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DuckDuckGo was down

duckduckgo.com

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Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#271

Post by lenerdenator »

TechDebtDevin wrote: post #230
FerretFred wrote: post #221

> "Update 1: Microsoft has confirmed an issue where users may be unable to access the Microsoft Copilot service" So not all bad then?!

I'm still unsure of what MS Copilot is. For the longest time I thought it was GH Cp because of the obvious association, but it's not. I'm assuming it's some bunk ass Bing "AI" assisted search? I truly think MS is the perfect example of a moat experiencing a drought. Unfortunately, money can't buy rain, it can only pump water from other sources. This never works.

For better or for worse, it absolutely works. Pumping water from other sources or copying another type of well has been Microsoft's MO for almost 50 years and they're one of the most valuable companies on the planet.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#272

Post by andyjohnson0 »

firebird84 wrote: post #246
dewey wrote: post #168

> Hopefully DDG will be back soon, as I'm loathe to go back to Google for search. Maybe Kagi is an option for you? I'm very happy with them and exclusively use them for more than a year now after never getting comfortable with DDG.

Kagi has the same problem for me. The results don't load about 50% of the time. I had to cancel my subscription because I couldn't just roll the dice every time I searched to see if it would come back. Happens to all devices on my network.

Not disputing your experience, but fwiw I've been using kagi since it was in beta (now a paying customer) and I can't remember this ever happening to me.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#273

Post by Timshel »

_heimdall wrote: post #223
Timshel wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not garanty resiliency but it does increase it. If tomorow mastodon.social disappear the network might lose 80% of it's content but recovery could be possible even if the server never come back.

My point was just that resilience still depends on how a system is distributed and what else is done. Distribution alone doesn't really make a difference, though pairing it was redundancy and failovers is going to get pretty far. The case of mastodon.social is really a question of whether the value there is the network and protocol itself or the user created content posted there. If its the user content, the value is…

Yes there is the question of network vs data :). And as you mention while some data end-up being distributed with Activity Pub the protocol is not made to allow restoration.

One point I find interesting too is that distributed network often allows more agency to external actors. For example if you believe that the resiliency of the mastodon.social instance is not enough for you then you can decide to host you own server with your preferred criteria.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#274

Post by alphabetting »

blondie9x wrote: post #270

Is it just me or is search terribly broken on the internet. It’s Google or Bing and Bing imposters. Why aren’t there more broad search options? Search was better when we had page rank algorithms. It’s gotten over condensed into 2 companies.

search has always been hard and say if you do get market share on google, a portion of the massive SEO industry will eventually turn their sights on you and make your life hell.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#275

Post by roenxi »

rvnx wrote: post #186
deutschepost wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I‘m pretty sure it was always just a proxy for bing. Just stripping away the Microsoft tracking. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27394925

If you use Bing: You have "only" Microsoft Bing tracking you If you use DuckDuckGo: Now, you have "Yahoo Ads" instead of Microsoft Ads, but these ads, they are in fact Microsoft Ads, except sold via Yahoo. In front of these Yahoo Ads, DuckDuckGo actually adds its own click-through tracker. Now you have DDG, Yahoo and Microsoft tracking you. Bonus point if you click on an Amazon affiliate link, because in that case, t…

If you use a search product then someone is going to have your search history and it'll more-than-likely be provided to law enforcement in your country who are the #1 threat to you [0]. It'll also be sent to some sort of data centre for tracking and whatever commercial uses that tracking is good for. I've never understood how that would be a threat, but if you don't like it it comes almost baked in to the business model. You can't stop them sharing data, so they will probably do it for money.

The sell is more that the data MS/DDG has is hopefully going to be siloed away from Google and so it is getting more expensive for an given entity to cross-reference information about you. And if we're lucky competitive pressure will peel DDG away from MS sooner or later if they get larger.

[0] This logic does lead to an argument for a fair chunk of HNs readership to use Yandex, because they are hosted in a country that is effectively at war with the English-speaking world but not presently targeting English speakers.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#276

Post by BirAdam »

FerretFred wrote: post #221

> "Update 1: Microsoft has confirmed an issue where users may be unable to access the Microsoft Copilot service" So not all bad then?!

So, uh, Copilot+PC, how much of their AI computer thing would be completely useless right now?

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#277

Post by rekoil »

Vinnl wrote: post #261
notRobot wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting how they insist that they use "so much more" than just Bing for their results, but the moment Bing goes down their search functionality is down entirely, unable to show a single result.

I believe that generally refers to all their custom answers, e.g. when you search for "weather ". Nevertheless, those don't seem to work either.

I bet their engineers are currently discussing how to make any such answers possible without Bing working, assuming the upstream data for them is not in fact also Bing.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#278

Post by [deleted] »

Kerbonut wrote: post #227
jraph wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Windows update restarted a critical server automatically. A core service is blocked from starting by a Candy Crush ad installed by the update. The Crandy Crush ad is somehow expecting a Copilot key to be pressed on the keyboard to let the system keep going. MS engineers are waiting for an online purchase of a new $400 keyboard with the Copilot key to complete and planning to run to the data center to plug the keybo…

No way Microsoft could be this inept… could they?

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#280

Post by t-sauer »

TechDebtDevin wrote: post #230
FerretFred wrote: post #221

> "Update 1: Microsoft has confirmed an issue where users may be unable to access the Microsoft Copilot service" So not all bad then?!

I'm still unsure of what MS Copilot is. For the longest time I thought it was GH Cp because of the obvious association, but it's not. I'm assuming it's some bunk ass Bing "AI" assisted search? I truly think MS is the perfect example of a moat experiencing a drought. Unfortunately, money can't buy rain, it can only pump water from other sources. This never works.

Copilot is branding, not a product or feature. Problem is that the features/products that run under that branding don't have proper names themselves and I guess that's what trips up a lot of people.
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