of picking this or that private browser, but to search more effectively with specific engines.
I wrote a blog a while ago about getting more from internet searches by using a broader range of engines/services, and one of the comments answered my prayers for a new meta-search engine to take the place of Dogpile.
One of the commenters had recently discovered an interesting open source solution called “searx” and suggested I have a look.
Hell-yeah ! this is what I had been wanting from a web-based search engine.
The categories use engines most suited for that type of results, so now for example I can skip all the chaff and get straight to the technology and science articles from those in the field, rather than amateur pundits working for big name sites.
searx can be self-hosted and edited so you can even add search engines it does not include by default.
searx.me is the ultimate in privacy search engines, allowing an extra layer between you and the services (all major search engines are included).
results may be hidden or low priority in certain engines but if an engine somewhere references it, you can find it.
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