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

51–60 of 166 posts

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

#51

Post by eric-hu »

delackner wrote: post #8
noibl wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Click-and-hold on the firefox search engine icon in the search field, and a list of engines appears. I clearly see "Add DuckDuckGo" as an option in that list while I am on the site, and you can slide the mouse over to that option and release. So yes, one click.

I don't think this is available in Firefox for OS X, there's 2 icons in the search field and neither one responds to click-and-hold

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

#53

Post by AJ007 »

crazypyro wrote: post #40

The only thing that caught my eye was Google redirecting duck.com to google.com when DDG expressed interest in purchasing the domain. That seems a little underhanded, but not illegal....

Yeah, doing a reverse IP lookup with domain tools shows a list of 1,029 domains currently directing to google.com (some direct to youtube.com)

Duck Duck Go has a TM application filed on April 2, 2008. Google acquired duck.com's owner in 2010.

There is a very reasonable case for a WIPO domain dispute, which isn't particularly costly (granted if Google lost, and then sued you it would be expensive.) Very good way to generate a lot of press coverage.

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

#54

Post by drivingmenuts »

gnufied wrote: post #11
noibl wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am not supporting DuckDuckgo's claim, but the procees is indeed less painful if you just install their extension, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-fo... I don't know why no such addon exists for Chrome? EDIT: Ugh I am woefully wrong, the Chrome extension only shows up when you visit the site from Chrome. Perhaps they mean choosing a default search engine in Chrome is not as straightforward…

> I don't know why no such addon exists for Chrome?

Because someone has to be arsed to write it?

I suspect that part of it is a confluence of events: it's not exactly easy to change the search to DDG, most Chrome users don't bother to change it, and no one who is capable really wants to write an extension for Chrome to make it easier.

Which is, to my mind, a far simpler explanation than a conspiracy against DDG (in that one area).

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

#55

Post by fudged71 »

paulsutter wrote: post #50

This article is pure crybaby bullshit PR about a nonexistent problem. Does anyone care about DDG anyway? They're trying to solve a completely imaginary problem, and they haven't got a hope in hell of creating a viable search engine as that costs billions of dollars. Why is this article even on HN?

Why are you here? This is entirely relevant to HN. How is a small business that does things uniquely supposed to get users when their biggest competitor is actively making it difficult to try the other service out?

Regardless of whether their claims are true or not, that is.

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

#56

Post by mhartl »

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.

its

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

#57

Post by ricardobeat »

ck2 wrote: post #43
bradly wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've asked Gabriel specifically and he said that they use their own crawler/indexer.

Their results are nearly identical to Bing in every case I've tried. Let me know if you find a search result that is different.

First attempt: http://cl.ly/image/340S0R3b0K0d

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

#58

Post by yegg »

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…

If anyone is curious where this comes from, I wrote extensively about the usability issues with adding search engines to browsers here: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/02/usability-issues...

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

#59

Post by neya »

paulsutter wrote: post #50

This article is pure crybaby bullshit PR about a nonexistent problem. Does anyone care about DDG anyway? They're trying to solve a completely imaginary problem, and they haven't got a hope in hell of creating a viable search engine as that costs billions of dollars. Why is this article even on HN?

While I agree with you on the problem solving part, I feel you are a bit aggressive.

>Why is this article even on HN?

I think its relevant because PG wrote an article about "frighteningly ambitious ideas" and DuckDuckGo seems to be inspired from it.

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

#60

Post by lubujackson »

ck2 wrote: post #37
joenathan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I suspect it's trivial at best. Every test search I've ever done on DDG shows near identical results to Bing. I'd like to see a search that uses it's own data, examples? Gigablast was the last serious third-party backend that had a chance for independent data. It's like old-school Google. Gabriel should try to buy Gigablast and merge it with DDG so he has his own independent dataset.

Blekko has millions behind it and does a full index of the web.
Post reply on HN