google probably did it the past few years

Who are the architects behind this madness?

If that's a pun, then at least one person noticed it.

Glad to see other duckduckgo supporters. :)

Speaking of Google/DuckDuck.

I've switched over to DuckDuck as my search engine, however, I'm still using GMail.

Any decent private options?

I've been looking for the same thing. Dropped Google probably 3 years ago. I've been using duckduckgo.com since that time (as well as a few other non-tracking sites).

I haven't used Gmail either however I'd love a "free" email site with full privacy.

The one killer was Chrome. It's a good browser but I made the switch back to Firefox.

It's technically for left-wing activists, but riseup.net is a good one. Use it with a local mail client, since the online storage is puny at best.

no easy fix for email; if you're looking for private email, encryption is necessary; but when it comes to the nsa, they can crack mostly anything besides multiple-key encryption. and though duckduckgo is great in the sense that it doesn't send your data anywhere without a request, all of that is moot if your network isn't secure to begin with. although i have doubts in the 'all seeing eye''s ability to truly process the data it collects

Says alot.