Scroogle Scraper

Scroogle Scraper is a free Google Chrome extension that lets you search with Scroogle, the ad-free Google proxy. Scroogle blocks ads and cookies and keeps Google from storing your search data, which helps you maintain online privacy. The name combines Scrooge and Google, appropriately; Scroogle is miserly with ads and cookies.

Installing Scroogle Scraper in Chrome placed an S-shaped icon in the browser's toolbar. We clicked the icon, and the Scroogle search box opened with an entry field and two buttons, Search and Cancel. We entered a search term and clicked Search, and Scroogle opened a new tab with a page full of results. Scroogle Scraper's Chrome-specific engine offers no image search or previews--just a straight-up, old-school page full of search results, with search terms highlighted and hyperlinks that opened normally when we clicked them--but image thumbnails and other extras were available when we used the online Scroogle Scraper interface at Scroogle's home page. This Web page also had tips and instructions and an HTML string to copy and paste into Chrome's default search manager, which enabled us to make Scroogle the default search engine in Chrome; changing back to Google or picking another search engine was just as easy. Scroogle's tool tips and messages make it clear that people concerned about the personal data that Google and other search engines and Web sites collect have a secure alternative in Scroogle. We could find no traces of our Scroogle searches in our browser's cache or in Google's search memory.

Scroogle Scraper lets you take advantage of Google's search engine without compromising your privacy or allowing your browsing and searching habits to be recorded. We recommend it for all Chrome users.