DuckDuckGo is growing • Hacker News Board

Re: DuckDuckGo is growing

#21

Post by slouch » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 4:53 PM UTC

white_devil wrote: post #7

So what's the plan for making money with DDG?

Ads. They are already running ads including amazon affiliate.

Re: DuckDuckGo is growing

#22

Post by mkr-hn » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 4:59 PM UTC

maximusprime wrote: post #11

white_devil wrote: post #7

So what's the plan for making money with DDG?

They got investment. Who needs profit these days?!

If you're running a company in an industry that's being encroached on by Google, throwing some money at a serious competitor like DDG might be a good investment.

Re: DuckDuckGo is growing

#23

Post by snarfy » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 5:04 PM UTC

I was always impressed with the speed of response by the ddg team. I'd report an issue, and within minutes (sometimes seconds) I'd have a reply from the ddg team. Broken queries were fixed in days, sometimes hours.

Re: DuckDuckGo is growing

#24

Post by pkamb » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 5:18 PM UTC

Sodaware wrote: post #18

The !bang syntax is definitely one of DDG's best features. Being able to access a few hundred site searches with a keyword is incredibly powerful, and saves time on creating quick searches in Firefox. (The full list of !bang commands http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html )

Did it mess any other programmers up, thinking "NOT youtube"? Don't search youtube, search the rest of the web...

Re: DuckDuckGo is growing

#25

Post by pkamb » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 5:21 PM UTC

gurraman wrote: post #14

suking wrote: post #3

I quickly used DDG for the first time for some searches and you guys place WAY too much emphasis on exact query match domains. Also, including .com.au addresses in a local search when I'm in the US is probably not a lot of help. Best of luck.

This is biting me as well - I use search in place of the address bar a lot. Now, in DDG, searches like "asoiaf reddit" does not find the root-site. I think I'm not alone in using the address bar less and less. While I'm at it: - I would probably change the color of the address in the results to make it easier to distinguish from the excerpt/description. - Remove the green background that is displayed on hover. I find…

+1 for changing the URL color. I'd prefer it directly under the title as well. And maybe find a way to emphasize the important parts of the URL, cut out the random numbers.

Re: DuckDuckGo is growing

#26

Post by DanBC » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 5:23 PM UTC

dmfdmf wrote: post #20

What I like is no zooming car ads blocking content like on Yahoo or the unhelpful auto-entry and auto-guessing features that gets in my way like on Google (e.g. searching for what Google thinks I meant instead of what I actually typed, did Google buy Microsoft Bob and Office Assistant Clippy?)

It's particularly annoying when Google substitutes words without telling you. Or when they silently drop words and you only realise when a ctrl-F through the web-page says nothing found.

Re: DuckDuckGo is growing

#27

Post by epi0Bauqu » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 5:24 PM UTC

pkamb wrote: post #25

gurraman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is biting me as well - I use search in place of the address bar a lot. Now, in DDG, searches like "asoiaf reddit" does not find the root-site. I think I'm not alone in using the address bar less and less. While I'm at it: - I would probably change the color of the address in the results to make it easier to distinguish from the excerpt/description. - Remove the green background that is displayed on hover. I find…

+1 for changing the URL color. I'd prefer it directly under the title as well. And maybe find a way to emphasize the important parts of the URL, cut out the random numbers.

Thx -- we cut stuff out of the URL now, though perhaps could cut out more. Note you can change the color in the settings: http://duckduckgo.com/settings.html

We've also experimented with moving it around (including where you suggest).

Re: DuckDuckGo is growing

#28

Post by deno » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 5:29 PM UTC

pkamb wrote: post #24

Sodaware wrote: post #18

The !bang syntax is definitely one of DDG's best features. Being able to access a few hundred site searches with a keyword is incredibly powerful, and saves time on creating quick searches in Firefox. (The full list of !bang commands http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html )

Did it mess any other programmers up, thinking "NOT youtube"? Don't search youtube, search the rest of the web...

Being used to Google, I would first try “-site:youtube.com .”

Re: DuckDuckGo is growing

#29

Post by bull » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 5:35 PM UTC

Is there a way to get google results instead of yahoo results? I don't mean using the !g syntax, but getting actual google results in the format of duckduckgo.

I love the site, but alot of the time, Yahoo's results are weak.

Re: DuckDuckGo is growing

#30

Post by slowpoke » Thu, Oct 13, 2011, 5:37 PM UTC

Sodaware wrote: post #18

The !bang syntax is definitely one of DDG's best features. Being able to access a few hundred site searches with a keyword is incredibly powerful, and saves time on creating quick searches in Firefox. (The full list of !bang commands http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html )

Definitely agree. I set DDG as Firefox' default search engine (about:config --> keyword.URL) and it has come to the point that searching with the dedicated search bar has begun feeling clunky. I think there are no important sites which I frequent that aren't included in the huge amount of bangs yet. Could just as well get rid of the search bar altogether...