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DuckDuckGo vs Google

fourweekmba.com

261–270 of 558 posts

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#261
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a... duck? ;-)

Depends on which species [0]. Elephants weight 3500-5900 kg[1], devide both numbers by 1100 to get 3.18-5.36 kg (7-11.8 pounds) and you have a simple interval-overlap search problem[2]. For example with dogs[3] the answer is a Japanese Chin[4]. So it should be "Google would be an elephant while DuckDuckGo is a ~~chihuahua~~ very small dog". [0] http://www.metzerfarms.com/DuckBreedComparison.cfm the most common duck (…

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#262
post #28

"Google would be an elephant while DuckDuckGo is a mosquito (this is not to emphasize; I’m actually making things better for DuckDuckGo)." Why would this guy go out of his way to say this metaphor is actually literally informative and generous towards DuckDuckGo while apparently having exerted no mental effort and being incorrect by orders of magnitude on his own data? If you're most generous to the writer, you get 1…

I think this analogy is misleading as we tend to visualize animals by size and not by weight.

And by size, do you mean volume or height?

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#263
post #28

"Google would be an elephant while DuckDuckGo is a mosquito (this is not to emphasize; I’m actually making things better for DuckDuckGo)." Why would this guy go out of his way to say this metaphor is actually literally informative and generous towards DuckDuckGo while apparently having exerted no mental effort and being incorrect by orders of magnitude on his own data? If you're most generous to the writer, you get 1…

So a... duck? ;-)

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen duck/goose?

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add this to your bookmark bar. Click on any such sites. It redirects to the outline.com page for the current article in the tab. javascript:%20window.location%20=%20" http://outline.com/"%20+%20window.location

That's pretty good, apart from the stupid font they use. Is there some way to teach Chrome to replace the stupid font with a normal one?

With my limited knowledge of javascript, I don't think it can be done as any code to change font will be lost when new page is loaded. You might want to look into greasemonkey or their official chrome extension(I haven't tested it out).

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#265
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd like to go by searches rather than visits: At DuckDuckGo we are averaging roughly 17 million searches a day right now (duckduckgo.com/traffic.html) Google says they did 2 trillion searches last year[1], and while usually their search metrics include Youtube, Google Maps and Gmail queries let's assume it was all searches. That'd be roughly 5.5 billion searches a day. So now we're talking ~1/322 or just shy of…

Since when search metrics include YT, Maps and... Gmail?!? Unless you're talking about universal search results, I've never seen the numbers for all those products conflated.

If you look at the most recently public posted qSearch report on Feb 2016[2] you'll notice it talks about "Explicit Core Search" and "Powered By Reporting."

Powered By Reporting is listed as any search that is handled by Google or Bing. "Google’s “powered by” share is composed of searches conducted at "Google entities", as well as searches on AOL and Ask’s MyWebSearch "[3]

In Comscores qSearch product that you can subscribe to, when you hit "Google Sites" it provides a drop down detailing the breakdown of all the properties. Search is hard to define when companies get to that size, and searches on other Google properties are indeed 'searches' but they are also different than searches on DuckDuckGo.

[2]http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Rankings/comScore-Releases-... [3]http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/comScore-September-201...

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#266
post #83

Isn't DDG basically Bing + bangs? Doesn't seem fair to credit it at beating Google without highlighting the billions of dollars that MSFT has invested.

Ahh. the uncomfortable truth that DDG is just a meta search engine with a few shortcuts.

"just"?

It's an alternative to datenkrake Google that does not track you and adds some neat features (bangs, keyboard navigation, etc.)

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he was using a scale other than weight/volume? Though looking at size, an african elephant is 4m tall, while a small mosquito is 2mm. this is a ratio of 2000:1.

Exactly. Most people, when thinking about the relative size of animals, evaluate the 2-dimensional area of those animals. We certainly don't tend to consider mass, weight, or even volume. So the metaphor as originally given (mosquito vs elephant) works well.

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Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#268

Recently switched over to DuckDuckGo on all my devices. Tried to do the same thing several years ago and found it didn't really work out, but this time around it is so much better, both when it comes to speed and results. If anyone has doubts because they tried it years ago, I'd say go for it again.

And don't forget to use the bangs that can allow you to check other engines results fast if you need. For people afraid of getting off google, you can always search something like '!g my-search', it works the same for youtube(!yt), google image(!gi), or even hackernews(!hn) And of course the best bang is the 'I am feeling lucky' one (!), i.e.: 'hackernews !'

I'm tired of people mentioning !g. If you want to use google, just use google. Stop using duck duck go just to search google, and then say "but duck duck go is better" lo. no it isn't. clearly.

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#269
The comments on this article mostly talk about the privacy benefits DDG brings. Yet, we've known since the Orange Book (TCSEC) that system integrity is a prerequisite for confidentiality/privacy. As in, the DDG servers and network need some strong security to ensure they're doing what the staff and users think they're doing esp with all the press it gets. Example attacks:

1. Root the search servers. Gradually leak out what people were doing in a way that looks like fake search results to attackers running "searches" that are actually commands to trigger leaks. The leaked data would be stored in memory temporarily.

2. Subvert the engine to send malicious JavaScript to users that leaks their search results to a specific location. Might reduce risk of detection by first determining browser configuration for common ways of spotting leaks. Then, don't send anything to those users.

I'd guess the boxes and setups were originally optimized for speed and cost rather than isolation. So, what's security like at DDG? A quick glance shows they run...

"DuckDuckGo is coded in Perl and JavaScript with the help of the YUI Library, served via nginx, FastCGI and memcached, running on FreeBSD and Ubuntu via daemontools. We both run our own servers and have servers on Amazon EC2 across the world."

Probably not that private once hackers are involved with Perl and Ubuntu. On nation-state level with EC2. The servers and cache at least get security updates regularly. So, safe assumption is private against passive collection and low-to-medium-strength attackers.

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#270
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently spoke with Gabriel and his view was that they're going to continue to outsource / proxy / aggregate unless they need to implement their own search. Right now it's not worth the investment apparently.

Yeah because Search is an actual hard problem and putting up a proxy like DDG is not. DDG will never have any real value beyond that.

Eliminating tracking of your searches is not valuable?
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