Live data from Hacker News

Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

medium.com

211–220 of 252 posts

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#211

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…

Also remember that when Google started, nobody tried to SEO or structure content to be searchable. Nowadays everybody has Google in mind when publishing .. yet its value to us is less. Smells like rot.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#212

I use and like DDG but I can't believe this article didn't mention Bing, which powers DDG's organic results. Like, yes DDG is a small company based "just east of nowhere" in PA because Microsoft has spent literally billions of dollars on Bing . To the extent we have a choice in search provider at all, it's entirely due to Microsoft's huge investment, and I feel like it's remiss not to consider those implications. If…

I'm not sure but I think ddg was known before using Bing.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#213
stop google? why? i don't even care about google. they are 100% irrelevant to me. i'm sure some of the email i send touches their servers, but i self host all of my services including search. i do some of my own indexing, but metasearch works well for me right now.

https://null.media

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#214
post #94
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

I don't know your intent but the link basically confirms that it's all Bing and Oath.

> We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from a variety of partners, including Oath (formerly Yahoo) and Bing.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#215
post #82
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.

I've heard that a few times on DDG-related articles this past week but I was under the impression that the duck had its own crawlers and used Bing on top of that to complete its results. Do they really solely proxy Bing results?

Yes, they have their own crawler but it's only used for widget stuff like Instant Answers.

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

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#216

:s/DuckDuckGo/Bing

They do have their own web crawler. I don't have any idea what percentage of their results come from it, but presumably as they grow their own search results will take an ever-increasing slice of the pie.

Their own crawler is not used for any organic search results, only widget stuff like Instant Answers (and spam detection apparently as per sibling comment).

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#217
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I decided to move away from Google Search I went with DDG for some time, since it seemed to be the more independent / open approach, compared to Startpage. I found myself switching back to Google way to often, for either performance and / or relevance of results. I then switched to Startpage and used it as primary search for well over a year - only switching back to google for image search. I still feel like DDG…

Upsides: 1) I came to like DDG's grouping of results by site. See a result and think that page's site might have more results? Click the favicon. 2) DDG is faster now than it was a few years ago. (At least it seems that way, for me and the things I typically search for). 3) Extensive bang shortcuts: https://duckduckgo.com/bang 4) Different, non-personalized search bubble. I like the idea of non-monocultures, which I…

Upsides

5) might come in handy, if you're a keyboard person: you can use cursor down/up to scroll through the search results, and Return to select (go to) one.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#218
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could tell DDG that I don't give a shit about Python 2.7. Stop linking me to the Python 2 doc! I haven't used Python 2 in five years!

!python3

Or even !py3, for us lazy types.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#219
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can't you get another email address and forward your google mail to it, and then phase out usage of the gmail address? That's what I've done.

Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway

#220
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…

I duck it.
Post reply on HN