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

9to5mac.com

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

#41

Post by WayToDoor »

squeezingswirls wrote: post #33

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

How is that a leak ? The URL is only sent to ddg server, encrypted using TLS so no eavesdropper can read it. It also stays in your browser history and let you use the back button.

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

#42

Post by scaladev »

squeezingswirls wrote: post #33

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

Enable POST requests at https://duckduckgo.com/settings#privacy

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

#43

Post by kemayo »

squeezingswirls wrote: post #33

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

That seems like a reasonable trade-off. It's https so it's not visible to people snooping on you, and it being GET means that browser history and sharing links to searches works.

Plus, they do have an option to go POST-only, so if you don't like their already-very-private default you can change it.

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

#44

Post by time0ut »

squeezingswirls wrote: post #33

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

Just curious, but what threat model are you thinking of here?

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

#45

Post by dleslie »

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…

I still use the !gm bang too; but I'm starting to use the !mq bang more. It's a shame that the !osm bang is broken, because I use osmand instead of google maps.

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

#46

Post by scaladev »

curtis3389 wrote: post #34
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

Last time I checked there were only a few dozens of them.

Phew, now I can search my Earthbound tips right from the browser.

https://duckduckgo.com/bang#bangs-list

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

#48

Post by ethbr0 »

devenblake wrote: post #17
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…

Another thing for which DuckDuckGo is useless: finding media. It or whatever crawler it uses totally falls for those keyword-flooded sites that have a couple ads and then paragraphs of "wandavision watch free mr robot now free download all seasons season 1 101 dalmatians disney land[...]" autogeneration. I wish they'd do something about all the spam.

I think torrent meta-crawlers might be more what you're looking for. Try the torrentz2 clones

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

#49

Post by greggyb »

codecamper wrote: post #29

OK, but... does this mean you don't watch anything on Youtube?

It's not an all-or-nothing thing. For me, I watch YouTube in a dedicated Firefox Container (and everything else in either temporary containers or dedicated), so not much follows me around.

Figure out what you want, and then put together pieces that get you there.

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

#50

Post by ethbr0 »

evertheylen wrote: post #36
teekert wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a good UX quandary too: if there's information that improves the primary user intent (queries) that's privacy-sensitive (e.g. location), what's the most ethical way to permit the user to voluntarily submit that?
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