DuckDuckGo – quietly and steadily makes itself known as an alternative – maybe THE – alternative to Google.  DuckDuckGo doesn’t track your history, it exercises some quality control over the sites it indexes, and it has syntax for narrowing the search. But if our tendency is to use Google, we need some help to redirect our searches.

The answer – set up your browser to default to searching  DuckDuckGo  from the browser bar.

DuckduckGo has add-ons for all the browsers. Review the list at http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/topics/292237-desktop/articles

If you use Chrome, this article -  DuckDuckGo Vs. Google – The War Gets Dirty  from Search Engine Journal (Nov 22) -  describes the method for setting DuckDuckGo as the default search engine in Chrome.

You’ll note some acrimony in Gabriel Weinberg’s view of Google.