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Improving DuckDuckGo

duck.co

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Re: Improving DuckDuckGo

#11

Post by beachwood23 »

brentadamson wrote: post #4

I run https://jivesearch.com , so I might be biased. The single biggest thing they can do to improve their product is open source everything. They've instead decided to move away from that by freezing their instant answers with no explanation as to if/when they will re-open source them. Makes me question their commitment to privacy and transparency.

Personally, I love that DuckDuckGo gives me a usable alternative to Google that is privacy focused. It might be better if they were open source, but I'll take what I can get from the industry regarding advertising practices at this point.

Re: Improving DuckDuckGo

#13

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

sdinsn wrote: post #8
brentadamson wrote: post #4

I run https://jivesearch.com , so I might be biased. The single biggest thing they can do to improve their product is open source everything. They've instead decided to move away from that by freezing their instant answers with no explanation as to if/when they will re-open source them. Makes me question their commitment to privacy and transparency.

They've got to protect their IP somehow.

Do they? Their selling point is trustworthiness and privacy, not the software.

Re: Improving DuckDuckGo

#14

Post by cpeterso »

brentadamson wrote: post #4

I run https://jivesearch.com , so I might be biased. The single biggest thing they can do to improve their product is open source everything. They've instead decided to move away from that by freezing their instant answers with no explanation as to if/when they will re-open source them. Makes me question their commitment to privacy and transparency.

I just DDG and have found !bang shortcuts that are broken or 404 for weeks. I've tried reporting the problems on their feedback forms or Reddit, but never got any responses. If it was open source, I could have submitted a pull request to fix them. I'm surprised they don't have automatic heartbeat queries with expected results for every bang shortcut, at least.

Re: Improving DuckDuckGo

#15

Post by turc1656 »

If anyone from DDG is watching this thread, thank you for your product and your commitment to privacy. As a privacy-conscious individual, I greatly appreciate your work. Is there a way to donate? I know you already monetize your product through ads, but I use an ad-blocker (among other things) because, well, most of the internet does not operate with the same values that you do. Since you aren't making any money off of me, I am willing to donate/pay for your service but cannot find any place on your site to do so.

Re: Improving DuckDuckGo

#16

Post by rocky1138 »

rudedogg wrote: post #7

One request I have is to be able to filter results by longer time ranges. If that was added I could switch over.

I frequently run into this limitation. I really wish there were 3, 6, 9, and 12-month options in the limit dropdown.

Re: Improving DuckDuckGo

#17

Post by devwastaken »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #13
sdinsn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've got to protect their IP somehow.

Do they? Their selling point is trustworthiness and privacy, not the software.

As most business's their internal code is probably a giant ball of mud that runs on caffeine and poor amounts of sleep. It works, but it probably wouldn't be reasonably releasable without refactoring and reworking a lot of the source so that it's componetized in some way.

Personally I just want DDG to make a search API that is free and doesn't require API keys. That way I can setup search in mobile or desktop apps and have it automagically be searching through specific sites like Soundcloud and Youtube and such.

Like if they're reading this, DDG is very unique and if they were to focus upon reducing costs, making efficient software, and better algorithms, DDG could be the service we shove into apps.

Re: Improving DuckDuckGo

#18

Post by kgraves »

sdinsn wrote: post #8
brentadamson wrote: post #4

I run https://jivesearch.com , so I might be biased. The single biggest thing they can do to improve their product is open source everything. They've instead decided to move away from that by freezing their instant answers with no explanation as to if/when they will re-open source them. Makes me question their commitment to privacy and transparency.

They've got to protect their IP somehow.

I much rather trust a product that is open source, which makes me slightly uncomfortable and concerned about DDG.

Re: Improving DuckDuckGo

#19

Post by h1d »

brentadamson wrote: post #4

I run https://jivesearch.com , so I might be biased. The single biggest thing they can do to improve their product is open source everything. They've instead decided to move away from that by freezing their instant answers with no explanation as to if/when they will re-open source them. Makes me question their commitment to privacy and transparency.

Won't open sourcing the code make sites get to cheat their ranking by trying to make it rank logic friendly?
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