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Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

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Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#51

Post by zrobotics »

tpaschalis wrote: post #27

Quick question, if you Google 'ddg' in incognito mode, do you get any results regarding DuckDuckGo? In the first 10 pages of Google Search I only get two 'relevant' results; one in the bottom of the first page, and a second one of an article mentioning DuckDuckGo in page 8 or something. (Not trying to start a war here, just asking).

Android smartphone, Chrome isn't my default browser but I used Chrome (it's set to Google default, mostly for local search & YouTube). "ddg" doesn't return duckduckgo until page 4, but typing "duck" returns duckduckgo as suggested result 4, and searching "duck" returns duckduckgo on the first page.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#53

Post by thisisweirdok »

musha68k wrote: post #45
kojeovo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

95% just isn't good enough.

Search result quality is not a clear-cut issue. In my experience DDG/Bing even yield subjectively better results sometimes.

Same, there's some personal preference too. I don't always want to be shoved into the extreme bubble that Google builds for people.

DDG is much better for searches that I don't want personalized results for.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#54

Post by anomie31 »

ouid wrote: post #47

As has been mentioned probably millions of times in the last decade, "to google" is synonymous with, "to search the internet for". As long as this remains true, and google search remains free, their monopoly position cannot be challenged. they have the trademark on the shortest sequence of syllables which means "to search the internet for" which means that in the vast majority of cases, when people describe searching…

Isn't "Kodak moment" a counterexample?

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#57

Post by thisisweirdok »

twodave wrote: post #43
bunderbunder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, in the current economic environment, there really isn't much room in the markets for choices. It's increasingly been one quasi-monopoly that everyone knows about, and then a bunch of niche options for people who dislike the monopoly player for whatever reason.

Oh? Let's pick an easy market to judge this against, then. I know! Let's talk about smartphones. Surely the largest company on the planet is a quasi-monopoly in this space... oh, but they're not. In fact, Apple's not even a majority leader in just the USA, and the numbers favor them even less globally. There is clearly a choice in the cell phone market between privacy, quality and cost, and people are making those ch…

>Still, if someone comes along who can actually deliver on the search quality then the market will change.

Not really? We've already been here. We had multiple search engines of similar quality. Google came along as a superior product, and therefore raised superior money, and no one else could keep up. It's a zero-sum game in a lot of respects.

Even your smartphone example is zero-sum. Try to buy an Android device that doesn't use a Qualcomm chipset. Unless you go buy an Apple device you're just buying different configurations of the same hardware. Huawei has their own, but they aren't really even allowed to have a considerable market in the US.

The US kills competition. At best in a lot of regards you get two options. Even within the political system. If you don't have money you can't compete.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#60

Post by zozbot123 »

Theizestooke wrote: post #52

There's an unusual amount of pro-DDG articles on Hacker News, half of them are PR fluff, and I don't understand why they keep getting upvoted.

Because Google Search sucks these days. (To be fair, this is not by any fault of Google themselves. Rather, like any monoculture, Google Search is especially vulnerable to external attacks, such as from SEO's trying to game the system.) If anything, DDG today is a lot closer to the quality Google Search itself used to provide back in the 2000s, before it was SEO-gamed to death.
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