After a bit of searching on the subject of privacy and browsing- pertaining to Google anyway, I found a Add-On for FireFox called Customize Google.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/743
and
http://www.customizegoogle.com/
info-Features

* Use Google Suggest (suggest words while you're typing)
* Add links to competitors
* Rewrite links to point straight to the images in Google Images
* Removes image copying restrictions in Google Book Search
* Secure Gmail and Google Calendar, switch to https
* Block Google Analytics cookies
* Hide the Gmail spam counter
* Make URL previews on sponsored links visible NEW!
* Add favicons in the web search result NEW!

* Remove ads
* Anonymize your Google userid
* Add a result counter in search result
* Filter spammy websites from search results
* Add links to WayBack Machine (webpage history)
* Remove click tracking
* Add links from Google to your bookmark manager
* Use a fixed font for Gmail mail bodies
* Stream Google search result pages NEW!
* Sticky Google Preferences NEW!
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Next week I'll try to look up other search engines - but I bet they all operate the same way.

tips-
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/search/searchtips.php