Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 531 posts

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#131

Post by [deleted] »

ddevault wrote: post #97
TabbyCatKirk wrote: post #92

Everyone is missing the point here. Let me break this down as simple as I can: 1. End user does a DDG search for "food" 2. The "food" query returns a list of search results, these results have each have a link, DDG wants to display the favicon for each link. 3. To be clear, DDG does not store or log the IP address of the user doing the query. They do, however, know what was queried, so they know "somebody" somewhere…

This is not duckduckgo.com. This is the DuckDuckGo-branded end-user web browser.

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#132

Post by adjagu »

niftylettuce wrote: post #46

Formerly worked with DuckDuckGo My advice: Install ungoogled-chromium: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium Install these extensions: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/ilGur1132/Smart-HTTPS There is also a Chromium extension that lets you install from Chrome Web Store: https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store Set duckduckgo.com as your default search engine with a blank home page.…

Could you please elaborate as to why you suggest ilGur1132's Smart-HTTPS instead of EFF's HTTPS-Everywhere?

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#133

Post by oska »

tagawa wrote: post #79
tananaev wrote: post #2

Very weak argument for why they do it. Using a service to retrieve a favicon? Surely there's a way to implement the same logic locally.

We had already had created this anonymous favicon service for our private search engine. In addition, doing it this way avoids another request (and potentially multiple) to the end site. The service is private as we do not collect any personal information (e.g. IP addresses) on any requests for this or any service and the requests are all end-to-end encrypted.

Please don't downvote this reply from a DDG staff member (as I'm currently seeing).

Even if you don't like the reply it's good that we're getting replies.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#134

Post by cambalache »

niftylettuce wrote: post #59
fastball wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why ungoogled-chromium or Firefox over Brave? Brave is the only browser that includes strong ad and tracker blocking by default, which is the best way to ensure your privacy on the internet. In fact, every decision I've seen from them makes me think they care the most about user privacy, period.

I cannot recommend Brave due to the autosuggestions-for-profit feature. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23474842 You can install uBlock Origin in 10 seconds from the GitHub release page (see previous link shared). This is vastly better than anything I've seen for ad-blocking.

Wow, I did not know about that. Between this and the original post it seems no matter what every company ends up selling its soul to the devil.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#135

Post by tonyaiken »

TabbyCatKirk wrote: post #92

Everyone is missing the point here. Let me break this down as simple as I can: 1. End user does a DDG search for "food" 2. The "food" query returns a list of search results, these results have each have a link, DDG wants to display the favicon for each link. 3. To be clear, DDG does not store or log the IP address of the user doing the query. They do, however, know what was queried, so they know "somebody" somewhere…

The issue is with browser, not the search service.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#137

Post by dabbernaught420 »

Torn wrote: post #124
dabbernaught420 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, anyone who trusts ddg is a bit silly - founder has a bad track record on user privacy. Founded Names Database[1], a social media website designed to collect user information as aggressively as possible, before selling all the information to classmates.com. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_Database

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

A common fallacy I see, though I don't know if there's a name for it, is assuming that just because what someone is doing can be described by the name of a fallacy that what the person is doing is fallacious.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#138

Post by alistproducer2 »

tagawa wrote: post #52

DuckDuckGo staff here. As mentioned in the linked page, the purpose of the request is to retrieve a website's favicon so that it can be displayed in certain places within the app or on the results page. We use an internal favicon service because it can be complicated to locate a favicon for a website. They can be stored in a variety of locations and in a variety of formats. The service understands these edge cases an…

The reviews are in for this response and they are bad. It's concerning that given the react it got, there's no edit addressing the concerns. The HN audience has to be the power user, bread and butter of a product like this and when you see a company ignore the concerns of a key constituency like this, their future almost never looks bright.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#139

Post by johntash »

jnkl wrote: post #114
niftylettuce wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said in other another comment, I'm a power user. And by power user I mean probably 10x the normal standard of what a 10x power user means. Tooling is everything to me; which is why I prefer this over anything else. I'm very biased.

What does that even mean? Ten times? Tooling is everything?

When it comes to a browser, I'm curious as well. I often end up with 100+ tabs in firefox before I close them all. I don't think think I'd consider that being a power user, but would a 10x power user simply mean someone with over 1,000 tabs open?

I haven't used Chrome regularly in the last year or so, but it would get noticeably slow by the time I had 3-4 windows with 10-20 tabs each. Firefox hasn't really had that issue yet.

Years ago though, Chrome was noticeably faster than Firefox. That changed (IMO at least) at some point in the last few years.

Re: DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers

#140

Post by cortesoft »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #126
ajnin wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really can't use "we promise we won't misuse the information" as an argument, that's what everyone says whether it's true or not, and the whole point of using a privacy-centric browser is that as a user you can't trust those kinds of promises.

> You really can't use "we promise we won't misuse the information" as an argument Sure they can. Doesn’t mean you have to believe them.

When people say "you can't do" something that is already being done, it means they can't justifiably do it. Context matters for what words mean.
Post reply on HN