I'm so sick of these DDG stories. The truth is no one uses them, 99.9999% of people outside SV have never heard of them and currently there is no reason to switch to them.
DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose
11–20 of 88 posts
Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relevant search results is all I care about when I use a search engine. (Oh, and I don't see how "Google" sounds professional.)
I agree that the content is what matters, but I just feel like it's a crying shame that a service like DuckDuckGo will never be taken seriously because of its name.
Same problem Mamma.com and Dogpile have (not comparing search quality).
Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose
#13The question I have is as to their business model. There's a saying--- if you aren't buying a product, you are the product. So they have one paid link per page. Is that enough to make them profitable eventually?
I don't see why not. Their costs are probably minimal (some servers + salaries). Beyond that they're just leveraging all the work of Bing and others. Also, they've taken barely any VC money, so it's not like there's a huge return expected in the first place.
Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose
#14Am I the only one that struggles with the name "DuckDuckGo?" The unprofessional name makes it really hard for me to want to use the service, even if it has nice targeted results that may be more relevant or higher quality than Google's. Maybe "unprofessional" is not the right adjective, but I can't find the right one. I have the same problem with "Bing" - the logo is just such an eyesore, and the marketing is so obno…
You aren't. I've seen the debate a few times on HN, and I've had it with friends who also opt to use DuckDuckGo.
It's "a bad name." It isn't evocative, it can't be (easily) made into a verb, and it lacks brevity.
I don't really like the name, but I'm oddly comforted that I can shorten it to ddg (and use http://ddg.gg). I can deal for now, but I do think it should change.
Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose
#15This would be wonderfully true if only their search results were anywhere near as good.
Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose
#16It looks like a cheap knock-off of Google and doesn't give me the hit count for "Ubuntu" (or I missed it). Google gives me over 200 million, Bing over 44 million.
Just so you know, at least Google's hit count is usually off by several orders of magnitude. It's comforting to see it, but it's almost entirely inaccurate.
Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose
#17I'm so sick of these DDG stories. The truth is no one uses them, 99.9999% of people outside SV have never heard of them and currently there is no reason to switch to them.
I switched. For 80-90% of my queries it gets me to the same place as Google just as quickly, or more quickly in some cases. For the other 10-20% there's the !bang syntax, which also lets me search images and maps right from the Chrome address bar without ever hitting the mouse.
Use the tools that make you most productive. For me, that's DDG. For you, maybe not. But I think "...there is no reason to switch to them" just isn't accurate in general.
Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose
#18I've never seen someone describe a middleman so enthusiastically. Not that there isn't enormous added value in presentation or that duckduckgo has a poor offering at all - but your search result quality will always be limited to that of your partner-competitors' (Bing index in this case). And the more you succeed, the more expensive your partnership grows: see Netflix. Wait a minute. I just remembered the other added…
I think middleman is a bit harsh. DuckDuckGo is providing a service. It isn't something that someone else can easily do themselves.
Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose
#19I'm so sick of these DDG stories. The truth is no one uses them, 99.9999% of people outside SV have never heard of them and currently there is no reason to switch to them.
>currently there is no reason to switch to them
How so?
DDG offers privacy, something that Google and other big search engines do not. That is more than enough reason- especially with growing privacy concerns in the US.
Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose
#20I'm so sick of these DDG stories. The truth is no one uses them, 99.9999% of people outside SV have never heard of them and currently there is no reason to switch to them.
I switched. For 80-90% of my queries it gets me to the same place as Google just as quickly, or more quickly in some cases. For the other 10-20% there's the !bang syntax, which also lets me search images and maps right from the Chrome address bar without ever hitting the mouse. Use the tools that make you most productive. For me, that's DDG. For you, maybe not. But I think "...there is no reason to switch to them" ju…
For 80-90% of my queries it gets me to the same place as Google just as quickly, or more quickly in some cases
By quickly, do you mean in less time (search speed is more), or in fewer clicks (search quality is more / relevant links are above)?