Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#171

Post by dpacmittal » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 1:19 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #22

pixelbreaker wrote: post #12

I first tried DDG in its early years and it just didn't yield the results I needed, I tried it again a couple of years ago and have stuck with it ever since as it has must better results these days.

Every now and then I search for something and don't get the results I'd expect. So I turn to Google, but for the past year or so I noticed that Google can't find what I expect for those search terms either. The difference seems to be that Google starts guessing and excluding keywords, without understanding that those keywords where important. For me personally, Google is a less pleasant experience these days. The Duc…

Google has gone from incredible to shitty over last few years. When I am looking for specific things, Google will most often present me with links to big websites. This happens most with medical searching like when I tried to find if low body temperature is somehow related to depression. Google showed me completely irrelevant links from WebMD, nhs etc. I had to go to page 4 to find some links to forums where people were discussing about it.

I've found myself using double quotes more often now than ever before. Google just doesn't seem to understand what I'm looking for.

The growth of content marketing has ruined Google search results.

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#172

Post by FabHK » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 1:45 PM UTC

johnmarcus wrote: post #166

FabHK wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Bing offer the same privacy advantages (no tracking, no history based ads, etc.)? EDIT to add: I think nobody disputes or cares that most results come from (or equal) Bing results, as long as they're good enough.

DDG basically acts as a vpn proxy. Bing sees all the traffic as from DDG the same, they can't differentiate the individual requesters. Assuming DDG does what it says it does anyway.

Right, so that's a valuable service in itself, as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#173

Post by rendaw » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #22

pixelbreaker wrote: post #12

I first tried DDG in its early years and it just didn't yield the results I needed, I tried it again a couple of years ago and have stuck with it ever since as it has must better results these days.

Every now and then I search for something and don't get the results I'd expect. So I turn to Google, but for the past year or so I noticed that Google can't find what I expect for those search terms either. The difference seems to be that Google starts guessing and excluding keywords, without understanding that those keywords where important. For me personally, Google is a less pleasant experience these days. The Duc…

Doesn't DDG also exclude keywords it doesn't think are important? And it doesn't have a "missing `keyword`" warning below the results either, as imperfect as that was.

Ex: `libwacom huion gaomon`, missing libwacom in first result.

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#174

Post by webmobdev » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #35

webmobdev wrote: post #17

Why would I use another AMERICAN / Western search engine? I personally feel we would be better off using Yandex (Russian) or Baidu (Chinese) search engines. We need more COMPETITION to reduce our reliance on parasites like Google / Microsoft / FB etc and thus force the industry to reevaluate their business model on how they make money from us. Yandex has a pretty decent search engine, and also helpfully provides a li…

I agree about being mindful about using services of US companies, possibly preferring alternatives, however using a Chinese or a Russian alternative instead is just plain stupid. Two reasons: 1. The US is a functional democracy, with a bill of rights and privacy laws which aren’t perfect, but exist; California even has its own version of the GDPR 2. They have strong trade agreements with the EU and if you’re an EU ci…

> however using a Chinese or a Russian alternative instead is just plain stupid.

No, it is not. By using non-american alternatives, you ensure fragmentation of your personal data, thus making it harder to build a better / more accurate profile of you.

Moreover, I personally don't like the fact that using DuckDuckGo still helps the other major search engines - they still get data from DDG that helps them improve their search engine, thus contributing to their monopoly.

> The US is a functional democracy ...

Good for the Americans, then. Not for us who live elsewhere. The US government and courts have repeatedly applied different legal yardsticks when it comes to a citizen vis a foreigner.

> as companies found to violate the GDPR will get screwed; GDPR which also makes the export of data very complicated, so US companies are increasingly keeping EU data on EU servers

I don't see why you think this doesn't apply to Chinese / Russian businesses too. Ultimately if they want to do business in EU or elsewhere, they will have to follow the law of the land. Right?

> Speaking as an EU citizen, the NSA is not my enemy.

I disagree. The Five Eyes spying program is designed to indirectly spy on the citizens of their country using each others government agency, and sharing that data.

> Speaking of which, DuckDuckGo can exist in the US, but not in China or in Russia,

And this brings another important aspect on this debate - we shouldn't be trusting private companies to protect our privacy rights and instead should be pressurizing our own government to legislate laws on this.

Most Americans somehow seem to naively believe that Apple and DuckDuckGo (for example) are working more to protecting your privacy, whereas all they are doing is slowly trying to gain your trust to get you to share more data with them. And ultimately, like Google betrayed all of us and went fully "evil", so will Apple and DuckDuckGo.

(And notice that they have already started being more invasive).

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#175

Post by webmobdev » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:33 PM UTC

UncleSlacky wrote: post #45

webmobdev wrote: post #17

Why would I use another AMERICAN / Western search engine? I personally feel we would be better off using Yandex (Russian) or Baidu (Chinese) search engines. We need more COMPETITION to reduce our reliance on parasites like Google / Microsoft / FB etc and thus force the industry to reevaluate their business model on how they make money from us. Yandex has a pretty decent search engine, and also helpfully provides a li…

There's also Qwant ( https://www.qwant.com/ ), a European-based search engine that also claims to respect privacy: https://help.qwant.com/help/overview/security/how-does-qwant...

Tried out a country specific query and the results were relevant. Seems promising!

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#176

Post by fjp » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:35 PM UTC

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #57

mrweasel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every now and then I search for something and don't get the results I'd expect. So I turn to Google, but for the past year or so I noticed that Google can't find what I expect for those search terms either. The difference seems to be that Google starts guessing and excluding keywords, without understanding that those keywords where important. For me personally, Google is a less pleasant experience these days. The Duc…

THANK YOU. I feel crazy when I tell people this but I 100% agree. Google seems to look at your search as a general guide now rather than actual parameters. I also have to surround each word in quotes or they get excluded on the SECOND OR THIRD RESULT. I'm very upset because this hinders my daily work and research. I'm starting to rely on Bing which is definitely worse than old Google but may be better than current Go…

I know this could be overcome by me being less lazy, but my favorite thing about Google is the results I get without ever having to click a link. This is especially true for searching things like TV shows, actors/directors, athletes, etc. It's just great UX.

I tried to switch to DDG on mobile recently (using the Brave browser) and I found myself really missing those inline results.

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#177

Post by En_gr_Student » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

Google built things that circumvent it.

I love how commercials "follow you around". If I search for diamond rings in a browser on one computer, they suddenly materialize everywhere.

I tried it with Duck-Duck-go, searching for something I nearly never search for, something such that the ads follow you around. I just searched in DDG, but did not go to the end website. I then resumed non-DDG browsing, and those came up as ads. I don't know if they are looking at image caches, or loading javascript libraries.

They have a way around it already, and it runs.

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#178

Post by Vinnl » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 6:06 PM UTC

scoutt wrote: post #160

Vinnl wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do you really know? You don't really know. However, when your entire USP is being privacy-friendly (and really, that's the primary feature that Google can't copy), it would be incredibly damaging if word got out that that wasn't true. And we can be reasonably certain that, if it wasn't true, word would get out. Also note that DDG explicitly says they don't do user tracking. So while ads are targeted in the sens…

> we do have reason to assume > word would get out > no significant user data These, as you say, are assumptions. That's why I don't (still) buy it. They are in "sell" mode right now. They would say anything to gain traction, and it's working. That's why they are pushing hard and investing a lot. Remember it's about making BIG money through an advertisement-based business, what could possibly go wrong? Imagine that y…

Absolutely those are assumptions - hence my first sentence. That's still more reliable than trusting Google, about whom we don't need to make assumptions.

Another assumption I make is that I don't expect then to seriously displace Google any time soon,but rather remain a player that fills the niche of private search. If that ever appears to change, we can always adapt - let's not make perfect the enemy of the good :-)

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#179

Post by godelski » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #79

I love DDG (and have been using it as my primary search engine for about six months) but I feel like the hacker community (including me) forgets that DDG is a for-profit corporation, and that at some level posting these kinds of links is more or less the same as just giving them free advertising.

Why is that bad? If we can encourage companies to be open source and privacy conscious, isn't that a win? And in this case, the free advertising is coming because it is a good product.

Re: Use DuckDuckGo to improve your privacy online (2018)

#180

Post by dorgo » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 8:46 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #59

WalterSear wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has been the opposite. I tried switching to Brave and DuckDuckGo over the last six months, but found myself opening google and re-running the search so often that I recently gave up, and, with misgivings, reset my browser and search preferences back to google. Duckduckgo just never found what I was looking for, and, in broader searches, would return relatively fewer results.

I went through the same process, until I realized that Google’s results aren’t better for me because I evolved. What Google does is to have context and to use that context to make the queries more specific. They use for example your location and your history of searches. However being privacy conscious, I deleted my Google history and disabled the collecting of history in my Google account. And then the results becam…

Context can't explain everything. Ive read an article DDG found for me and wondered why all prices were in DM (currency in germany before euro). The article was really that old. Something like that never happend on google. Context can explain some fails of DDG, but not all.