Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out • Hacker News Board

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#41

Post by anatoli » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 5:51 AM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #34

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a DDG extension available for Safari, which will make DDG the default search provider. https://extensions.apple.com/#search-extensions (it takes just one click to install and activate)

That adds a silly pop up button in the menu bar, and doesn't integrate with the unified search/url bar. I'm using SafariKeywordSearch http://safarikeywordsearch.aurlien.net which means when I type "d ip address" it uses duckduckgo instead of Google.

You should probably try it again. It does indeed set DuckDuckGo as a search engine for the address bar when installed. The pop up button can be removed.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#42

Post by boyter » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 5:52 AM UTC

joenathan wrote: post #28

ck2 wrote: post #19

Many people like DuckDuckGo for good reasons but let's be clear: It does not do any of it's own indexing. It's just a frontend to other very very expensive backends that have millions of dollars behind them. The entire company can be shut down overnight if it's data feeds are cut.

According to DuckDuckGo's FAQ you are wrong http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-s... The DuckDuckBot crawls and indexes the web. http://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.html

Has anyone ever seen DuckDuckBot hit their site? I don't have any web property large to appear via DuckDuckBot, but maybe someone else does? Im fairly certain it crawls Quora, as via this tweet https://twitter.com/yegg/status/33693491838066688

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#43

Post by ck2 » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 5:53 AM UTC

bradly wrote: post #39

ck2 wrote: post #19

Many people like DuckDuckGo for good reasons but let's be clear: It does not do any of it's own indexing. It's just a frontend to other very very expensive backends that have millions of dollars behind them. The entire company can be shut down overnight if it's data feeds are cut.

I've asked Gabriel specifically and he said that they use their own crawler/indexer.

Their results are nearly identical to Bing in every case I've tried.

Let me know if you find a search result that is different.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#44

Post by elssar » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 5:54 AM UTC

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #2

From the article: "In an interview on Wednesday, [Gabriel] Weinberg said it is difficult to make his DuckDuckGo the default search site in Google's Chrome web browser, and that Google disadvantages his company in the Android mobile operating system as well. .... "It's one-click to get onto Firefox and it's five steps on Chrome and people generally fail," he said. The Google spokeswoman said popular search alternative…

I don't know what he is talking about. I have my search engine settings page open and there are more than 20 different search engines listed that I can make default with one click, including Duck Duck Go!

I like the idea and philosophy behind Duck Duck Go, but maybe improving the search results, which are no where near as good as Google's results, would help bring more traffic than whining about non-issues.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#45

Post by ck2 » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 5:55 AM UTC

amitamb wrote: post #38

ck2 wrote: post #19

Many people like DuckDuckGo for good reasons but let's be clear: It does not do any of it's own indexing. It's just a frontend to other very very expensive backends that have millions of dollars behind them. The entire company can be shut down overnight if it's data feeds are cut.

But they are using legitimate means to provide search results. And feed(/API) providers are not shutting them out. Same argument can be made about Google, they do not produce their own data just copy webpages from content providers. If content providers decide to block them from indexing their websites, Google would be irrelevant.

Look at the twitter token fiasco for an example of what happens when you build your business model on someone else's API.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#46

Post by ck2 » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 5:58 AM UTC

boyter wrote: post #42

joenathan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to DuckDuckGo's FAQ you are wrong http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-s... The DuckDuckBot crawls and indexes the web. http://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.html

Has anyone ever seen DuckDuckBot hit their site? I don't have any web property large to appear via DuckDuckBot, but maybe someone else does? Im fairly certain it crawls Quora, as via this tweet https://twitter.com/yegg/status/33693491838066688

It's not just you. Maybe he only crawls the Alexa top 10k or some similar minimal set.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#47

Post by Sephr » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 6:00 AM UTC

They are completely forgetting about the standard cross-browser external.AddSearchProvider API. One-click install initiation works fine in both Chrome and Firefox in a DuckDuckGo + Google Suggest search plugin I put together at http://eligrey.com/blog/post/encrypted-duckduckgo-with-googl...

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#48

Post by elssar » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 6:02 AM UTC

joenathan wrote: post #28

ck2 wrote: post #19

Many people like DuckDuckGo for good reasons but let's be clear: It does not do any of it's own indexing. It's just a frontend to other very very expensive backends that have millions of dollars behind them. The entire company can be shut down overnight if it's data feeds are cut.

According to DuckDuckGo's FAQ you are wrong http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-s... The DuckDuckBot crawls and indexes the web. http://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.html

Try searching for something using their api, and compare with websearch. There is a world of difference between the search results. IIRC they aren't allowed to share results from some of their other sources via their api, so you can get a good idea of how much they take from other sources and how much from their own index.

But that is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned. As long as the results are relevant and they got them legally, then who cares where or how they came from?

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#49

Post by mindprince » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 6:03 AM UTC

On chrome, when I right click on the search bar on duckduckgo.com (or any site), I get an option to "Add as search engine...", on clicking it, I get a dialog box for specifying Name, Keyword and URL. What chrome can do is add a checkbox to this dialog box for making it the default search engine.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#50

Post by paulsutter » Thu, Nov 22, 2012, 6:07 AM UTC

This article is pure crybaby bullshit PR about a nonexistent problem. Does anyone care about DDG anyway? They're trying to solve a completely imaginary problem, and they haven't got a hope in hell of creating a viable search engine as that costs billions of dollars.

Why is this article even on HN?