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DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

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Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#221

Post by batat »

cosmic_ape wrote: post #202

Another happy DDG user here. But I always wonder - DDG is basically an aggregator, it doesn't have its own general index. Isn't there a danger that Google and Bing will just close the faucet to it one day?

Rather yes than no.

I tested DDG vs Yandex/Google/Bing and I'm pretty sure Yandex acts as "main" (if not "single") search provider for my language (or whatever heuristics DDG uses). For some senseless Ukrainian keywords Yandex shows almost identical to DDG results, while Google/Bing - mostly different.

In 2017 Yandex (among some other Russian companies) got ban in Ukraine and access to its services was blocked. Roughly at the same time Ukraine region have disappeared from DDG ("kl=ua-uk" URL parameter is still mentioned on search params page[1], but not working).

These events are likely connected. Furthermore, if DDG is just an aggregator, why a year later they can't switch to Google as local search provider and bring regional search for Ukraine back? Google local search results are at least as relevant as Yandex were. Or there are some hidden contractual obligations, partnerships, royalties directly from Yandex etc.? This looks unclear and suspicious to me.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/params

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#222

Post by Mauricio_ »

pedro_hab wrote: post #144
csdreamer7 wrote: post #138

I find that DDG is good for about 80% of what I want. But the other 20%, especially dev queries, I muscle memory type in !g. Is there a bang for the type of query answer we are looking for? Such as for 'Ruby gems' I can use !dev so the engine knows to ignore sites like Ruby Gemstone and focus on dev only. I know there is !so and !gh, but I am looking for something that dynamically combines them and other dev resource…

I'm actually feeling google worse every day, I developed a way of searching by only typing important keywords. eg: "js unique array" Now that's not working well anymore, google is ignoring 2 of 3 keywords to give me a general answer. And even the search tricks, such as using "" don't work as before. I think google is using far too much AI in the search is ruining it for me. I may switch to something else soon.

I searched "js unique array" and got pretty much similar results in Google and DDG. I think a lot of times when Google skips a word is simply because there is no webpage with the literal query.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#223

Post by netman21 »

I switched to DDG over a year ago. It works for my purposes. The only problem is they do not use Google maps so I have to switch when looking for directions.

For research though I switched to Yippy. Their business model is selling replacements for Google Search Appliance which is at EOL in a couple of months. So they can sustain themselves while providing a free search tool.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#225

Post by edraferi »

simias wrote: post #182
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…

Interesting, I actually find that I use !g less and less and when I do I often don't get what I'm looking for either (probably because I'm not searching for the right thing in the first place). On top of that I vastly prefer ddg's very simple and terse output compared to Google's many widgets displaying all kinds of content inline and wasting monitor real estate. >Side note, if they get bought out by a big player, I…

I'm not too worried about acquisition. Per the article:

> ...there was little need for the company to raise more money. DuckDuckGo, which had a last known raise of $3 million in 2011, has been profitable since 2014.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#226

Post by amarkov »

edraferi wrote: post #225
simias wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I actually find that I use !g less and less and when I do I often don't get what I'm looking for either (probably because I'm not searching for the right thing in the first place). On top of that I vastly prefer ddg's very simple and terse output compared to Google's many widgets displaying all kinds of content inline and wasting monitor real estate. >Side note, if they get bought out by a big player, I…

I'm not too worried about acquisition. Per the article: > ...there was little need for the company to raise more money. DuckDuckGo, which had a last known raise of $3 million in 2011, has been profitable since 2014.

Fingers crossed for sure, but there's such a thing as growing too fast for your own good. Github famously stopped being profitable the year after it got a $250M round.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#227

Post by latexr »

speek wrote: post #13
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…

There's also http://duckduckgoog.com which let's you use the !bang codes but defaults to Google search otherwise

I’m wary of using DuckDuckGoog, and have stopped doing so.

Its maintainer stopped using it, and when it recently broke he started recommending a random fork from a user with no open-source presence that hasn’t made any update since. As for the live version, it’s now working thanks to some other random twitter user. The whole transition was a rush job.

I’m not saying those people aren’t trustworthy. What I am saying is that we don’t know, because the maintainer of DuckDuckGoog did not care enough to make sure the project would be left in good hands.

See https://github.com/mikecrittenden/duckduckgoog/issues/11.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#228

Post by yellowapple »

indigodaddy wrote: post #111
yellowapple wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bang commands alone are DDG's killer feature for me, and it's why DDG is set as my homepage and default search engine (and probably still would be even if I did have to !g every non-site-specific query).

Had no idea about these DDG bang features, although admittedly I've barely used DDG. Usually use startpage if I'm not using Google. I imagine to there also might be a chrome extension that does a similar thing to the DDG bang features, or are these just DDG-only search indexes?

There are certainly Chrome extensions, but I don't (usually) use Chrome. And sure, there are Firefox extensions, but if I'm using some oddball like Lynx or Dillo or Netsurf, it's nice for such functionality to just be part of my search engine (which works on all of those browsers).

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#229

Post by latexr »

Semaphor wrote: post #116
yellowapple wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bang commands alone are DDG's killer feature for me, and it's why DDG is set as my homepage and default search engine (and probably still would be even if I did have to !g every non-site-specific query).

So recently I got annoyed by DDG's "optimizations" (they are a lot more aggressive in ignoring words in your query than google and unlike google they don't even tell you about it; I know I can use "" to force a term, but !g is much quicker). I thought I'd give startpage.com a try (proxied google results without tracking), but besides being slow I realized I couldn't live without bangs anymore (and was also missing DD…

> after complaining about it on their subreddit, someone on the team said they are looking into it.

Anecdotally, for every feature I’ve wanted of DDG, I’ve found an old post where someone on their team says they’re looking into it. For some I’ve found multiple posts, going back over a decade! Always the same “looking into it”.

I use DDG, but I put them in the category of companies too afraid to say “no, we won’t do that feature” or “we like that idea, but it’s low priority so we don’t know if we’ll ever get to it”. Whichever features they have, I use; the features they promise, I ignore.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#230

Post by BeetleB »

craftyguy wrote: post #56
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 use a metasearch engine (searx) for precisely this reason. It aggregates results from any number of search engines, sending request to them in a very generic, non-identifying form, then displays them all on one page with a tag next to it to indicate where the source of the result came from. You can host Searx yourself or use a public instance, but using the public instance means you trust the operator to not log/fi…

I'm curious: If I install Searx on my PC and not on an online server, and use it while I'm on the PC - do I lose most of the privacy benefits?
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