I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year • Hacker News Board

Re: I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year

#31

Post by arcatech » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

jlelse wrote: post #22

nano-erud wrote: post #11

If you want freedom and more privacy, stop using so much proprietary software. How much Apple lover out there talking about privacy or freedom. They are blind.

IMHO the Apple cult really sucks. Apple isn't really caring about privacy, they are just making a lot of money with false promises.

They are in a position to lose less money from protecting user privacy than other companies, so they’re doing so as a competitive advantage. It’s business, but it happens to work out pretty well for users.

Re: I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year

#32

Post by pyrophane » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

I use DuckDuckGo as my default, and have for a couple of years. My workflow is to the run all searches the DDG, then, if I don't see what I'm looking for, I run the same search using the "g!" keyword. If I were more concerned about privacy I'd use the "sp!" keyword. I find that I wind up routing searches to Google a little less than half the time.

Re: I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year

#33

Post by squeezingswirls » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

I use DDG daily but there's one thing that grinds my gears, and undermines their privacy by default statement.

They leak the searches in the URL like this https://duckduckgo.com/?q=this+is+not+private+at+all&ia=web

Re: I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year

#34

Post by curtis3389 » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

ibraheemdev wrote: post #23

One thing I've noticed I absolutely love is !bang. Being able to quickly jump to code documentation or a sports game is really awesome.

This is the killer feature! I use it all the time for work and life.

Need to find .NET documentation? !dnab

Need to search Mozilla docs? !mdn

Need to find a Debian manpage? !debman

Java docs? !java (or !java7, !java8, etc)

Stack overflow? !so

Google Maps search? !maps

Wikipedia? !w

Amazon? !a

Ebay? !ebay

Re: I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year

#35

Post by ibraheemdev » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

I've always wondered why DDG doesn't go fully open source? Their mobile apps and browser extensions are already open source, why not open source the search engine? Is it just because they don't want to deal with the extra work (they already shutdown duckduckhack), or is there something else that I am missing?

Re: I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year

#36

Post by evertheylen » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

teekert wrote: post #25

evertheylen wrote: post #10

My quick review after more than a year of DDG as my default: - Technical searches are usually on par with Google, or even better. What made me switch originally was that I got fed up with Google just straight up ignoring half my query, and I've had none of that frustration with DDG. - I like the dark theme (although I think Google's experimenting with that now) - DDG is absolutely worthless when it comes to local sea…

Did you set your location? I also though the results were pretty bad until I told ddg my location.

Damn, that seems to actually work well! Thanks! I'll try it out more over the coming days, looks promising.

Re: I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year

#37

Post by toddh » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #28

> Should Apple buy DuckDuckGo? I’ve seen this comment floated around the tech community for years, and while it’s an excellent idea, I don’t think it’s needed. As a non-Apple user I can only say: what?

Google pays Apple something like $9 billion a year to be the default search engine. So it seems unlikely.

Re: I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year

#38

Post by squeezingswirls » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

mynameishere wrote: post #4

I avoid google (even as a backup) because they've replaced displayed URLs with bizarre breadcrumb things. I can't fathom why even a single person at google thought that was a good idea, but no doubt I'm wrong. I'm sure it was a fun project team to be on though. The "Replace Slashes with Angle Brackets Initiative"

You can use something like https://github.com/palant/searchlinkfix

Re: I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year

#39

Post by psanford » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

I switched my phone's default search engine to DDG but still use Google on the desktop. I find the mobile experience for Google search to be much more annoying with the heavy emphasis on AMP.

Re: I’ve used DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a year

#40

Post by mvanaltvorst » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

toddh wrote: post #37

amelius wrote: post #28

> Should Apple buy DuckDuckGo? I’ve seen this comment floated around the tech community for years, and while it’s an excellent idea, I don’t think it’s needed. As a non-Apple user I can only say: what?

Google pays Apple something like $9 billion a year to be the default search engine. So it seems unlikely.

Apple could use DDG as leverage though. If Google stops paying those 9bn, Apple has no reasonable alternative search engine it could resort back to. By quietly continuing development on DuckDuckGo for ~500mn/year, it could be some deterrence towards Google's monopoly that aligns with Apple's own interests.