My phones being weird

Because the website cookie knows what you looked at. It is independent of the browser you use.

TheCatWoman said:

Does google keep track of how many times I go on sites like duckagogo

If you type the website name in the address bar at the top of the screen rather than in the search page then Google won't know where you are going - at least that is how I understand it.

The point of using DuckDuckGo is that it doesn't have nearly as much advertising as Google, the search results are much less influenced by those sites that pay to be at the top of the list and there is not the interference that Google sometimes make in the search results to hide sites they don't want you to go to.

I don't do links, although I seem to get an icon for a lot of sites I visit and I keep trying to get rid of them, but some just won't go.

But I tried looking on duckagogo rather than google and it still came up with highlighted bits and I've never been on duckagogo before? Does google keep track of how many times I go on sites like duckagogo? If it's still "watching" whats the point?

TheCatWoman said:

when I looked at the list of M&S links to various dept's all the ones that I'd previously visited showed up in a different colour.

This happens when you have been to the web page before - your web browser keeps a long, long history of every page you have been to and will show it in a different colour to unvisited links.

Cookies. There are little files stored on your computer that keep track of stuff.

I know you say no to lots of them, but the sites you say yes to will have recorded stuff, plus there may be bits in the browser and maybe even the site itself.

If you have all your details written down anyway, usernames and passwords, fave links, you could delete all cookies and browser history.

I just followed your link and did a simple search for M&S, it still gave me ohter sites, although only one and when I looked at the list of M&S links to various dept's all the ones that I'd previously visited showed up in a different colour. How can it do that if it's a search engine I've never used before?

I didn’t say of your perusal, I said FOR your perusal.

In other words, if you email Doro describing how your Doro is ‘misbehaving’, I would hope that they would respond to your email with full instructions on how to rectify the problem with the phone.

It can be easier for some people to have written instructions to fix something, rather than being instructed over the phone. I don’t know which category you are in.

I love DuckDuckGo. 

I have noticed a significant drop in targeted advertisements since switching.

If your not worried about losing any text messages, then just reset the phone. Your contacts will hopefully be stored on the SIM.

Sorry ArchaeC, I don't understand your post, why would they have a record of my purusal when I don't peruse anything on my phones, it does texts and calls, thats it.

TheCatWoman said:

I dont' know how to down load things especially things like search engines, I must admit to being a bit scared of trying in case I end up with nothing, again.

There is no downloading. Just go to the web page, type in your search words and you will see the results. Nothing gets installed, no data gets sold on to 3rd parties and you get a less biassed list of search answers.

https://duckduckgo.com/ 

Please do some searching about it if you are concerned.

If resetting the Doro doesn’t work, you could ring Doro when they open tomorrow? 

Or alternatively email Doro explaining the issue, then you would have a record for your perusal in your own time.

It's not a smart phone so it has no data so I don't think anything needs backing up and I keep a hard copy address book of all my contacts.

I dont' know how to down load things especially things like search engines, I must admit to being a bit scared of trying in case I end up with nothing, again.

TheCatWoman said:

if I do a search and a drop down menu of results comes in, when I click on one it goes to the icon that's under the link in the menu and I'm having problems with going back to my original search question.

Can you try a different search engine (I assume you are using Google for searches). 

Try going to duckduckgo.com (yes it is a legit search engine in spite of a funny name) and try the same search.

The nice thing about DuckDuckgo is that is doesn't harvest your data like Google does.

Let us know if you have the same symptoms.

For the phone, turn off and back on ( I assume you have not tried this).

It should reset it. If you can, remove the battery for few secs once it has switched off. It makes sure it has not just blanked the screen, but has to reboot from cold.

If you've it tried this, you could try returning to factory default. It should tell you how to do this in the user manuals. But if you have lots of data stored on the phone you may lose it if it is not backed up. So don't do it if you are not sure. You may have filled it up if you have a lot of data on it. It sounds like a memory leak.

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