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Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

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Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#161

Post by rlpb »

vhgyu75e6u wrote: post #138
rlpb wrote: post #119

DDG is a more practical default than Google simply because I don't get a "We'd like to abuse your personal data" pop-up that gets in the way every time I open an Incognito window to search for something.

Sadly I have found the DDG lacking, most times I have to go back to Google to find information that just doesn't show up on DDG. As an example, I don't have Twitter but I follow certain sport journalist with a huge following, all thanks to his Twitter. When I search for his name + twitter, DDG shows me articles about the journalist and even a Facebook page link, but not his twitter even if it is in the query and his…

Twitter are so hostile to casual anonymous browsing via the web that I'm not surprised DDG aren't indexing them, and actually prefer that. It's like Twitter are actively choosing to not be part of the web.

But yes, I do use !g when needed to jump to Google. It's just the default that works better on DDG for me due to the Incognito window issue - so much so that I've been running DDG by default for quite a long time now, just for that reason.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#162

Post by superkuh »

rlpb wrote: post #119

DDG is a more practical default than Google simply because I don't get a "We'd like to abuse your personal data" pop-up that gets in the way every time I open an Incognito window to search for something.

This switch by Debian to DDG is less of an issue for me than it would have been a few years ago. Google has recently been claiming it will only ever show 1000 results (10 pages of 100). But for many users, myself included, google will only ever show less than 400 results. This is apparently an intentional policy (at least according to the support forums).

For me this is terrible. I can scan through 100 search results pretty quick, going 4 pages deep is something I have always done often. Seeing the reported ~82 million results shrink suddenly to 4 pages and maybe 389 results with ommitted included is extremely disheartening. But at least google scholar still works properly.

When I found out about this I was so pissed I made a crappy little website to more easily complain about it to people. http://googlesearchonlyreturns400results.lol/

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#163

Post by loudmax »

slongfield wrote: post #155
unknownaccount wrote: post #92

Can someone please explain why we are supposed to trust DDG? Isnt it just a random website that popped up out of nowhere claiming to be private yet no audit has ever been conducted which substantiated those claims?

If you're worried about it, you can buy searches directly from Bing ( https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/apis/pricing ). DDG makes no secret that the Bing search API is where they get their link and image results -- https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/ .

Actually that's the only problem I have with DuckDuckGo. I don't have much trust in Google, but I have less trust in Microsoft.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#165

Post by wusher »

yegg wrote: post #116
unknownaccount wrote: post #92

Can someone please explain why we are supposed to trust DDG? Isnt it just a random website that popped up out of nowhere claiming to be private yet no audit has ever been conducted which substantiated those claims?

Recently the National Advertising Division looked into our privacy claims and found them supported, see https://bbbprograms.org/media-center/newsroom/duckduckgo-pri... & https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/privacy-protection/12106... Also a lot of what we do is open source on GitHub. We recently put out a help page detailing or web tracking protections that link to a lot of the relevant repositories: https://help.duc…

I stopped trusting ddg when they said they were going to sensor Russian news. I assume google and other major search engines sensor political issues but I didn’t think ddg would.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#166

Post by ncmncm »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #124
ncmncm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can find no evidence that DDG is not run by spammers. Any claim that it is not is clearly what would demand solid evidence.

That's not how the burden of proof works here.

The extraordinary claim here is the one DDG is making. They have every incentive to lie about it. There is no obvious way to check their claim.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#167

Post by jonas21 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #28
aendruk wrote: post #2

Some unintended consequences: > This change caused my chromium browser to report that it's being managed by my "organization". I thought that my machine was somehow compromised. This is terrifying! I wound up deleting my entire chromium profile before I discovered that the root cause was this DuckDuckGo config change. https://bugs.debian.org/956012

Sounds like a Chromium bug, not a Debian bug--it's an insidious way to keep Google search as the default.

No, it's a Debian bug.

If you read the thread linked in the comment you replied to [1], the Debian folks added a JSON file to `/etc/chromium/policies/managed` when they should have edited `/etc/chromium/master_preferences` (a different JSON file). If they had done that, there would be no message.

Everyone on the thread agrees that's a better solution.

[1] https://bugs.debian.org/956012

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#168

Post by sangnoir »

okasaki wrote: post #135
DannyBee wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, no? This is managed policy, and this is a 100% good way of letting the user know that someone else has control of their settings Just because Debian thinks that they are doing the right thing, they are in fact, controlling the user's settings through a policy It's just telling you that, as it should. The notion that it has anything to do with keeping search the default or not is like, such a silly assumption i do…

The messaging does seem excessive and hostile. It says "Managed by your organization." every time you click the menu button. It's even in a different background color and bigger margins. If you click it, it says "Your administrator can change your browser setup remotely. Activity on this device may also be managed outside of Chromium. Learn more" I made the policy myself and copied it myself. The remote part is purel…

> The remote part is purely conjecture on part of Google

Accurate conjecture nonetheless. If a 3rd party has dropped a managed policy file onto your install, it's reasonable to assume they can drop an updated one which does all the scary stuff at any time. It's a waste of effort for Chrome to parse the current profile when the mere presence of one can compromise security.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#169

Post by groovybits »

silisili wrote: post #48
groovybits wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation? Lots of folks misremember how the Unity Home Lens feature actually worked, and that the Ubuntu installer explicitly asked you whether you wanted it enabled. If enabled, there was no presumption of local-only search. It was front and center in your search results, and the affiliate revenue was only collected when you clicked on that Amazon result. Canonical claimed that the search was forwarded to them, and…

I agree that some talk at the time was overblown, most of it even. That said, it was a braindead idea to begin with. Not one person in existence wants or expects shopping links when searching their computer via a dock like interface. This is meant for applications or files. When shopping, most are going to research on Google...or perhaps search a category on Amazon itself before choosing a product. I'd be curious it…

Agree that is was not a great idea, or one that anyone asked for.

I saw it as a way for Canonical to start bringing end-user-oriented features to the Linux desktop, something that Linux sorely needed circa 00s and early 10s. They also had the forethought to bring web apps to the desktop before most major players did.

It was all part of their 'continutity' push at the time: desktop and phone in one cohesive interface. Too early for its time, but its clearly working for Apple.

Re: Debian's Chromium changes default search engine to DDG

#170

Post by shadowgovt »

okasaki wrote: post #135
DannyBee wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, no? This is managed policy, and this is a 100% good way of letting the user know that someone else has control of their settings Just because Debian thinks that they are doing the right thing, they are in fact, controlling the user's settings through a policy It's just telling you that, as it should. The notion that it has anything to do with keeping search the default or not is like, such a silly assumption i do…

The messaging does seem excessive and hostile. It says "Managed by your organization." every time you click the menu button. It's even in a different background color and bigger margins. If you click it, it says "Your administrator can change your browser setup remotely. Activity on this device may also be managed outside of Chromium. Learn more" I made the policy myself and copied it myself. The remote part is purel…

So it's in the same category as "this incident will be reported" when forgetting your own password for sudo.

Nothing to see here; we can move along.

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