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DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

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Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#141

Post by [deleted] »

nunobrito wrote: post #136
raverbashing wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to refuse access for a trusted third-party auditor to review their infrastructure and validate (or not) their claims of privacy. Which company would accept (and pay for that) given there's no legal requirement for it? Here's a better test: DDG sets exactly one cookie in my browser, with a short value (not unique enough to track anything). Makes me trust them more than some BS popup saying "we care about your privac…

> Which company would accept (and pay for that) given there's no legal requirement for it? Maybe relevant for a company whose business model is built around the promise of preserving end-user privacy? > I don't see why Data storage and network communication occurring inside the European space alone, rather than sending packets from European users to elsewhere unknown. Being fully accountable to European law, with bas…

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#142

Post by skinkestek »

bishalb wrote: post #56
fiblye wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that google gives me results assuming all of the words I searched aren’t the words I’m looking for, and it uses tangentially related words in place of everything. Even quotes are useless now. Ddg is useless when I’m searching for local things like restaurants and whatnot, but for general searches, it gives me what I’m actually looking for at least 75% of the time. With google, I’m barely hitting 25%…

Can confirm that Google doesn't honor quotes as it used to for exact match search these days. It's a hit and miss.

Can someone who knows about the inside of Google tell us why this happened, and especially why it happens when verbatim mode is used alone or in addition to double quotes?

I can kind of see why double quotes could be confusing for people pasting without being aware of the double quotes rule, but ignoring verbatim outright as has been the standard for years now is even more confusing to me.

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#143

Post by nunobrito »

crocodiletears wrote: post #140
nunobrito wrote: post #121

DuckDuckGo is only private if you trust their word. Over the years they continue to refuse access for a trusted third-party auditor to review their infrastructure and validate (or not) their claims of privacy. The preference of Android to place DDG in Europe (31 out of 31 countries) is strange when considering privacy as argument. Then is placed this "info.com" as second option on all European countries (31 out of 31…

Hadn't heard of Qwant. Looks like they do their own indexing, which is good to see. Definitely an engine to keep an eye on. Ecosia is just repackaged Bing, ostensibly with a second filter/ranking pass over Bing's results iirc. Is there much difference between the two from an end-user perspective, beyond the ecology gimmick?

Ecosia is a small Berlin startup. They are profitable and happy to just relay the results from other search engines.

Qwant is far bigger. Aims to be a complete replacement for Google in Europe with their own datasets. They have difficulties in funding and their survival is mostly depending on public funding and eventually being accepted as default choice for companies across Europe.

From that perspective, it makes a huge difference when more people become aware that independent options exist.

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#144

Post by [deleted] »

afiori wrote: post #119
fxtentacle wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suffer through DDG to avoid Google, but it's not pretty. Especially for terms with ambiguous meaning, DDG just performs way worse than Google. For example, the tensorflow terminology for reducing dimensionality is "squeeze" and the scipy Gaussian distributing is called "normal". A DDG query for "python squeeze normal" shows me stuff about the animal. Google correctly infers that I want programming advice. I also re…

I have a different problem. When searching for stackoverflow style answers DDG almost always shows years old questions that no longer apply

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#146

Post by amelius »

nunobrito wrote: post #121

DuckDuckGo is only private if you trust their word. Over the years they continue to refuse access for a trusted third-party auditor to review their infrastructure and validate (or not) their claims of privacy. The preference of Android to place DDG in Europe (31 out of 31 countries) is strange when considering privacy as argument. Then is placed this "info.com" as second option on all European countries (31 out of 31…

> Europe-wide has a search engine that deserves our preference, and that is http://qwant.com

Strange thing is that the domain qwant.eu is for sale.

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#147

Post by raverbashing »

nunobrito wrote: post #136
raverbashing wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to refuse access for a trusted third-party auditor to review their infrastructure and validate (or not) their claims of privacy. Which company would accept (and pay for that) given there's no legal requirement for it? Here's a better test: DDG sets exactly one cookie in my browser, with a short value (not unique enough to track anything). Makes me trust them more than some BS popup saying "we care about your privac…

> Which company would accept (and pay for that) given there's no legal requirement for it? Maybe relevant for a company whose business model is built around the promise of preserving end-user privacy? > I don't see why Data storage and network communication occurring inside the European space alone, rather than sending packets from European users to elsewhere unknown. Being fully accountable to European law, with bas…

> When looking at other alternatives such as Ecosia, Qwant

W.r.t. them I agree, but have they been subject to a 3rd party audit (honest question, I'm not familiar with them)?

I'm not saying we should trust DDG (or any search engine) 100% without proof, but the best way of keeping your privacy is not collecting data and it seems DDG is doing that.

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#148

Post by Fnoord »

lostmsu wrote: post #34
Barrin92 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's interesting to see that many things are not censored away in comparison to Bing and Google (political correctness, copyright, nsfw etc. etc.). I am not aware that there is a censorship of things that are deemed 'politically incorrect' by either bing or google, and Yandex does comply with European copyright law and other EU legislation like the right-to-be-forgotten.

It became increasingly hard to find EPUBs with DDG or Google.

I can recommend to just use a NZB search engine for it (during Black Friday deals you can get a for life account for 10-30 EUR). Combined with a Usenet block server (also available cheap during sales), this should not cost you much data or money. And you can use it for Sonarr/Radarr as well, if you want to burn some more data.

Speaking of searching, does Qwant support dorks (no pun intended)?

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#149

Post by seiko988 »

Accacin wrote: post #124
nunobrito wrote: post #121

DuckDuckGo is only private if you trust their word. Over the years they continue to refuse access for a trusted third-party auditor to review their infrastructure and validate (or not) their claims of privacy. The preference of Android to place DDG in Europe (31 out of 31 countries) is strange when considering privacy as argument. Then is placed this "info.com" as second option on all European countries (31 out of 31…

Not doubting you, but do you have any sources for your claims? I will use Qwant in the future but at the minute it's not suitable (IMO) for daily usage. Ecosia seems like a great idea, but these kind of 'Search and earn' sites have always seemed like a scam to me and I can't find any reason to trust Ecosia over DDG.

I've had very good results with cliqz as far as European search engines go. https://beta.cliqz.com/

Re: DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU

#150

Post by thejohnconway »

gempir wrote: post #93

I personally hope DDG is going to namechange soon. I don't hate their name, but if you present the user with a choice of - Google - DuckDuckGo - Yandex Why would he click the "silly" option besides humor. It's a bad brand name IMO

I disagree, I think it needs a memorable, friendly-sounding name. I’ve had more luck selling it to people precisely because of the name. People like ducks in bow ties. Heck I like ducks in bow ties.

Two search engines from the EU we’re mentioned upthread. I have already forgotten their names — that’s a problem DDG doesn’t have. Remembering it’s about ducks is easily good enough to find it.

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