The next version of DuckDuckGo • Hacker News Board

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#111

Post by lnanek2 » Mon, May 05, 2014, 8:29 PM UTC

geuis wrote: post #74

fsck--off wrote: post #61

I use DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine and have had a positive experience using it. This redesign incorporates two of the worst design trends today: very low contrast text and gratuitously, obnoxiously large fixed headers. I dislike fixed headers on any non-phone/tablet UI because almost all laptop and desktop screens are widescreen. Fixed position elements on the sides of the screen make much more sense, altho…

I'm having trouble parsing this part of your comment: "I dislike fixed headers for any interface that isn't for a phone or tablet because almost all laptop and desktop screens are widescreen." Are you saying that only fixed headers only work on mobile interfaces and they shouldn't be used on desktop? If so, I disagree with you. Fixed headers, if they are used at all, should only be used on desktop. There's simply not…

he's probably saying widescreens have less vertical room, so a fixed header then makes it even less. so a fixed header is more of a problem on them. thought experiment: if you had a 20" wide screen that was only 10" tall, you'd hate anything that took up your vertical space, wouldn't you?

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#112

Post by lucb1e » Mon, May 05, 2014, 8:30 PM UTC

ancarda wrote: post #45

If you are using DuckDuckGo for privacy reasons, I strongly suggest you use https://startpage.com/ instead. DuckDuckGo isn't much better than Google; both of them hijack your links. This gives an opportunity to track what you click on. If you watch carefully your links go to "r.duckduckgo.com" -- this page also doesn't use SSL. For example: http://r.duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikip... StartPage doe…

> StartPage doesn't hijack links, it (optionally) uses POST and you never send a referer header so traffic looks organic

... and looks like MSN Search results from 2006. Not just ugly and cluttered, which I don't mind too much, but dysfunctional too: no keyboard navigation between results nor editing the search query without using the mouse to focus the box. That is an immediate no-go for me.

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#113

Post by incanus77 » Mon, May 05, 2014, 8:30 PM UTC

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #76

aroman wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. Click the "i" button: Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA

That's not on-map, that's hidden behind a click. osm.org/copyright makes it very clear that the attribution needs to be on-map. You don't see Google permitting people to hide their brand away like that!

Apple does this too in all of their uses of OSM in their maps.

There is some OSM community discussion on the UX behind this here: http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/lxbarth/diary/21769

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#114

Post by lnanek2 » Mon, May 05, 2014, 8:30 PM UTC

I don't really like the "doesn't track you part." How is it going to give as good results if it doesn't track people? Clicks is the best way to tell which results are good, and my clicks especially.

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#115

Post by stonogo » Mon, May 05, 2014, 8:30 PM UTC

Please don't apply any of these changes to the html version. It's my favorite websearch interface.

I would also like an option to disable r.duckduckgo.com redirects.

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#116

Post by yegg » Mon, May 05, 2014, 8:31 PM UTC

ancarda wrote: post #87

gabriel34 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it; links on ddg are always direct to me; perhaps it's only for advertising links or something like anonym.to to hide some referer you'd send otherwise. What browser are you using?

I'm using Firefox. I see a lot of r.duckduckgo.com entries in my history. Edit: I can't replicate in Chrome or Safari but if I change my user-agent in Safari, it begins hijacking my URLs. The JavaScript is obfuscated so it's hard to tell if it's actually checking for Firefox or not. The function it calls is DDG.get_http_redirect

You can read more about that here: https://duck.co/blog/https-on-by-default

It has no privacy impact since we do not store or collect personal information.

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#117

Post by yegg » Mon, May 05, 2014, 8:33 PM UTC

sjs382 wrote: post #80

Proxima Nova at 600 weight displays really weird on my work machine: http://i.imgur.com/O9GU0TG.png . Is there a chance you might reconsider the font choice? Looks great, if I force Helvetica.

Wow, that's strange! What are the machine/browser specs?

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#118

Post by weavejester » Mon, May 05, 2014, 8:34 PM UTC

ancarda wrote: post #45

If you are using DuckDuckGo for privacy reasons, I strongly suggest you use https://startpage.com/ instead. DuckDuckGo isn't much better than Google; both of them hijack your links. This gives an opportunity to track what you click on. If you watch carefully your links go to "r.duckduckgo.com" -- this page also doesn't use SSL. For example: http://r.duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikip... StartPage doe…

r.duckduckgo.com is actually there for privacy, to remove HTTP referers. See: https://duck.co/help/results/rduckduckgocom

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#119

Post by systemizer » Mon, May 05, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

I don't understand how a service can be both secure and centralized. You'd have to give 100% of your trust to a single entity. I'm not pointing fingers, but DDG is a good example of this situation.

If you want greater security, you have to allocate trust amongst many entities. This is a practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance problem (http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16444-practical-byzantine-fault... ).

My current trust model is primarily made up of my friends and family; not a third party organization online, regardless of how they market it. If I put my trust in them, my security would only be compromised if ((N-1)/3) worked together. (see http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824-2012/papers/castro-practical...) Wouldn't my activity be more secure if it was built upon that?

I'm not proposing any implementations; just food for thought.

Re: The next version of DuckDuckGo

#120

Post by oneplusone » Mon, May 05, 2014, 8:38 PM UTC

yegg wrote: post #105

fsck--off wrote: post #61

I use DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine and have had a positive experience using it. This redesign incorporates two of the worst design trends today: very low contrast text and gratuitously, obnoxiously large fixed headers. I dislike fixed headers on any non-phone/tablet UI because almost all laptop and desktop screens are widescreen. Fixed position elements on the sides of the screen make much more sense, altho…

Thanks for the feedback! Our current version also has a fixed header, and that can be turned off in the settings, which we plan to make work in this next version as well. Noted on contrast. We will look into it more -- that's exactly the kind of feedback we were hoping to get.

The links should also be blue so they pop out more. Makes it easier to scan over the results.