Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

chicagotribune.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 166 posts

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#21

Post by bdonlan »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #2

From the article: "In an interview on Wednesday, [Gabriel] Weinberg said it is difficult to make his DuckDuckGo the default search site in Google's Chrome web browser, and that Google disadvantages his company in the Android mobile operating system as well. .... "It's one-click to get onto Firefox and it's five steps on Chrome and people generally fail," he said. The Google spokeswoman said popular search alternative…

I counted three clicks on Chrome:

1. Right-click on search bar when on duckduckgo.com 2. Click edit search engines 3. Next to DuckDuckGo (it's autodetected the first time you visit the site), click 'make default'.

It's more clicks than firefox if you do it via the extension, but google's stance on blocking third-party extensions by default makes sense when you consider the threat of malicious extensions, and how most people don't read the permissions prompt.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#22

Post by itp »

WrkInProgress wrote: post #15
rodion_89 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, how many clicks is it to replace Bing as the default in IE? Isn't it impossible for DDG to become the default in Safari? Not saying they're wrong to point it out, but rather that they should be consistent in pointing fingers if they do.

Fired up IE9 to take a look. One click on the search icon in the address bar and Bing and Ask.com (really?) are listed as two default search providers. There is an Add button which takes me to an Internet Explorer Add-On page. DDG and Google are highlighted as popular options. Click on the "tile" and another click to install. So 4 clicks for IE9. It's 4 clicks in Chrome (Menu - Settings - Settings - Manage Search Pro…

but DDG is nowhere to be found. YOu have to manually add it and it isn't very clear how to do it because the textbox is truncated for the actual url.

Unless you visit duckduckgo.com once, at which point it's added to the list of "other search engines" on that page. Which seems like a totally reasonable way to manage that list, since otherwise Google is responsible for pre-populating and maintaining a comprehensive list of all other search engines out there.

(This behavior was tested on Chrome 24, and I verified it by deleting the record for DuckDuckGo from my "other search engine" list, then visiting duckduckgo.com and reloading the list.)

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#24

Post by amitamb »

noibl wrote: post #5
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #2

From the article: "In an interview on Wednesday, [Gabriel] Weinberg said it is difficult to make his DuckDuckGo the default search site in Google's Chrome web browser, and that Google disadvantages his company in the Android mobile operating system as well. .... "It's one-click to get onto Firefox and it's five steps on Chrome and people generally fail," he said. The Google spokeswoman said popular search alternative…

Wait, 'one-click'? In Firefox if I click the dropdown on the search field, then click 'Manage Search Engines' I get a dialog in which can be found a link to 'Get more search engines...'. Clicking that opens an add-ons store tab with the 'Search Tools' filter applied, none of whose above-the-fold suggestions has anything to do with DDG. That's not one-click, it's a runaround. In contrast, Chrome automatically adds sea…

To see the difference go to my search engine

http://www.verticalset.com/search

On Firefox, by clicking "Add to Browser" and checking "Start using Right Away", you can make it default.

On Chrome, if you click on same button there is no way to make it default. You have to find the list of search engines in settings and click "Make Default".

On IE, process is similar to Firefox.

It wouldn't be hard to make this similar to Firefox on Chrome, just add "Make it Default" check-box when adding new search engine, but that won't happen anytime soon.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#25

Post by tiglionabbit »

WrkInProgress wrote: post #15
rodion_89 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, how many clicks is it to replace Bing as the default in IE? Isn't it impossible for DDG to become the default in Safari? Not saying they're wrong to point it out, but rather that they should be consistent in pointing fingers if they do.

Fired up IE9 to take a look. One click on the search icon in the address bar and Bing and Ask.com (really?) are listed as two default search providers. There is an Add button which takes me to an Internet Explorer Add-On page. DDG and Google are highlighted as popular options. Click on the "tile" and another click to install. So 4 clicks for IE9. It's 4 clicks in Chrome (Menu - Settings - Settings - Manage Search Pro…

DDG was in my list. Apparently it picks up options as you browse?

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#28

Post by joenathan »

ck2 wrote: post #19

Many people like DuckDuckGo for good reasons but let's be clear: It does not do any of it's own indexing. It's just a frontend to other very very expensive backends that have millions of dollars behind them. The entire company can be shut down overnight if it's data feeds are cut.

According to DuckDuckGo's FAQ you are wrong http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-s...

The DuckDuckBot crawls and indexes the web. http://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.html

Post reply on HN