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

DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 341 posts

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#151

Post by wraptile »

evilotto wrote: post #113
freediver wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search has a cost. You can either pay for your searches and own your results or have someone else, a complete stranger, pay for your searches and have the results be in their best interest. Also check: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/plans/why-pay-for-search.html

I think it was Mark Twain who said about Web 2.0, "In every transaction where money changes hands there is a buyer, a seller, and a product. If you are not the buyer or the seller, then you are the product."

Unfortunately usually you are the buyer and the product these days even when companies say otherwise (e.g. Apple)

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#152

Post by ReadCarlBarks »

xlii wrote: post #111
DanHulton wrote: post #70

I debated bringing up Kagi at the top level here, since I already commented on it in a reply, but honestly I really want them to succeed and shit like this is why. It's a paid search service, and I'm honestly really happy with that distinction and what it entails. Being paid means that they can deliver on and support features that users can use to get the best results for them, without worrying how those features may…

I’ve been using Kagi for multiple months and due to advocacy I made few people pay for it too, but I’m completely disheartened by their business model. The whole explanation of the recent “we want to stay afloat” was weird, unexpected (price doubling with my usage, to 20$/mo) and felt untrue (ordinary user doing 30 searches per day?). I felt like it was written by Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler - made sense but also very…

I've been using Brave Search as my main search engine for months, and the only issue I have with it is that it takes longer to revisit smaller sites. Depending on your queries, you may stumble upon a bunch of dead links. However, this shouldn't be a problem for most users since results for major sites are constantly updated.

Brave Search also allows you to customize your search results with "Goggles". These are plain-text files that you can host on Github or Gitlab and use to boost or remove specific sites from your search results. For example, you could create a Goggle that removes "quora.com" from your results while giving priority to StackExchange sites and Reddit. You could also create another Goggle that shows results only from a predefined set of cooking sites.

Finally, multilingual users may find it helpful to create different search shortcuts with the `country=` parameter appended to them. For instance, if you add `&country=fr` to a search URL, you'll get French results.

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#153

Post by rippercushions »

anonymousab wrote: post #102
palata wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried counting your searches? You may be surprised. I'm slightly above the 500/month.

If your browser tries to prefetch search results from the address or search bar then it might add up very, very quickly.

AFAICT Chrome (and hence other Chromium browsers) don't do this, and if you auto complete straight to a result from your history that doesn't count as a search engine hit either.

I'm a heavy search user with Kagi on both mobile and desktop, and I've never even come close to 1000 searches/mo. YMMV.

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#154

Post by plaguepilled »

CrendKing wrote: post #136
DanHulton wrote: post #70

I debated bringing up Kagi at the top level here, since I already commented on it in a reply, but honestly I really want them to succeed and shit like this is why. It's a paid search service, and I'm honestly really happy with that distinction and what it entails. Being paid means that they can deliver on and support features that users can use to get the best results for them, without worrying how those features may…

You need to realize that you like Kagi exactly because it has NOT been "succeeded", and you start to dislike DDG because it finally picks up popularity. Anything in the world that's used by large amount of users are guaranteed to piss off some portion of them, because they can only focus on limited amount of features. Google had been like that. Firefox had been like that. When 70% of Firefox users are non-techies, Fi…

I reject the premise that OP dislikes the product because it succeeded, instead of their stated reasons.

Also, saying 'no, this is why you think what you do' is not cool.

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#155

Post by hnlmorg »

kennywinker wrote: post #44
p-e-w wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same people who use such features are also on average - more likely to use ad blockers. - more likely to critically evaluate any advertising/propaganda they encounter. - more likely to use VPNs and other technology that makes them more difficult to track. - more likely to be "power users" of the service, thus consuming more resources than the average user. Many more points like these apply, but the bottom line is…

You forgot - more likely to recommend your service to friends and family when they ask their power user friend which service to use. A move like that is shortsighted at best, not good business sense.

The age of that being a differentiator has long gone. Most people I know either just use the default in their browser, or they type Google (sometimes into literally into Google!!!) because that’s what they’ve always done.

The last time someone asked me about search engines was probably 20 years ago.

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#156

Post by plaguepilled »

mike_d wrote: post #150
plaguepilled wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting detail - I was not aware Microsoft's pricing increased. That said, would this really increase complexity substantially? And as a nitpicky aside, if this was done in response to Microsoft's cuts, I should really have found out about this from DDG themselves, rather than a github repo commit. Though it does change the intent quite a bit.

Bing buckets queries into pricing tiers based on complexity. Why on earth would DDG have any obligation or interest in telling you about their supplier pricing? You found out something that has little to no material impact on you from a post on a nerd site.

>Why on earth would DDG have any obligation or interest in telling you about their supplier pricing?

Because I used the feature.

>You found out something that has little to no material impact on you from a post on a nerd site.

It has an impact on me, because I used the feature.

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#157

Post by fsckboy »

rippercushions wrote: post #142
CrendKing wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to realize that you like Kagi exactly because it has NOT been "succeeded", and you start to dislike DDG because it finally picks up popularity. Anything in the world that's used by large amount of users are guaranteed to piss off some portion of them, because they can only focus on limited amount of features. Google had been like that. Firefox had been like that. When 70% of Firefox users are non-techies, Fi…

Not the previous poster, but I'm a paid subscriber of Kagi and was previously a heavy user of DDG. The key difference that the previous poster outlined and you're missing is that with Kagi, you're the customer, while with DDG, you're the product. Kagi is thus incentivized to improve their offering to better fit your needs as a user, while DDG is incentivized to better serve their customers the advertisers.

neither the previous poster, but I'm not missing what was said, but are you missing that paying a subscription for something, if it becomes popular, becomes an irresistible audience to also advertise to? Have you seen Amazon Prime video lately? it becomes more and more festooned with ads, like happened to cable TV. Pay a subscription, and watch ads, or promotions, or product placements. They're drunk on it.

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#158

Post by [deleted] »

DanHulton wrote: post #70

I debated bringing up Kagi at the top level here, since I already commented on it in a reply, but honestly I really want them to succeed and shit like this is why. It's a paid search service, and I'm honestly really happy with that distinction and what it entails. Being paid means that they can deliver on and support features that users can use to get the best results for them, without worrying how those features may…

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#159

Post by viraptor »

xlii wrote: post #111
DanHulton wrote: post #70

I debated bringing up Kagi at the top level here, since I already commented on it in a reply, but honestly I really want them to succeed and shit like this is why. It's a paid search service, and I'm honestly really happy with that distinction and what it entails. Being paid means that they can deliver on and support features that users can use to get the best results for them, without worrying how those features may…

I’ve been using Kagi for multiple months and due to advocacy I made few people pay for it too, but I’m completely disheartened by their business model. The whole explanation of the recent “we want to stay afloat” was weird, unexpected (price doubling with my usage, to 20$/mo) and felt untrue (ordinary user doing 30 searches per day?). I felt like it was written by Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler - made sense but also very…

> ordinary user doing 30 searches per day?

I suspect there's a big difference between an ordinary user and an ordinary Kagi user.

Post reply on HN