Every end of year, search giant Google releases a list of top searched for items and topics on its search engine and it would surprise you not, that amongst the top searches in Uganda was Virtual private Networks (VPN) for obvious reasons.
Mid this year, the Ugandan government introduced the infamous social media tax to much outrage and one of the quickest ways to bypass this was the use of VPNs. These could help many, not one to bypass paying for the tax, so it making it to the top local searches is not a surprise. VPN downloads shot up in the aftermath and it could explain why the government has relentlessly run short of meeting the projected social media tax collections month on month. VPNs are to blame for this mischief and boy, they also scored the second spot when it came to popular searches on Google.
However, VPNs were alone as other fortunate and rather unfortunate events were witnessed during the year like the 2018 Russian World Cup, the passing of the much loved Mowzey Radio among others. These also managed to make it to the list but majorly searches rotated around entertainment, artistes, shopping and betting. Below is the list of the 20 most searched words/topics on in Uganda for 2018
- 2018 World Cup
- Virtual private network
- 2019
- World Cup
- Radio
- Weather
- Bobi Wine
- King Saha
- Juventus F.C.
- Top level domain
- Goodlyfe Crew
- Music download
- Diamond Platnumz
- Betway
- Sheebah Karungi
- Student
- Jumia
- Wine
- Chameleone
- Betting strategy