One of the most used features in browsers is the search engine.

And almost every browser has two ways to let users search the internet.

One is through the address bar, or the URL bar as some of you may know it. In Mozilla Firefox, this is called the Awesome Bar. The reason behind this is, the address bar allows you to not just search from the bar, but also displays auto-complete search suggestions.

The default search engine in Mozilla Firefox is Yahoo, due to the deal between the two companies. But it is likely that many of you will be using Google or Bing or DuckDuckGo.

The other Search option in Firefox is the Search Bar itself, which you can [...]

Tech savvy users will be aware how Search Engines work and make money from advertisers.

For those unaware, here is a very brief description.

Most services collect some personal information when a search query is made, to deliver an optimized experience for the user.

This is usually to provide relevant information, and also for displaying ads, which is how most websites monetize. However, some users are concerned about this, and tend to use more privatcy centric services, like DuckDuckGo. These are especially useful, when you are looking for Medical articles and the like, information which you would need to keep personal (like a Hospital would).

A [...]

DuckDuckGo, the search engine, was founded back in 2008, with one primary objective, Privacy.

The service has made a rather important announcement about its usage.

And it is good news too. DuckDuckGo recently reported that it saw over 300 million searches in December alone. The service also said that it was when its search saw an all time high usage in a single day, with 12 million search queries on December 14th.

The surge it saw in December, was actually pretty huge, from 7.7 million in January to a whopping 10.8 million.

But what about the other days/months? The number is still impressive. SearchEngineLand reports that DuckDuckGo was being used [...]

Microsoft seems to have had a good year, as far as the Search market share was concerned.

The Redmond company’s search engine service, Bing, saw its search share go up by 1.5%.

That is quite the achievement, considering that the majority of people use Google for their daily search needs. Speaking of which, ComScore reports that Google lost 3% of its search shares, down to 64% in November 2015, from 67% it held in November 2014.

Microsoft’s success in gaining the seemingly small chunk of search, is largely attributed to its new operating system, Windows 10, which was launched 5 months ago, and the default browser it comes with, Microsoft Edge. [...]