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DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

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Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#241

Post by pastununtrium »

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…

A really simple way to see how google is easily gamed, these days: Just try searching for + "pdf download"

You will see this giant network of the same site that tries to sell you on e-pdfs

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#242

Post by epicide »

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'd gladly pay a subscription to a good search engine to remove the need for ads and align the business model to the privacy goals, however I'm probably in a small minority here.

I think you're correct about it being a small minority, but I'm definitely there with you.

Even with their affiliate and advertising model (someone else linked it), I'd rather pay money to just have the site ignore all ad determination, affiliate linking, etc if it sees me logged in and my account paid up.

Of course, most people seem to be heavily trained to look for "free" and chastise anything subscription based, no matter how cheap/fair.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#243

Post by nine_k »

fabricexpert wrote: post #186
bobpappas wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed with DuckDuckGo a few months ago and their founders, investors, and board are not looking for the quick payout. They are more intent at a self sustaining alternative to Google.

How could you know that from an interview? Of course they would say that

I can imagine a company where everyone is excited by the perspective of being bought by a major corporation for a huge sum. You join the megacorp (which is not easy to get hired to), and your options suddenly are worth a lot. Win-win!

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#244

Post by 80386 »

halflings wrote: post #134
digi_owl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that the eternal problem will be that of context. Back when Google started out, they bet the farm on the idea that more links pointing to a document meant that said document was informative. These days though, i wonder if what we are looking for is more hair. That what we are looking for depends on a context that can't be properly included in the search terms used. On top of this "naive" metrics like link c…

Google has been personalizing search results, and going way beyond just "link counts", for a while now. e.g: When I type "pandas" or "kafka", I get the Python library and the streaming framework. I don't get cute black and white animals and a depressed novelist (what the average person would expect).

Sometimes Google doesn't personalize search results enough for me. I do some academic stuff in $FIELD, and sometimes (can't think of an example off the top of my head, sorry) the keywords for a $FIELD-related search happen to namespace-collide with something completely unrelated that I don't even think of until I try to Google the keywords and get a faceful of crap about vacations to Disneyworld or divorce lawyers or caring for your pet lizard.

Never happens with tech jargon though.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#245

Post by lakechfoma »

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.

One day it was returning only German results for me despite my region being set to US and language to English. Every search, didn't matter what the keywords were.

I was in my office (my geoIP was still US) where dozens, maybe hundreds, of Germans work. I wonder if that had anything to do with it but I'm not sure how.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#246

Post by wishinghand »

jumbopapa wrote: post #64
wishinghand wrote: post #41

In 2015 I tried using DDG for programming questions and the results were inferior to my co-worker who used Google Search. Even without the comparison I could tell DDG was inferior due to how few answers I'd find. I recently switched away from Google services to Firefox, Fastmail, and DDG for privacy reasons. I no longer have issues finding answers within the top 4-5 results and if I do, Google almost never has the an…

What made you opt for Fastmail over Protonmail? I'm still on gmail, but I'm interested in switching. Want something that supports calendars too. Only think I'm not sure I can get away from is Android... I really do prefer it to iOS.

I think I was more aware of Fastmail than Protonmail. I also prefer paying for a product so that I don't become the product, which is a big reason why I left behind those various google services. Which reminds me that I should look for an Open Street Maps app on iOS to replace Google Maps.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#247

Post by slig »

atticmanatee wrote: post #181
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.

you can always get www.google.com/ncr

It's been a while since this trick stopped working.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#248

Post by jumbopapa »

wishinghand wrote: post #246
jumbopapa wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made you opt for Fastmail over Protonmail? I'm still on gmail, but I'm interested in switching. Want something that supports calendars too. Only think I'm not sure I can get away from is Android... I really do prefer it to iOS.

I think I was more aware of Fastmail than Protonmail. I also prefer paying for a product so that I don't become the product, which is a big reason why I left behind those various google services. Which reminds me that I should look for an Open Street Maps app on iOS to replace Google Maps.

I tried Open Street Maps, but it is so bad compared to Google Maps. The results sometimes made no sense and it was just a pain to use.

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#249

Post by speek »

latexr wrote: post #227
speek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

FWIW I'm the random twitter user (https://twitter.com/m_held + https://github.com/mheld) and use duckduckgoog myself, so when it went down all of a sudden I thought I'd just continue running it for folks. Will probably ask to transfer the repo at some point

Re: DuckDuckGo Raises $10M

#250

Post by devmunchies »

lettergram wrote: post #85
jjeaff wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to the seemingly popular belief, that their success was due to their algorithm, I used them because of their uncluttered and simple design. That's why I used Altavista before that. Google kept things very simple while other sites loaded on the bloat and garbage. I don't remember ever feeling like what I found with Google couldn't be found with Altavista or lycos. But a lot of the other companies tried to pre…

I actually postulate it was due to their ability to parse queries in an effective way, combined with the speed (and sure, probably design) of results [1]. From what I recall at the time, and even to this day, Google does a better job of determine exact match vs question (and finding subject matter) based results. [1] https://austingwalters.com/is-search-solved/

Yes. Their NLP is unparalleled. I'd say the uncluttered UI, query parsing, and search algorithm were all the major factors.
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