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Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#131

Post by nickpsecurity »

untog wrote: post #115
hedora wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment does not present any supporting evidence (even one query where ddg falls over would help, a deep technical analysis of why google is better, with large scale comparisons of result quality would be persuasive). It is the equivalent to me replying to you with: "You don't know why the comment sucks because you also suck." Instead of pointing you to this wonderful Paul Graham article: https://news.ycombinator…

> The comment does not present any supporting evidence (even one query where ddg falls over would help, a deep technical analysis of why google is better, with large scale comparisons of result quality would be persuasive). While these are all true, we're on a message board, not debating in Ancient Greece. I am very sympathetic to calls to improve comment quality, but on the other hand it's unrealistic to expect some…

Exactly. The default of the major search engines is we type in what we're looking for and usually get results. The commenter had a different experience with DuckDuckGo enough times to avoid it. We immediately know it gets inferior results to the status quo search engines. Many will avoid it on that basis. Other commenters might show up with detailed information on what kinds of queries succeed or fail. People wanting to use a mix of search engines, esp surveillance-oriented & private, might find that information helpful.

Yet, the original comment was sensible just because of two things:

1. Everyone on the Internet that uses a search engine knows what a good or bad one is. It has one purpose: turn your query into information you can use. If people say it doesn't or it's "shitty," then it's not doing it's job as a search engine effectively. All we really need to know.

2. The more specific information is better directed at the DuckDuckGo support or development teams to help them improve their alogrithms. Posting piles of data in Hacker News comments would only seem useful for the use-case I described above, people studying effectiveness of search engines via terms + results (better done elsewhere), or people reverse engineering DuckDuckGo's algorithm. I don't see why we'd expect people to produce or post that data as it's a lot of work and screen space.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#132

Post by cpayne624 »

AdamSC1 wrote: post #81

Disclaimer: I work at DuckDuckGo so I'm a bit bias. I won't turn this into a sales pitch, but here are a few common misconceptions people have about privacy and search. 1) Many people don't realize that tracking isn't just about having something to hide. But, it can cost you money. From Airline tickets to staplers you pay based on a profile: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873237772045781893... http://www.w…

I'm a ddg fan. You guys should have a big, conspicuous WHY? button on the homepage that links to all this. The 'Learn More' link takes me to what you guys don't do, which is good, but it's light on the why.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#133

Post by hedora »

mibbiting wrote: post #65
thesmallestcat wrote: post #40

> I'm getting a feeling that some day in future, DDG is going to become as big as Google, if not supersede it. Well, no, they don't even have their own search engine. > a search engine's results are only as accurate as the number of users who search and contribute to it That makes no sense. Anyway, we don't use DDG because its results are shitty.

And after 10 years or so of trying, you'd expect the results to be far better, and more people to use it. I think the search engine space is very ripe for a startup, but duckduckgo isn't it IMHO.

At its peak, Yahoo!'s results were quantifibly better than Google's for over a year, but no one noticed/cared.

Google search has been "good enough" for years, and so has the competition.

Multiple companies have burnt billions proving that search relevance will not convert users on its own.

If you want to crush Google, you need some compelling reason for people to switch (voice? privacy?), or you need to maintain good relevance until Google screws up badly enough. Maybe they will fire half the search team during an economic downturn in the 2020's, for example. At that point, you can use cash reserves to poach most of the top 10% of the remaining team.

The problem with long games like this is that you might screw up or lose focus before Google does. This happened at Yahoo.

Switching industry sectors, Microsoft had tons of negative press about 8, 8.1 and then 10's force upgrade/privacy debacle. With a mediocre or better hardware launch, Apple probably would have cleaned up. Instead, Apple's MacOS lines happened to falter in the same years as Windows did. Now, Windows devices are earning lukewarm to positive comparisons against Apple devices.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#134

Post by low_battery »

jmathai wrote: post #52
cptskippy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, no, they don't even have their own search engine. Really? I've never heard this, do you have anymore information about it?

It's sort of a meta search engine that utilizes other search indexes. Here's a post from the founder. https://duck.co/forum/comment/27893 Edit, that's about 5 years old. The current page on Wikipedia provides a more recent explanation. "DuckDuckGo's results are a compilation of "about 50" sources,[42] including Yahoo! Search BOSS; Wikipedia; Wolfram Alpha; Bing; its own Web crawler, the DuckDuckBot; and others." http…

It is a meta search engine. Note that they never mention the share breakdown of these "sources". What percentage of queries DDG itself answer? Probably very few.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#135

Post by [deleted] »

subinsebastien wrote: post #25
collyw wrote: post #2

I use DuckDuck go as my default search on my machines, but I think the fact that Google is not anonymous does give them a big advantage. An obvious example of this is when I search for "Django" (I am primarily a Django developer). DuckDuckGo will return results about the film as the top hits, whereas Google already knows that I mean Django Web Framework and will return those as the top hits. I appreciate the fact tha…

May be use DDG as the primary search enigne, and switch to Google when you don't get what you want in the first go on DDG. Atleast more traffic to DDG, and hence better results in future.

[deleted]

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#136

Post by [deleted] »

collyw wrote: post #31
subinsebastien wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May be use DDG as the primary search enigne, and switch to Google when you don't get what you want in the first go on DDG. Atleast more traffic to DDG, and hence better results in future.

Pretty much what I do, as I say its set as my default search engine on most of my machines. Add "g!" if I am not happy with the results.

[deleted]

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#137

Post by low_battery »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #85
cptskippy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, no, they don't even have their own search engine. Really? I've never heard this, do you have anymore information about it?

Meta-search is a type of search engine that goes way back. They avoid the cost of maintaining a full, search service by sending the query to all kinds of other search engines, running some analysis on their results, and presenting a condensed form to the user optionally with value adds. DuckDuckGo's value add is privacy. Here's some others to give you an idea for what they do: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/1…

Basically DDG is at the mercy of their sources, they can proxy the results for now to the actual search engines, but what happens if lets say Bing and Yandex requires them to pass some extra stuff or cut the query hose otherwise? Will DDG use its own index? Please.. They have no resources to build an actual half decent search engine.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#138

Post by justinclift »

Entangled wrote: post #82

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, they all have something in common: EaaS. Ecosystem as a Service. DDG should start offering email first, then news, stocks, maps, social, and finally ads. You don't survive with search alone, you need to monetize it on one hand and keep your users coming back on the other. Oh, I wish it was called something simpler like "Ducker" or "Duckit", but whatever, bikeshedding territory.

That strategy doesn't seem to have worked out for Yahoo.

Not sure DDG users really need/want another er... EaaS.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#139

Post by hedora »

jumpCastle wrote: post #64
jquast wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

suggest fastmail.com

I have a question about fastmail: I tried migrating from gmail but the original date of the emails didn't transfer. Anyone knows how to solve it? I had to go back to gmail since it's a deal breaker and I couldn't find a solution, but I really want to leave gmail (so I can have a direct relationship with the service provider without advertisers involve)

This has been broken in gmail for a while. It's IMAP handling is non-standard. In a pinch, I once used an old copy of thunderbird to migrate gmail->gmail via IMAP. I had to disable some account security settings on google's side to even get thunderbird to connect. (Other IMAP clients had the symptom you describe). This was 3 or 4 years ago, YMMV.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#140

Post by lostlogin »

tlarkworthy wrote: post #128
lostlogin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cringe remembering when I Googled "developer dick image" instead of "disk image" with colleagues watching.

Out of curiosity I Googled that and, for me, Google now auto-corrects it to disk image.

It would have been excellent if that had happened. It was about 2-3 years ago.
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