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DuckDuckGo was down

duckduckgo.com

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Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#381

Post by Springtime »

niutech wrote: post #344
deutschepost wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I‘m pretty sure it was always just a proxy for bing. Just stripping away the Microsoft tracking. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27394925

DDG was once caught red-handed of tracking for Microsoft: https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/24/ddg-microsoft-tracking-blo...

That's a strange characterization of it. They weren't tracking for MS, their branded mobile browser (distinct from their site) was found to have an exclusion in its built-in content blocker for Microsoft-run tracking scripts in ads.

Or put another way, if their browser had no content blocker (like the stock browsers of any mobile OS), their browser would be behaving like all the others. The scrutiny came from the conspicuous exclusion, given their arrangement with Bing (much like the controversy of Adblock Plus many years ago).

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#382

Post by lelanthran »

AbstractH24 wrote: post #281
simias wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My subjective impression as a web user since the late 90s is that now things break relatively rarely (I think it's the first time I have any such issue with DDG for instance) but when they do a huge chunk of the web becomes unreachable. Back when things were more decentralized individual websites and services would have issues much more regularly because the individual software and hardware stacks weren't as robust a…

And America only uses the term “Too Big Toto Fail” when it comes to banks.

> And America only uses the term “Too Big Toto Fail” when it comes to banks.

And only when they're not in Kansas, anymore.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#383

Post by ipqk »

niutech wrote: post #333
victor_z wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. But DDG at least offers more privacy, right? Right?

DDG has a history of breaching privacy: https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/24/ddg-microsoft-tracking-blo... Meanwhile Brave Search or Mojeek provide more privacy, being independent at the same time.

Cause Brave CEO, Brendan Eich, is such a swell guy.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#384

Post by kunley »

syklep wrote: post #379
berkes wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Brave Search or Mojeek provide more privacy Do they? Or have they just not had that "history" yet? I don't see anything fundamentally different in Brave that protects your and my privacy better than on DDG. I don't know Mojeek enough.

Brave explicitly claims not to.[1] Brave also does not rely on Bing for results. [1] https://search.brave.com/help/privacy-policy Edit: mojeek claims the same.[2] [2] https://www.mojeek.com/about/privacy/

Last time i checked, Brave was insisting on convinving me to use certain cryptocurrency platforms and it was more intrusive with it than typical web ads, which seemed really twisted, as the same Brave claimed to give ad-free experience.

Are they still doing that?

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#385

Post by ornornor »

jraph wrote: post #183
us0r wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My money is on expired domain somewhere or security certificate.

A Windows update restarted a critical server automatically. A core service is blocked from starting by a Candy Crush ad installed by the update. The Crandy Crush ad is somehow expecting a Copilot key to be pressed on the keyboard to let the system keep going. MS engineers are waiting for an online purchase of a new $400 keyboard with the Copilot key to complete and planning to run to the data center to plug the keybo…

MS knows better than to run windows on their servers. They’ve famously been running Linux on their public web facing stuff for years, including when they were publicly discrediting Linux (because IIS and MS server were so good they couldn’t run their web services reliably and securely).

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#386

Post by Krastan »

shaan7 wrote: post #315
npteljes wrote: post #228

I love the acknowledgement that DDG put on their page. We're currently experiencing an issue with DuckDuckGo Search. Thanks for your patience while we get our ducks in a row. In the meantime, you can use other search engines right here by using "bangs" So fun and straightforward.

The notice helped me realize that Yahoo! Search still exists xD

Doesn't yahoo also use bing under the hood?

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#388

Post by tombert »

Springtime wrote: post #381
niutech wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG was once caught red-handed of tracking for Microsoft: https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/24/ddg-microsoft-tracking-blo...

That's a strange characterization of it. They weren't tracking for MS, their branded mobile browser (distinct from their site) was found to have an exclusion in its built-in content blocker for Microsoft-run tracking scripts in ads. Or put another way, if their browser had no content blocker (like the stock browsers of any mobile OS), their browser would be behaving like all the others. The scrutiny came from the con…

I don't think the parent's comment was that strange of a way of characterizing it.

Yes, they block other tracking scripts, but since they have an explicit exception for tracking from Microsoft, it's not a complete stretch to say they were "tracking for MS"; I know technically it's Microsoft doing the tracking, but DDG gives them explicit permission to do so. I think that it's a distinction without much of a difference, and I don't think it's unfair to extrapolate a bit. If they're being misleading about the types of tracking in their mobile app to make Daddy Microsoft happy, why the fuck would I believe their claims that their search engine (which is more or less a proxy for Bing) would be immune from it?

It actually really upset me; I was a big user and advocate of the DDG browser on iOS and Android, but when that news came out it felt like a big betrayal. I haven't used any DDG product since then, and while I have no idea what kind of trackers they block (if any), I just use Firefox Focus now with Kagi search.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#389

Post by mdaniel »

em-bee wrote: post #376
mdaniel wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This take implies there is no on-call rotation at DDG, which I find suspicious

the most important function of on call rotation is there to fix problems, not to make announcements to the public. so they surely have the first, but maybe not the second.

Well, maybe that perspective explains why it takes 6+ hours to update any status page then: "welp, shit's broke, better wait for the management team to wake up to tell anyone"

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#390

Post by miloignis »

gregw134 wrote: post #377
kornhole wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is one of many metasearch sites and not actually a search engine. Other engines include Kagi, Yandex, Brave, Mojeek, Quant, and something called Google.

Pretty sure kagi is a bing wrapper too, although they blend in some other datasets.

Kagi's main results come from Google actually. (edit: see https://help.kagi.com/kagi/why-kagi/kagi-vs-google.html - Kagi really shows how good Google could be, since it's mostly using the Google index and then doing user-friendly things instead of user-unfriendly things on top)
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