DuckDuckGo: Escape your search engine filter bubble

I heard about this book on NPR a couple of weeks ago [1]. I really don't like this biased view of ML.

In summary what he said on the show was something like: At least the news shows (and news pappers, radio) gives the same information to everyone, so instead of showing Kardashians news they do show you Bin Laden news, even though, they know the Kardashians are more profitable... this is not the case with Google Search or Netflix, Yahoo, Bing, etc (all attacked by this author).

I think that ML helps more than it hurts and viewing it in a non-technical way is wrong, the author gives the impression that Google (the company and their execs) manually (via algorithms, but very manageable in his opinion) change the search results to not show things that they don't like, then it raises the question "do we really trust one company?".

Its arguable that the search results in Google or Netflix are optimized for profits, but how do you make profits in the customer industry? IMHO you do that by making their happier, showing useful results, for them, not for everyone.

I'm waiting for the time when I google: "what channel and time is Conan on" [2] and I get "channel 43 11pm" as the result. Of course that is very personalized, and the result will be just for me... but again I'm the one searching and I'm the one needing the results.

[1] http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-05-17/eli-pariser-fil...

[2] At the moment I get this 1st result: http://articles.boston.com/2010-11-10/ae/29330376_1_conan-an... which is not what I searched for nor wanted...

I think this is a real issue, and I am glad that DDG is addressing it. This is a more-compelling take on the tracking issue IMO.

What I'd really like to see, is a search engine to allow me to do both. I'd like to have a profile (that didn't use my name), and when I wanted to, I could click a result as 'useful'. This would go into my personal algorithm. I could then toggle between filtered search, or unfiltered search, whenever I like.

It might even be useful to build search filter categories. But I'd keep that a bit buried for the power users.

Long time DDG user here. I highly encourage people to try and make the switch. I often find DDG gives me the needed information without having to actually having to visit the site. I still find myself going to Google sometimes if DDG doesn't give me what I want, but it's smart enough to get me the most relevant information faster most of the time. Often enough that I don't feel the need to switch back.

In making the switch, I highly advise you to spend a little bit of time learning the keyboard shortcuts, especially the !Bang feature (https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html). You'll love the HN search options. =) There are so many, you won't be able to learn them all.

You can also still use Google if you want, or even Bing (or other engines). Basically, the !Bang syntax would mean even if you aren't using DDG, it enables you to quickly use whatever engine you really want.

I'm just a fan of DDG. Hope you find it as useful as I do. =)

Exactly! it's just nonsense peddled by those who don't understand the technical aspects of search, people who don't realize that a search engine's prime function is to filter the millions of results for each query to down to the most relevant results for the users, and not the same 10 results are relevant to each and every user.

And user regardless of nay personalization can dig through any initial results.

It's just annoying an ignorant bullshit being disguised as a real issue.

Whit, what? Doesn't going through DDG with !g not just redirect to google, where your normal filter will be applied (private browsing notwithstanding)...