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DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

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Re: DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

#91

Post by corin_ »

bru wrote: post #15
clicks wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is pretty awesome. I'm curious: was the privacy focus by the DDG guys always there, or was it pushed after they found it was a nice advertising point? Either way, I think this is a good enough reason for me to finally make the switch.

When you look at the timeline[1], the first event is "DontTrack.us", a website[2] dedicated to pointing out google tracking, and linking to DDG in the end. So privacy has always been their focus. It is a nice advertising point, but pushed from the beginning. 1: https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html 2: http://donttrack.us/

That timeline begins 1.5 - 2 years after DDG launched.

Re: DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

#92

Post by jjmardlin »

spodek wrote: post #18

Google's strategy is to profit from advertising. It fundamentally benefits from knowing as much about its users as possible. Every tactic it has will always support that strategy or it will risk failure. You can tell its strategy motivates it toward evil (its term, not mine), because its slogan is "Don't be evil." It chose that slogan because it risks being evil, in its own terms. It doesn't need a slogan like "Don't…

Despite the comments that the slogan predates advertising, there is something to the parent commenter's thesis, though it's certainly not pure cause and effect.

This is a commonly discussed psychological phenomenon; if you focus on avoiding the negative, you accentuate that. You're not saying "Be Good", it's don't be evil, and so you not only name the elephant in the room, you chart the path around her periphery, and may actually crash into the elephant of evil.

In other words, as taken from a parenting site:

State Requests Positively

>Positive requests are more effective than negative commands. For >example, your child is more likely to respond to, "Please use your >spoon." than "Don't eat with your fingers."

Re: DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

#93

Post by bconway »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #48

Google has more information security engineers than ddg has all engineers. Same goes for Facebook and Microsoft. What makes HN think the NSA and/or China and/or Somali pirates haven't completely owned every server at ddg? Why do you think that just because ddg doesn't log anything implies that your ddg accesses aren't logged by third parties?

Any evidence or just FUD?

Re: DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

#94

Post by Meza »

I tried using DDG a while ago. For most things it worked fine, but my biggest (only real) issue with it came when searching for solutions to technical problems.

For example, say I'm programming and I run into some obscure error message generated by some 3rd party library. From what I remember, DDG (in general) tended to require more fine tuning of the search query than Google in order to find in order for me to find the information I was looking for.

Unfortunately I can't think of an example of the top of my head, as this was awhile ago.

edit:

Another example: Say I remember an obscure forum post from months ago. Which search engine is more likely to find it? DDG is great, but it still needs to improve somewhat in these areas before I switch over to it entirely.

Re: DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

#95

Post by thrownaway2424 »

bconway wrote: post #93
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #48

Google has more information security engineers than ddg has all engineers. Same goes for Facebook and Microsoft. What makes HN think the NSA and/or China and/or Somali pirates haven't completely owned every server at ddg? Why do you think that just because ddg doesn't log anything implies that your ddg accesses aren't logged by third parties?

Any evidence or just FUD?

Just FUD, but I don't think it's sufficient to /intend/ to protect user data, you must also have the /capability/ to actually protect it.

Re: DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

#96

Post by nsxwolf »

I have a strange phobia. Even though I think I have an understanding of how Google works, I have this (irrational?) belief that no matter what I do Google can see it. That somehow, someway, even if I use DuckDuckGo, Google is aware of it and tracking me anyway.

Sometimes I see an ad on the internet that seems relevant to a private, in person conversation I had with someone, and that same "Google feeling" washes over me.

Re: DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

#97

Post by perlpimp »

chris_mahan wrote: post #57
jusben1369 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! Because it has cleverly avoided having any reference to "evil" in its slogan.

It is evidently trying to avoid becoming a duck.

if it walks like a ... ; can be portrayed as a clever stab at the competitor.

Re: DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

#98

Post by Uhhrrr »

mileszs wrote: post #83
nhangen wrote: post #72

Really wanted to like DDG, and went as far as changing default SE for Chrome this week, but I couldn't hack it for more than a few days. The results page is very difficult on the eyes, and the design hierarchy is very rough. Google is just light years ahead. I'm going back to Google with Incognito and AdBlock for now.

I am still having a hard time with it. However, you might try the "Lite" version: https://duckduckgo.com/lite/

Also, the teletype version: https://duckduckgo.com/tty/

Re: DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

#99

Post by BrainInAJar »

clicks wrote: post #6
theGimp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall correctly, DDG claims not to keep a record of your searches, so a subpoena would not provide anyone with much information.

Yep, exactly. Now, this makes me wonder: What could be an equivalent implementation for e-mails. An e-mail host that encourages immediate download, totally deletes e-mail contents, deletes logs of any sort, etc. when you delete messages?

Never trust any service you aren't paying for.

Re: DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal

#100

Post by embolism »

jusben1369 wrote: post #41
spodek wrote: post #18

Google's strategy is to profit from advertising. It fundamentally benefits from knowing as much about its users as possible. Every tactic it has will always support that strategy or it will risk failure. You can tell its strategy motivates it toward evil (its term, not mine), because its slogan is "Don't be evil." It chose that slogan because it risks being evil, in its own terms. It doesn't need a slogan like "Don't…

You're actually confusing a couple of things. Advertising has very little to do with it. Say for the sake of argument they had no advertising and charged you $1 per month for a subscription to use Google. They'd still have the same challenge. That is, they are privy to their users most private thoughts - more so than nearly any other business or service in life. With that knowledge comes great responsibility and risk…

If Google charged money to the users instead of the advertisers, their only incentive would be to collect data to make their services better.

As it is, they also have a very strong incentive to collect data to make their advertising better, and to analyze the data they collect for this end.

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