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DuckDuckGo is blowing up

duckduckgo.com

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Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#61

Post by MitziMoto »

I just wish DDG could implement autocomplete/search suggestions. It's probably silly, but I've become as accustomed to typing a few letters into Google and it knowing exactly what I'm looking for as I have to tab complete in a unix terminal.

I've also really become accustomed to "instant" search. And I'll be the first to admit I thought was a total gimmick when it was announced.

Edit: After reading what I wrote, I realized it came off as if I didn't like DDG or didn't use it. Neither of those are true. I really like DDG and use it fairly often.

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#63

Post by hkolek »

TylerE wrote: post #50
kylek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (or was it WaterSquirrel then?) Phoenix -> FireBird -> FireFox :)

He's probably thinking of "IceWeasel" which was a rebranded firefox a linux distro (Fedora maybe?) was shipping due to some sort of copyright/licensing quirk.

it's debian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation_software_re...

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#65

Post by pushingbits »

geoffw8 wrote: post #9

Wow, thats a great curve. Just wanted to throw in my personal experience with DuckDuckGo, and it doesn't necessarily reflect on DuckDuckGo specifically, however: After seeing them pop up here once or twice quite recently I thought I'd give it a go, I opened up preferences in Chrome and switched my default search over to DDG. It felt good, made a nice change but was certainly a bit "odd". I found what I wanted, most o…

I find that I am slowly losing confidence in Google. What I often do is input searches in the form: "general term", "specific term", then click on a link and immediately do a find for the specific term I searched for. In the last few months, the specific term I searched for often does not exist on the linked site at all, which I find quite annoying.

I tried bing a couple of times, but the results are even worse.

Maybe Google verbatim mode will fix the problem? I've set up a quick search recently, but have yet to start using it.

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#66

Post by darklajid »

geoffw8 wrote: post #9

Wow, thats a great curve. Just wanted to throw in my personal experience with DuckDuckGo, and it doesn't necessarily reflect on DuckDuckGo specifically, however: After seeing them pop up here once or twice quite recently I thought I'd give it a go, I opened up preferences in Chrome and switched my default search over to DDG. It felt good, made a nice change but was certainly a bit "odd". I found what I wanted, most o…

My take. Disclaimer: I'm a fan for a while now (lesson to startups: If you reply to feedback quickly and friendly, as Gabriel did in Aug 2010 when I submitted a tiny useless bit of feedback to the site, you'll be hard to remove from my list of 'great things').

That said, I do understand the confidence issue every now and then. For me it seems to arise mostly when DDG only shows half a page or less of results. Those are usually good. But I'm used to all the bullshit Google puts above and below that and sometimes have the feeling of missing out.

A quick check every now and then by now convinced me that I'm just conditioned to expect quantity. Which needs to be corrected.

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#67

Post by true_religion »

coderdude wrote: post #38
stroboskop wrote: post #20

DuckDuckGo is definitely pulling users from Google. By mimicking Facebook, Google has lost its mojo. Stepped right into the "social" honeypot. No news. The more interesting thing is the fantastic feeling more and more people have: that Facebook and Google will take eachother down the spiral. As for the Google part, right now it's probably just an alarmist prediction, but it's going to be fun to watch un/fold. Especia…

[1998] Google is definitely pulling users from Yahoo. By mimicking Alta Vista, Yahoo has lost its mojo. Stepped right into the "portal" honeypot. No news. The more interesting thing is the fantastic feeling more and more people have: that Alta Vista and Yahoo will take eachother down the spiral. As for the Yahoo part, right now it's probably just an alarmist prediction, but it's going to be fun to watch un/fold. Espe…

One difference in this story is....

Google was vertically integrated from the start: They sent out their own bots to scan the internet, they had their own reverse index, and created their own algorithm.

I'm not sure about DDGs backend---but if people use the g! tag, its almost as if DDG is simple chrome for Google.

Maybe that'll be the future: Google will become the maker of engines, and let everyone else make the car.

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#69

Post by [deleted] »

kylek wrote: post #35
mrspeaker wrote: post #17

!g is the google killer. I switched to DDG, but kept drifting back to see if Google was doing better. I find myself using !g less and less, as I get used to the result format. At the moment, DDG reminds me of Firefox (or was it WaterSquirrel then?) back-in-the-day. Its something that "feels" better than what is the standard - and it's something that I go on and on about to other nerds, when I'm drunk ;)

> (or was it WaterSquirrel then?) Phoenix -> FireBird -> FireFox :)

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#70

Post by koalaman »

demetris wrote: post #26
pubby wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally stick to Google for programming related searches and use DDG for the rest. Hopefully DDG improves to the point where I can use it 100% of the time.

If it were possible to take Bing’s search results, throw a handful of people at them and match the quality of Google’s results, Google would not be where it is today. That is the main problem I see with Duck Duck Go. The quality of its search results depends on Bing. Duck Duck Go can do things to offer something better than Bing, but not that much better that matches Google’s quality.

and if Google's allegations a while back are to be believed (http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-...), the quality of Bing's search results depend on Google.
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