It might sound small but issues like this are fundamental to how the internet works – and who makes the most money from it. Do the same search on DuckDuckGo and the top result is IMDb. Great for Google, bad for the list of websites below that also contain this information and that you will never visit. As a result, 50 per cent of all Google searches now end without a click. Go further still and search for ‘ Iron Man 2 cast’ and Google displays a carousel of names and pictures right at the top of the page. For the most part, the top of Google’s page of results directs you towards more Google products and services. The same search on DuckDuckGo pulls in a snippet from Wikipedia and quick links to find out more on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon or iTunes.

The film is also “liked” by 92 per cent of Google users and people searching for this also search for, you guessed it, Iron Man and Iron Man 3. It will then suggest you play a trailer for the film on, where else, YouTube. Search for, say, ‘ Iron Man 2’ and Google will first tell you it can be purchased from Google Play or YouTube from £9.99. And I don’t need to buy into Google’s leviathan network of privacy-invading trackers to find out what Black Panther is and when I can go and see it at my local cinema. Its annual round-up of the most searched-for terms is basically a list of names and events: World Cup, Avicii, Mac Miller, Stan Lee, Black Panther, Megan Markle. As a result, I’ve had a fairly tedious but important revelation: I search for really obvious stuff. So I made a simple change: I opened up Firefox on my Android phone and switched Google search for DuckDuckGo. Did I really need the all-seeing, all-knowing algorithms of Google to assist me? Probably not. It all started with a realisation: most the things I search for are easy to find. And, after two years in the wilderness, I’m pretty sure I’m sold on a post-Google future. But something makes these searches, in internet terms, a bit unusual.

Before that, I wanted to know the capital of Albania (Tirana), the Twitter handle of Liberal Democrat deputy leader Ed Davey (he’s and dates of bank holidays in the UK for 2019 (it’s a late Easter next year, folks). What was the last thing you searched for online? For me, it was ‘$120 in pounds’.

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