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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

#91

Post by tombert »

mda wrote: post #77
tombert wrote: post #8

I started using DDG as my default search engine about 6 months ago, and for 95% of the searches I do it's totally fine. I don't know why people think that DDG needs to "stop" Google; did people think that Lycos and Infoseek and Yahoo couldn't coexist back in the 90's? I think it's good that both companies have some competition from each other.

DDG = Bing for most of the queries in US. You are basically using bing and 95% of the time and happy with it. Good I guess.

Even though a lot of the indexing data is from Bing, doesn't DDG do extra stuff to guarantee privacy?

I don't particularly care who is giving me the data as long as the results tend to be OK; I don't run any MS crap at home but if their search service tends to work alright, then power to them.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#92

Post by yzb »

darkpuma wrote: post #72
pnloyd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This couldn't be farther from the truth. More speed means more page views means more ads seen means more revenue. Walmart Amazon plus others have done studies showing faster load times translates directly into increased revenue in there retail.

Yet gmail and maps are slower than warm asphalt.

You can't escape Gmail because you'd lose your address, and you can't escape Maps because the alternatives suck.

On the other hand if I don't like Supermarket-X, I can go to Supermarket-Y

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#93

Post by mda »

addicted wrote: post #88
mda wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG = Bing for most of the queries in US. You are basically using bing and 95% of the time and happy with it. Good I guess.

Without the personal information being recorded and sold. Kind of goes to show that the personal information we are giving away may not be that important when it comes to finding what we need, even as it makes us a bigger and juicier target for ads.

Yet still it is Bing search + Bing ads.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#94

Post by teilo »

mda wrote: post #77
tombert wrote: post #8

I started using DDG as my default search engine about 6 months ago, and for 95% of the searches I do it's totally fine. I don't know why people think that DDG needs to "stop" Google; did people think that Lycos and Infoseek and Yahoo couldn't coexist back in the 90's? I think it's good that both companies have some competition from each other.

DDG = Bing for most of the queries in US. You are basically using bing and 95% of the time and happy with it. Good I guess.

https://duck.co/help/results/sources

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#95

Post by the_duke »

mangoman wrote: post #79

Back in the day, before I just defaulted to using Google, I remember checking multiple search engines to find the thing I was looking for. You'd check Yahoo/Google/Lycos, try a couple of different phrasings, and then if that didn't work try searching on a few other search engines. Somewhere along the way, Google had won me over, because I almost always found my answer. I had stopped even considering other search engi…

I think it's very much search topic related:

* DDG is atrocious for anything other than English * Programing/IT searches often yield garbage on DDG while on Google a good result is within the first 3.

I have it as my default now too, but "!g" is a constant companion.

===

Regarding Google and Amazon being unstoppable... it seemed the same once for Microsoft.

Once they get too big/powerful (which they arguably already are), they could be broken up or severely hamstrung by legislation.

They can also start to stagnate and be out-done by new competition based on new technologies.

All of those seem unlikely right now, but 10 years can change a lot.

Of course both Google and Amazon both enjoy large network effects and are pretty capital intensive. Which is typical for mono/oligopolies.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#96

Post by simias »

enraged_camel wrote: post #36

No company lives forever. Google will have its comeuppance one day too. It may not look like that right now, but back in the day Sears, too, had everything, and look at them today.

Not a very good comparison I'm afraid, Sears didn't lose to an other company who was offering the same service, they lost to a series of companies that offered the same utility but in a very different way.

DDG is mostly just offering the same service as Google (really, only a fraction of the service because Google is a lot more than Search these days). As such I expect that at this point if a Google-killer appears it's also be a DDG killer as collateral damage.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#97

Post by WilliamEdward »

Zecar wrote: post #28

Google is at it's core an ad company, not a search company. So they have backed off crawling the entire internet and only crawl what has a business return for them. Combine that with carefully curating the results they publish, it can barely even be called a search engine at this point. I get more relevant results from DDG at this point.

Unless you want to start paying for every search, i don't see how a "search company" that isn't fueled by adverts could ever exist.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#98

Post by mda »

tombert wrote: post #91
mda wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG = Bing for most of the queries in US. You are basically using bing and 95% of the time and happy with it. Good I guess.

Even though a lot of the indexing data is from Bing, doesn't DDG do extra stuff to guarantee privacy? I don't particularly care who is giving me the data as long as the results tend to be OK; I don't run any MS crap at home but if their search service tends to work alright, then power to them.

Sure, but in my eyes this makes them a proxy, not a search engine.It is nice to have alternatives, but it looks at the moment they are at the mercy of Bing. Maybe one day they will evolve and become an actual search engine. who knows.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#99

Post by the_duke »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #84

You know what can stop google? a search engine that assumes I want every word in my query, or even better a search engine that honors a string in quotes to mean these words in this order. When did google stop doing this? edit: This wouldn't stop google, it would just make that part of my life as easy as it was 10 years ago.

I'm also annoyed by this.

Google tries to out-smart the user and often yields garbage or generic popular crap even when looking for something very specific.

I want my quotes back too!

An even bigger issue:

Due to SEO and ranking benefits for popular sites, it's basically impossible to discover quality content by smaller sites/blogs via Google. Unless you go to like page 10+, where you also get a lot of irrelevant stuff.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#100

Post by mda »

teilo wrote: post #94
mda wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG = Bing for most of the queries in US. You are basically using bing and 95% of the time and happy with it. Good I guess.

https://duck.co/help/results/sources

Any breakdown of which source is used for which percentage of queries? No.
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