Hi, I’ve been using the DDG browser and search on and off for a bit. Specifically trying to contain more controversial stuff like politics into it. .
I just searched on the DDG browser with the DDG search, “2026 midterm primary results” hoping to find the 5 states that had primaries last night. The top horizontal scrolling results were all Michigan. Then the fucking AI bot that I thought I turned off. Then finally the real results…except the real results were 100% local to my state. My states primaries were months ago. There is no rewsonvehy my search should have yielded anything local to my state, and certainly not the entire first page.
Can someone shed a light onto why it would have done this? It feels invasive, at least with Google I can pretend that they know my location because I told them. But DDG? Nah, shits weird.
This makes sense, thanks! How precisely does an IP address give me away? State level, metropolitan area, city, street?
Without metadata, municipal area. For larger cities that could be at the street or building level, for out in the country it’s wherever your ISPs trunk or fiber breakout is.
With metadata, often times right to your front door. With the isps metadata absolutely to your door.
Depending on the size of your city, they can estimate down to at least the city. In big cities or really small towns you can get it down to a street. In the event that your ISP has a data breach, they can see your exact house address.
Also depends on your provider’s infrastructure. On mobile data, I get sorted into a rough geographic region correctly. When I’m on my home WiFi, I usually get placed about 200-300km away from my real location.