Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#91

Post by solarkraft » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #57

mrweasel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every now and then I search for something and don't get the results I'd expect. So I turn to Google, but for the past year or so I noticed that Google can't find what I expect for those search terms either. The difference seems to be that Google starts guessing and excluding keywords, without understanding that those keywords where important. For me personally, Google is a less pleasant experience these days. The Duc…

THANK YOU. I feel crazy when I tell people this but I 100% agree. Google seems to look at your search as a general guide now rather than actual parameters. I also have to surround each word in quotes or they get excluded on the SECOND OR THIRD RESULT. I'm very upset because this hinders my daily work and research. I'm starting to rely on Bing which is definitely worse than old Google but may be better than current Go…

Agreed. Feels nice to know others have the same problems.

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#92

Post by solarkraft » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #75

egwynn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might just be that US companies are known to be subject to National Security Letters

Not really a worry because they cant get what ddg doesn't have.

Is there even evidence they don't keep anything?

Edit: Okay, you can't really have evidence of absence, but good reasons to believe they don't log?

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#93

Post by verelo » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #91

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THANK YOU. I feel crazy when I tell people this but I 100% agree. Google seems to look at your search as a general guide now rather than actual parameters. I also have to surround each word in quotes or they get excluded on the SECOND OR THIRD RESULT. I'm very upset because this hinders my daily work and research. I'm starting to rely on Bing which is definitely worse than old Google but may be better than current Go…

Agreed. Feels nice to know others have the same problems.

ha, a few weeks back a very similar post came up and i expressed that i felt the DDG results were letting me down. I just actually switched back to Google yesterday, i tried hard, but it just got too annoying having to search for 50% of things twice.

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#94

Post by mattlondon » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 10:04 PM UTC

jjordan wrote: post #19

Switched to DDG for my defaults over a year ago now. Still occasionally have to append a !g to my search, and Google Maps is still unmatched, but for run of the mill searches it's been working out. Google lost my trust, so if I can avoid using a service of theirs with a viable alternative, I do so. Go, OpenStreetMap!!

Same situation here - the vast majority of my day-to-day searching has been handled by DDG for the past few years without any issues apart from the odd !g search for really specific things (that google is not much better for either).

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#95

Post by bluGill » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #92

bluGill wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a worry because they cant get what ddg doesn't have.

Is there even evidence they don't keep anything? Edit: Okay, you can't really have evidence of absence, but good reasons to believe they don't log?

They state all over in their website that they don't log.

Though I have no way of verifying they don't keep logs, if I discover they do: at least I can sue them for it.

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#96

Post by saagarjha » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

owaty wrote: post #76

vanadium wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Startpage acts as an intermediary between you and Google, so your searches are completely private. Startpage submits your query to Google anonymously, then returns Google results to you privately. Google never sees you and does not know who made the request; they only see Startpage." From: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic... More: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Lis…

This one answers my question better: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic... > Why does Google let Startpage access their search results? > Startpage.com has a contract with Google that allows us to use their official "Syndicated Web Search" feed, so we have to pay them to get those results. So what is their own business model? Do they show ads? (I disabled adblock but didn't see any.)

Yes, they show non-personalized sponsored links: https://www.startpage.com/en/search/privacy-policy.html

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#97

Post by saagarjha » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

jjordan wrote: post #19

Switched to DDG for my defaults over a year ago now. Still occasionally have to append a !g to my search, and Google Maps is still unmatched, but for run of the mill searches it's been working out. Google lost my trust, so if I can avoid using a service of theirs with a viable alternative, I do so. Go, OpenStreetMap!!

> Go, OpenStreetMap!!

Didn’t DuckDuckGo switch off of OpenStreetMap to Apple Maps recently?

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#98

Post by m-p-3 » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

pixelbreaker wrote: post #12

I first tried DDG in its early years and it just didn't yield the results I needed, I tried it again a couple of years ago and have stuck with it ever since as it has must better results these days.

It's my default search engine now, and the bangs shortcuts are handy if I need to temporarily override the search engine (ie: !g for Google, !w for Wikipedia, etc).

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#99

Post by DavideNL » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

jjordan wrote: post #19

Switched to DDG for my defaults over a year ago now. Still occasionally have to append a !g to my search, and Google Maps is still unmatched, but for run of the mill searches it's been working out. Google lost my trust, so if I can avoid using a service of theirs with a viable alternative, I do so. Go, OpenStreetMap!!

> Google lost my trust

you might want to try occasionally using !sp instead of !g -> same results, no google.

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#100

Post by Y_Y » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 10:33 PM UTC

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #57

mrweasel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every now and then I search for something and don't get the results I'd expect. So I turn to Google, but for the past year or so I noticed that Google can't find what I expect for those search terms either. The difference seems to be that Google starts guessing and excluding keywords, without understanding that those keywords where important. For me personally, Google is a less pleasant experience these days. The Duc…

THANK YOU. I feel crazy when I tell people this but I 100% agree. Google seems to look at your search as a general guide now rather than actual parameters. I also have to surround each word in quotes or they get excluded on the SECOND OR THIRD RESULT. I'm very upset because this hinders my daily work and research. I'm starting to rely on Bing which is definitely worse than old Google but may be better than current Go…

Is there any possible way the old google could be resurrected? By google themselves or just someone cloning the tech? My google-fu keeps getting worse, on pages I know I've found handily in the past. I'd almost pay for a good search, cash or personal data or whatever.