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DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

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Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#311

Post by mdaniel »

Springtime wrote: post #208

I've been keeping a directory of screenshots of poor DDG results for the past couple years and there have been many conspicuously broken results. It's a damn shame since 2+ years ago DDG was better. Some examples: - Double quoted strings ignored, continuing to return results without the quoted string. - Adding the exclusion parameter doing nothing, continuing to return results with the string. - Various queries retur…

> In the most egregious cases that I've documented I submit feedback but it always seemed like a hopeless cause the worse the results became.

I once had a Ducker(? Goer?) reply to me here on HN saying that a human does in fact read the feedback, and yet this indescribably terrible change aligns with your conclusion: they read them, and then cheerfully "put them on the backlog"

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#312

Post by freediver »

doubtfulcan wrote: post #235
freediver wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searches are not tied to an account, Kagi does not even log searches. [1] What would be the point when your search history would just be a liability? That is the whole point of the paid search business model. [1] https://kagi.com/privacy

How would Kagi enforce quotas if they can't link searches to the account paying for them?

We just increase search counter by one.

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#313

Post by freediver »

geysersam wrote: post #83
colordrops wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are working out the kinks with the pricing scheme You mean being way too expensive? I appreciate them wanting to stay afloat but they need to bring the cost per search down drastically. They are doing something wrong behind the scenes with regards to spend or optimization.

Why do you think their prices are unreasonable? Just curious. 1.5 cents per search doesn't sound expensive, although if you do 100 searches per day that's $45 per month...

It is never more than $25/month (Ultimate plan with unlimited searches)

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#314

Post by yegg »

Hi all, Founder/CEO DuckDuckGo here and I hope I can help clear this up. Search syntax filters are still available on DuckDuckGo and we’ve re-updated the help page to reflect that. Nothing has actually recently changed with the way they work in terms of removing any functionality. In fact, we actually recently added functionality to make site exclusion work better as described in https://duckduckgo.com/updates

What did happen is last month we temporarily updated our syntax help page because we had been getting complaints from some users that they were not working consistently and wanted to get to the bottom of it, but we never actually deactivated the features themselves.

Instead of removing that information from the help page, even temporarily, we should have said we know users are having problems and we’re working to address them. That's what the help page says now and we hope to provide an update soon.

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#315

Post by OkayPhysicist »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #118
xlii wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not saying you're wrong, but they grandfathered me on the $10/mo plan with the new pricing changes, and that would cover your usage. I think on the new plans 30 searches a day would come out to $13/month. I know it may sound like a lot (and definitely is a lot for some folks), but when I think about it as literally being the window to a huge amount of knowledge I take in, the fact that it's way less than Adobe produc…

It's worth pointing out that the "window to a huge amount of knowledge" feature isn't really what you're paying for. The question isn't "is access to a search engine worth $10 a month to me?" (probably yes), it's "Is the delta in functionality with DDG/Google/Bing/Ask Jeeves worth $10 a month to me?" (maybe).

It's a pretty big problem in internet tech, actually. Ad revenue has poisoned the well, creating a situation where it's really, really hard to create a compelling product that isn't based on advertising, because you end up having to compete with "free" alternatives. Thus from a consumer's perspective the cost of the product needs to be in the added functionality over the alternatives, since they see your base functionality's perceived value as $0.

It's gotten to a point where I don't think it's fixable at a grassroots level.

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#316

Post by ReadCarlBarks »

elforce002 wrote: post #266
ReadCarlBarks wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look into the Goggles feature. It lets you create your own search engines with different lists of excluded or boosted sites.

I don't see anything like that using this feature.

I'm talking about https://search.brave.com/goggles/discover

You need to check out the guide on how to create a new Goggle.

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#317

Post by ReadCarlBarks »

scrum-treats wrote: post #184
ReadCarlBarks wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I like Brave Search as well. Goggles are super easy to create and manage. Brave's customizable Search Engines are also a helpful feature to further personalize the search experience.

[flagged]

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#318

Post by IceWreck »

justinclift wrote: post #200
IceWreck wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'be been in the search game for a long time. Its time they stop relying on bing and build their own search tech instead. Or mix and match atleast.

Didn't they used to have their own search index infrastructure?

Only for cards/knowledge graphs

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#319

Post by [deleted] »

freediver wrote: post #195
eitland wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... or even partnering with someone like search.marginalia.nu? I'm actually serious. At least I think I check Marginalia more often than bing or ddg or google.

We actually do partner with Marginalia, through our Teclis index. Marginalia is an amazing project and I hope it continues to grow.

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo removed the ability to filter search results

#320

Post by Buildstarted »

yegg wrote: post #314

Hi all, Founder/CEO DuckDuckGo here and I hope I can help clear this up. Search syntax filters are still available on DuckDuckGo and we’ve re-updated the help page to reflect that. Nothing has actually recently changed with the way they work in terms of removing any functionality. In fact, we actually recently added functionality to make site exclusion work better as described in https://duckduckgo.com/updates What d…

Thanks for the update! I did notice they were flaky and maybe it's my queries that were more flaky than others that it stuck out at me more than when they possibly worked.

Hopefully you can get this resolved as it's become extremely frustrating searching technical pages to weed out unrelated information.

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