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DuckDuckGo was down

duckduckgo.com

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Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#541

Post by bluGill »

arrowsmith wrote: post #525
red_admiral wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bing but without copilot" alone would be a product worth having. But I think DDG has a few more things on top of that, like the `!bang` stuff and the bit where they don't send tracking data on you to Microsoft.

I really don't understand why any technically literate person would be impressed by the "!bang" stuff on DDG. You know your browser already provides this feature, right? Just configure some custom search keywords in your search settings. What does DDG offer that's better than this?

They proxy the !bang things so that whoever provides the search gets less info about who you are. Less isn't nothing, but it is still better than your browser can do without the proxy.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#542

Post by jjulius »

arrowsmith wrote: post #525
red_admiral wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bing but without copilot" alone would be a product worth having. But I think DDG has a few more things on top of that, like the `!bang` stuff and the bit where they don't send tracking data on you to Microsoft.

I really don't understand why any technically literate person would be impressed by the "!bang" stuff on DDG. You know your browser already provides this feature, right? Just configure some custom search keywords in your search settings. What does DDG offer that's better than this?

>Just configure some custom search keywords in your search settings. What does DDG offer that's better than this?

Pre-configured keywords could be considered better than manually-configured keywords.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#544

Post by elevatedastalt »

arrowsmith wrote: post #526
elevatedastalt wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal term is "deception".

It's not deception if you tell people you're doing it.

DDG massively oversells their own contribution to the search results.

If you look at their marketing material, they claim to "use a variety of sources, 500+ to bring you your search results". This is of course technically correct, but the truth is they are a relatively thin wrapper on Bing results.

So yes, I'd claim it is a form of deception.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#546

Post by dredmorbius »

cam_l wrote: post #519
dredmorbius wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bangs make searching third-party sites easier. For HN, for example: !hn by:dredmorbius ddg bangs (I don't know how to force that to search comments by default, but that's a toggle on the results page.) Others are image, weather, and Wikipedia searches. You can share your bang searches with others. Since the syntax is centralised, you're not working through other people's individual search shortcuts. DDG maintain the…

>!hn by:dredmorbius ddg bangs We found no stories matching by:dredmorbius ddg bang. :( But thanks, I had no idea hn had a bang!

My usual use case is to search HN comments. Problem is that there doesn't seem to be a way to specify comments on the bang search itself, so you have to toggle the results page option, or click "search for comments" to get the 57 (at this writing) comment hits:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>

I really wish the bang would default to comment search, as it's a much broader search target. Posts are limited to 80 characters, comments to rather more than that (there is a max comment length, and I've hit it, but it's fairly generous). So your odds of matching term(s) in a comment are higher than for posts.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#547

Post by cpeterso »

radiorental wrote: post #156
mhuffman wrote: post #141

Can't wait to find out what happened here. This seems to be a massive outage. Interesting how fragile things become when so much technology is concentrated into just a few companies.

Genuine question, are distributed systems naturally more resilient? I can see arguments for both sides. Your point and then the hidden failure modes without central observability and ownership. Nothing exists in isolation.

“A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable.” — Leslie Lamport, 1987

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#548

Post by BobaFloutist »

dylan604 wrote: post #532
datavirtue wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to unwind the pedants.

Nobody was being pedantic. I don't use the web that way. I never type into a search engine the domain of a site I want to go to, so that's just totally odd to me. I'm of an age where we actually know what a domain is, and do not use the web like it is AOL keywords. Especially when >90% of the time, you just tack on a .com to your keywords to find the actual website.

> I never type into a search engine the domain of a site I want to go to

I think the plurality, if not majority, of people use a browser configured such that the URL bar is automatically a search engine if it doesn't recognize the URL.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#549

Post by Gormo »

BubBob wrote: post #358
Gormo wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do search engines relate to animals and biodiversity? They seem to be completely unrelated things.

Because sponsored links are the single biggest source of revenue on the web! It's a $200-300 billion market, with Google owning more than 90% of it. If just 1% of Google users switch to KARMA, it will fund the actions of its non-profit partners to the tune of $1 billion per year! Switching is free and effortless, it only takes a few seconds...

Seems like a bit of confusion of purpose. Why would I not use the search engine that gives me the most useful search results, and then, unrelatedly, just donate to an organization like the World Wildlife Fund if I care about protecting biodiversity? It seems strange to link these things together.

Re: DuckDuckGo was down

#550

Post by forthewwwpoints »

SassyBird wrote: post #537
bambax wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, exactly. They're mostly a front end for Bing. I know they have their fans, and this remark will probably anger them, but I have never understood the point of DDG.

DDG UI is a lot calmer. Opening Bing feels like entering a Middle-Eastern market.

I created this account just to say thank you for this comment.
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