DuckDuckGo Raises $10M • Hacker News Board

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#211

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 12:04 PM UTC

arketyp wrote: post #142

newfocogi wrote: post #4

I have been using DDG for about a year now, although I had tried using it years ago. It works fine for simple queries( e.g. search name of company rather than typing out url). But I basically have !g programmed into my fingers for everything more complicated. Many times when I don't find the results I am looking for, I subconsciously assume that google would be able to find them. This is in comparison to when I canno…

I find that Google is actually losing ground as the all-seeing-eye-reference-objective-truth due to the increasingly tailored searches. I can no longer refer to a search query and expect a peer to see the same results as I do. This social bubble phenomenon, while no doubt convenient, is sometimes a burden, and with their stricter privacy policy DDG actually has some ground to gain here. Using DDG is more like tuning…

Didn't adding &pws=0 to the end of the url avoid personalized results? Not sure if location is still kept into consideration then.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#212

Post by alpaca128 » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 12:08 PM UTC

hnruss wrote: post #210

I switched to DDG ~5 years ago for two reasons: 1. Infinite scroll, and 2. Smaller ads (which can be entirely disabled). I stayed with DDG because: 1. !bang is addictive, and 2. Dark mode. Also, early on I had some thoughts on how to improve DDG, so I emailed the owner and he responded thoughtfully. I can't imagine that happening with Google.

Agreed. I use !bangs so regularly I don't even notice it except when I sit at another PC and it doesn't work.

And I often use the QR feature to quickly send links to my phone.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#214

Post by amelius » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 12:20 PM UTC

la_oveja wrote: post #204

amelius wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I basically have !g programmed into my fingers for everything more complicated. On mobile, typing "!g" takes 7 actions (including the focus, space and enter). DDG should make a button for it, below the search results, so you can easily revert to Google if you didn't find what you were looking for. Honestly, without this button, I doubt if I will ever start using DDG much.

> Honestly, without this button, I doubt if I will ever start using DDG much. "!g" is a fallback, not a default action. Seems to me pretty reasonable. Using it you're actually skipping ddg, not using it.

That's why the "!g" button should be below the search results.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#215

Post by amelius » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 12:21 PM UTC

yladiz wrote: post #174

amelius wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I basically have !g programmed into my fingers for everything more complicated. On mobile, typing "!g" takes 7 actions (including the focus, space and enter). DDG should make a button for it, below the search results, so you can easily revert to Google if you didn't find what you were looking for. Honestly, without this button, I doubt if I will ever start using DDG much.

Why would DDG include a button to a competing search engine, considering they already have !g? It’s implicitly saying that, “our search results aren’t that great, here’s a direct button to search Google for the same thing.”

I think you misunderstand. What DDG would be saying is: "Here are our results; in case you didn't find what you were looking for, here's a button that will give you Google's results".

Having this button will make me use DDG more, not less.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#216

Post by Semaphor » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 12:26 PM UTC

ascar wrote: post #163

Semaphor wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are two main things I find myself needing it for: Location based queries, Google will always prioritize UK based results, and often London based results for me. As I'm German, that's actually where DDG has the advantage over Google. Most of my searches are in English, but sometimes I want to search for something here, with DDG that's just a single press of a button and I get German results. With Google I'd ha…

You can also force Googles language using the query parameter "hl". E.g. www.google.de/?hl=en returns English queries. That parameter is preserved through multiple querries, so you can use this in a bookmark and have multiple google language versions just a click away. Not as handy as the DDG location switch, but still a sometimes useful hack.

Huh. So your comment made me wonder if there is a !gde bang. Turns out there is :D

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#217

Post by mhb » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

I've been giving DDG a try for a few weeks. A small thing - the absence of Past Year in the time searches is a surprisingly big annoyance. Adding to the annoyance factor is how easy it would be for that to be added and especially since they are apparently aware of it - P.S. We are working on implementing the past year as well![1]

[1] https://duck.co/help/features/dates

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#218

Post by kdmytro » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #71

DuckDuckGo's killer feature to me is that I can always depend on it to be in English. Google annoyingly always changes the language based on the location of the IP address you're connecting from. It's very annoying when traveling.

I use DuckDuckGo for a similar reason. My Google search settings are set to show result in Ukrainian or English, but Google never follows the settings and returns results in Russian for queries that are clearly written in either Ukrainian or English. DuckDuckGo will give you results in the language you made query in, as you'd expect.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#219

Post by rileymat2 » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 1:29 PM UTC

carterage wrote: post #21

news_to_me wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that "!w", which searches Wikipedia, is extremely useful.

One thing that consistently blows my mind is how readily an external search engine creates a better index, with more relevant recall, by scraping the published static pages of Wikipedia, such that it outperforms Wikipedia's own search, Wikipedia should be able to search itself better than any external entity, but cannot. Wikipedia, in effect, is blind to its own data, and can deliver less insight into it's own conten…

I don't see why this would be the case. Google has the advantage of seeing the content on pages with inbound links.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#220

Post by Zeebrommer » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

alpaca128 wrote: post #212

hnruss wrote: post #210

I switched to DDG ~5 years ago for two reasons: 1. Infinite scroll, and 2. Smaller ads (which can be entirely disabled). I stayed with DDG because: 1. !bang is addictive, and 2. Dark mode. Also, early on I had some thoughts on how to improve DDG, so I emailed the owner and he responded thoughtfully. I can't imagine that happening with Google.

Agreed. I use !bangs so regularly I don't even notice it except when I sit at another PC and it doesn't work. And I often use the QR feature to quickly send links to my phone.

QR feature? Nice, I didn't know about that. Though it's kind of disappointing that it directs to a google service...