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Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

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Re: Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

#171

Post by distances »

pkamb wrote: post #137

I switched my iPhone to Duck Duck Go over the last few days simply because I hate hate HATE getting linked to Reddit AMP pages from Google. Reddit (and Stack Exchange) pages are what I use most to find honest discussions about some topic. Very convenient to use those results to filter through the blogspam. Reddit's AMP pages are especially bad, with multiple annoying pop-ups that don't get cookied when you dismiss th…

Another advantage of DDG: the result links are straight to the destination, unlike with Google where there's a tracking redirection in between. This is great on Android, as I can open the link straight in an app (like Wikipedia) without going to the page first and then launching the app.

Re: Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

#172

Post by distances »

echelon wrote: post #153
noobquestion81 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% agree with the reddit experience - it takes like 4 taps just to get to the #%!* page. No I don’t want your app shoved down my throat on every load. It has completely ruined reddit for me on mobile. Just show me ads if you need to and leave me alone.

If I had the time I'd work on a Reddit clone without the new redesign and ads. Run it completely funded by Wikipedia-style donations, then turn it over to the community for governance. Reddit's money grabs piss me off. To bootstrap the thing I'd crawl Reddit and copy threads, users, subreddits, comments - everything. Users could prove account ownership or create any account that wasn't already allocated. If Reddit su…

Have you tried using some third-party app for Reddit? "Reddit is fun" works pretty great for me, no nonsense and good usability.

Re: Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

#173

Post by ummonk »

arthurcolle wrote: post #110
twblalock wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like DuckDuckGo. But unless they build their own search - I think the fundamental problem has not been tackled. There is no good, independent, private search alternative. There isn't going to be, because it's really hard and expensive to do that. I don't see how any startup could even begin to compete with their own search engine. The barrier to entry is extremely high: Bing probably would not have survived long…

Respectfully, I think you are definitely overestimating the cost of building a search engine. Do you have experience in search specifically? Asking in good faith here. I think you're absolutely right that it's not trivial , but it isn't a completely unsolvable problem only addressable by the major spyware corporations like Facebook, Google, etc. I think you could build a decent search engine in about 6-18 months if a…

You will need data on relevant results for a broad swath of queries to fine tune your ranking models against, and will need to spend millions on infrastructure just to crawl and store an index of the entire web.

Re: Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

#174

Post by mosselman »

Semaphor wrote: post #130
unicornporn wrote: post #81

Honest question: how do you people even cope with the crap results? I'm a StartPage user, but decided to try DDG for some time after the System1 debacle [1]. The Swedish localized search results are downright unusable compared to StartPage/Google. I'm really trying to give it a chance, but I keep reaching for SP in every other search. [1] https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/

Because they aren’t crap for me the vast majority of the time. I often hear about local results, but flipping the "Germany" switch gives me great German results. There are 2 cases when I need to use !g, both of them are when there aren’t many results: 1. Rare error, simply not in their index 2. Ambiguous term and I need to force a part of the query to appear. Because DDG thinks it’s perfectly fine to ignore the user…

Use !s instead, it will take you to startpage which are essentially the same results as on Google, without having to go to Google.

Re: Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

#175

Post by echelon »

distances wrote: post #172
echelon wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had the time I'd work on a Reddit clone without the new redesign and ads. Run it completely funded by Wikipedia-style donations, then turn it over to the community for governance. Reddit's money grabs piss me off. To bootstrap the thing I'd crawl Reddit and copy threads, users, subreddits, comments - everything. Users could prove account ownership or create any account that wasn't already allocated. If Reddit su…

Have you tried using some third-party app for Reddit? "Reddit is fun" works pretty great for me, no nonsense and good usability.

That may be, but how long do you expect them to allow 3rd party apps?

Once they can get 3rd party usage below a certain threshold of engagement, they'll block the API.

Re: Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

#176

Post by randomsearch »

__ka wrote: post #36

I have mixed feelings about this. If you recommend DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Ecosia you're essentially recommending Bing. Each of them have to show bing ads, forward the users' IPs as per Bing's terms of service (to fight ad fraud etc). Similarly, if you recommend StartPage, you're recommending Google. Same drill with ads. I like DuckDuckGo. But unless they build their own search - I think the fundamental problem has not be…

Please edit your post as you’re spreading FUD and are clearly incorrect.

Re: Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

#177

Post by on_and_off »

I felt that it was time to try to switch to DDG, so I just went to the duckduckgo website, and it proposes to "add it to chrome".

It leads to a chrome extension page asking me to give complete read access to what pages I visit to the DDG extension.

Naive question : how can I know what DDG will do with that data ? (And yes I realize that this question applies to any search engine or extension)

Re: Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

#178

Post by pvarangot »

on_and_off wrote: post #177

I felt that it was time to try to switch to DDG, so I just went to the duckduckgo website, and it proposes to "add it to chrome". It leads to a chrome extension page asking me to give complete read access to what pages I visit to the DDG extension. Naive question : how can I know what DDG will do with that data ? (And yes I realize that this question applies to any search engine or extension)

Google already knows the pages you visit, worst case if you give them to DDG you are making the playing field even.

Re: Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

#179

Post by pferde »

on_and_off wrote: post #177

I felt that it was time to try to switch to DDG, so I just went to the duckduckgo website, and it proposes to "add it to chrome". It leads to a chrome extension page asking me to give complete read access to what pages I visit to the DDG extension. Naive question : how can I know what DDG will do with that data ? (And yes I realize that this question applies to any search engine or extension)

You made a slight logical leap there - how do you know the extension will even send any of your data to DDG for them to do something with?

Re: Twitter CEO Endorses DuckDuckGo

#180

Post by 0x008 »

pkamb wrote: post #137

I switched my iPhone to Duck Duck Go over the last few days simply because I hate hate HATE getting linked to Reddit AMP pages from Google. Reddit (and Stack Exchange) pages are what I use most to find honest discussions about some topic. Very convenient to use those results to filter through the blogspam. Reddit's AMP pages are especially bad, with multiple annoying pop-ups that don't get cookied when you dismiss th…

What's AMP?
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