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An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

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Re: An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

#21

Post by JD557 »

MikeCapone wrote: post #4

I've been using DDG as my default browser for a while (though I sometimes revert to !g to search google), and I'm satisfied with the experience. The main thing that would really improve my experience would be if it was faster. Google really spoiled my with the instant results and suggestions as you type. I'm also looking forward to them switching to SPDY as I always use the encrypted version, and this should make it…

One of the main reasons I changed to DDG was because I was having some problems with google:

- Some times the instant search simply doesn't work until I press enter (and sometimes, even when I do, the results just don't appear) - I noticed that google doesn't take you directly to the page. It takes you first to an intermediate page (probably for tracking purposes) and then redirects you to your result. I would be fine with that, but sometimes my browser just got stuck in the intermediate page (no idea why).

I sometimes need to use !g too and I agree that google sometimes is faster than DDG (at least when it works). What I really miss from google is the autocomplete

Re: An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

#22

Post by MikeCapone »

Steko wrote: post #12
MikeCapone wrote: post #4

I've been using DDG as my default browser for a while (though I sometimes revert to !g to search google), and I'm satisfied with the experience. The main thing that would really improve my experience would be if it was faster. Google really spoiled my with the instant results and suggestions as you type. I'm also looking forward to them switching to SPDY as I always use the encrypted version, and this should make it…

Google has put so much effort into speed over the last 10 years that they can't perceptively improve much in this department going forward. So DDG's target is relatively stationary and closing the gap may be expensive but is at least straightforward.

That's a good point, though I'm afraid it might be one of those things where diminishing returns mean that it becomes very very expensive to catch up, and I don't know if DDG has the resources. Moore's Law should help, though, but personally I haven't really felt (subjectively) like DDG has become much faster since I've been using it.

Re: An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

#23

Post by MikeCapone »

JD557 wrote: post #21
MikeCapone wrote: post #4

I've been using DDG as my default browser for a while (though I sometimes revert to !g to search google), and I'm satisfied with the experience. The main thing that would really improve my experience would be if it was faster. Google really spoiled my with the instant results and suggestions as you type. I'm also looking forward to them switching to SPDY as I always use the encrypted version, and this should make it…

One of the main reasons I changed to DDG was because I was having some problems with google: - Some times the instant search simply doesn't work until I press enter (and sometimes, even when I do, the results just don't appear) - I noticed that google doesn't take you directly to the page. It takes you first to an intermediate page (probably for tracking purposes) and then redirects you to your result. I would be fin…

Agreed. Autocomplete would be awesome. I think it's pretty much expected from any search engine nowadays. I like how Chrome and iCab will sometimes use google's autocomplete even if I'm doing a DDG search, but I wish it was also available straight from the site's search field.

Re: An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

#24

Post by boyter »

dkhenry wrote: post #2

I like DDG and I even converted chrome over to use it as its primary engine, however, recently I am noticing more and more spam links and less and less links that really matter. I think I am coming to the conclusion that DDG did this is the wrong order. They are developing a great frontend and using others backends, but to really beat google or MS or yahoo you need to develop a great backend that can filter results w…

I would imagine there would be a few problems with that which might be insurmountable.

The first being speed. People complain about DDG's speed already. Relying on a host of external searches would only cause more issues. Especially if as Google reports that a huge amount of queries are unique.

Another would be ranking. Who determines what is the most relevant result to a query? While you have multiple sources knowing which one to go to has to be determined somewhere. If you hand it over to the peers, they can game the system by insisting they are the most relevant. If you leave it to the server what incentive do the peers have to participate? If you use an open algorithm which people use whats to stop people from gaming the system?

I don't think there is an easy answer to the search game. You either need to build on others systems to have something compelling, or have millions (if not billions) of cash to have enough runway to build/improve your own system, improve it to the point its worth using and then turn a profit.

I don't even think its the complexity of the problem that stops the second. It's bandwidth and disk storage. My personal prediction is once we get disk's up-to a size where you can store a sizable chunk of the web, coupled with enough bandwidth to crawl it in a reasonable time you will see more innovation in the search space as the barrier to entry will be lowered.

Re: An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

#25

Post by Steko »

MikeCapone wrote: post #22
Steko wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has put so much effort into speed over the last 10 years that they can't perceptively improve much in this department going forward. So DDG's target is relatively stationary and closing the gap may be expensive but is at least straightforward.

That's a good point, though I'm afraid it might be one of those things where diminishing returns mean that it becomes very very expensive to catch up, and I don't know if DDG has the resources. Moore's Law should help, though, but personally I haven't really felt (subjectively) like DDG has become much faster since I've been using it.

The scale of capital investment needed is really only feasible in the context of an acquisition or maybe a huge DDG boom stemming from a massive Google privacy scandal.

Re: An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

#26

Post by mmahemoff »

boyter wrote: post #24
dkhenry wrote: post #2

I like DDG and I even converted chrome over to use it as its primary engine, however, recently I am noticing more and more spam links and less and less links that really matter. I think I am coming to the conclusion that DDG did this is the wrong order. They are developing a great frontend and using others backends, but to really beat google or MS or yahoo you need to develop a great backend that can filter results w…

I would imagine there would be a few problems with that which might be insurmountable. The first being speed. People complain about DDG's speed already. Relying on a host of external searches would only cause more issues. Especially if as Google reports that a huge amount of queries are unique. Another would be ranking. Who determines what is the most relevant result to a query? While you have multiple sources knowin…

"Especially if as Google reports that a huge amount of queries are unique."

Google reports 20-25% of queries are unique, way more than I think most of us would expect. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/udi_manber_search_is_a_...

We can probably assume it's not evenly distributed across people. Some people would probably always get cached queries, while others would need fresh results at least half the time.

Re: An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

#27

Post by mmahemoff »

Steko wrote: post #12
MikeCapone wrote: post #4

I've been using DDG as my default browser for a while (though I sometimes revert to !g to search google), and I'm satisfied with the experience. The main thing that would really improve my experience would be if it was faster. Google really spoiled my with the instant results and suggestions as you type. I'm also looking forward to them switching to SPDY as I always use the encrypted version, and this should make it…

Google has put so much effort into speed over the last 10 years that they can't perceptively improve much in this department going forward. So DDG's target is relatively stationary and closing the gap may be expensive but is at least straightforward.

Well, it's only stationary if Google's features are stationary too. e.g. when they introduced live search, that's a new performance target any competitor has to reach.

Re: An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

#28

Post by MikeCapone »

Steko wrote: post #25
MikeCapone wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, though I'm afraid it might be one of those things where diminishing returns mean that it becomes very very expensive to catch up, and I don't know if DDG has the resources. Moore's Law should help, though, but personally I haven't really felt (subjectively) like DDG has become much faster since I've been using it.

The scale of capital investment needed is really only feasible in the context of an acquisition or maybe a huge DDG boom stemming from a massive Google privacy scandal.

Probably. But just adding autocomplete and improving speed some (doesn't need to be quite google-equivalent) would go a long way towards making the experience subjectively better.

Another thing that annoys me is that they have ads near the top of the results that don't load quite at the same time as the results, so I sometimes am about to click on the top result but an ad pops up and pushes everything down making me miss my click. If they could somehow avoid that happening, it would also make the experience better.

Re: An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

#29

Post by 603techguy »

dkhenry wrote: post #18
raghus wrote: post #8

The article mentions $115K in revenue last year. How is that close to self-sustainable for a 10-15 person company?

They average 500% growth. If revenue also scales like that then they are well on their way to profitability.

That doesn't explain sustainability now.

Re: An Interview with DuckDuckGo's founder, Gabriel Weinberg

#30

Post by boyter »

mmahemoff wrote: post #26
boyter wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine there would be a few problems with that which might be insurmountable. The first being speed. People complain about DDG's speed already. Relying on a host of external searches would only cause more issues. Especially if as Google reports that a huge amount of queries are unique. Another would be ranking. Who determines what is the most relevant result to a query? While you have multiple sources knowin…

"Especially if as Google reports that a huge amount of queries are unique." Google reports 20-25% of queries are unique, way more than I think most of us would expect. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/udi_manber_search_is_a_... We can probably assume it's not evenly distributed across people. Some people would probably always get cached queries, while others would need fresh results at least half the time.

That's probably true. I imagine it would also be true to say anyone using a new search engine would be those throwing unique queries at it most of the time too.

With that in mind, and with the tech world generally driving adoption of players in the search space I can't see the approach working. Nobody would switch when the queries are massively slower, even if they were 99% accurate.

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