9 ms·
Duck Duck Go is starting to get coverage
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoHere's the joke: http://cuiler.com/ http://cuiler.com/ There's a bunch of easter eggs in there, e.g. search for cuil.
- iseff 17y agoClever. :) Out of curiosity, how does duckduckgo make money? I _never_ see ads (a good thing, but I'd love for the service to continue, so hoping that you're making money somehow!)
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoAds have been on and off, but subtle. There's an issue with the ad feed that I was using that caused me to turn it off for a while. I've been so busy I haven't fixed it, but I'll get to it soon :).
- dskhatri 17y agoYes, very clever! Is there any chance you would offer 2 or 3 different themes? I recognize that some users may like the look of the site but how about an option to select another theme for those of us who enjoy the quality of the search results but can't stand the range of colors and font style?
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoDuly noted. I've been adding lots of settings, and you can already change the font face & size: http://duckduckgo.com/settings.html http://duckduckgo.com/settings.html
- puffythefish 17y agoI'd definitely appreciate an option for a more traditional theme like Google's or Bing's. It would make it a lot easier to get used to.
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoThanks. I think I will be adding some themes one of these days.
- yan 17y agoAh just saw you're in Valley Forge.. I'm usually there every week or two.
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoCool, you should join this YC meetup group I started: http://www.groupomatic.com/haqsm3vj http://www.groupomatic.com/haqsm3vj
- rms 17y agoCongrats Gabriel! Shouldn't be too long until the acquisition chatter starts, but maybe it's more fun to have your own search engine...
- micrypt 17y agoWhat about the unfounded rumours related to the Cupertino chaps building/buying a search engine? Duck Duck Go + a splash of brushed aluminium... Might as well get the chatter started :P
- philwelch 17y agoI had this same idea awhile ago. Steve probably wants to jab the Google folks in the eye, and all the time there's this great search engine out there with a silly name....
- pavs 17y agoPro: TC covered it. Con: MG Siegler covered it. As expected, devoid of depth.
- dotBen 17y agoI'm wondering what this is built upon. Someone mentioned Yahoo! BOSS, which if true would be scary because the lifespan of that product is unknown (given Yahoo's move to Bing search technology). Anyone know the true skinny here?
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoIt's a complicated mashup of my index/crawler, structured crawls/dumps from crowd-source sites, live vertical APIs, and highly modified BOSS (edited, re-ranked, merged, omitted, etc.). The BOSS piece already uses Bing as a backup and could easily use Ask as well.
- timr 17y agoI'm curious...how long did you spend making the first rev? Also, about how much have you had to invest in the infrastructure for web-scale searching? Are you crawling in the cloud?
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoAbout 6 months before I launched something, which was really a MVP, if that. I've invested in infrastructure, but not a ton. I crawl some from the cloud and some from my own machines.
- jacquesm 17y agoWould you qualify it as a meta-search engine or as a search engine ?
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoI classify it as a search engine. I'm in to doing whatever produces the best results. I started with my own crawler before BOSS existed and then switched that piece to it (highly modified of course) to concentrate on where the marginal benefit lies. Techcrunch initially classified it as a "hybrid search engine," so maybe that is a better term?
- fnid2 17y agoLet's hope it can withstand the onslaught of popularity.
- kristiandupont 17y agoCongratulations. You have now reached the required seven mentions for me to develop curiosity. Duck Duck Go is now my default search engine - and so far I am liking it. Though I can understand why you wouldn't, I would love a "try Google" link on every page instead of only those with few results. Every now and then I need it and it just takes a few too many keystrokes to switch..
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoThanks for trying it out! I'll consider adding that link.
- monological 17y agoWhy would anyone use Duck Duck Go when you have Google? Someone break it down for me, please.
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoIt's a work in progress, but the about page is dedicated to answering this question: http://duckduckgo.com/about.html http://duckduckgo.com/about.html
- monological 17y agoThose are some good reasons. I like the way disambiguation is done, however it's aesthetically annoying. It feels like I'm using a search engine made by Fisher Price. For me to switch from Google would require a cleaner interface.
- RK 17y agoI find the "infinite" scrolling kind of annoying. It's jumpy when it loads and it gives you no reference of where you are in the results (versus which page you're on with Google, for example).
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- samdk 17y agoYou can disable it at http://duckduckgo.com/settings.html http://duckduckgo.com/settings.html (You can also change the fonts and font sizes and a few other things.) It's the only infinite scroll implementation I've run into that I don't dislike, though. I don't find it jumpy at all.
- potatolicious 17y agoThanks, I've been seeing references to DuckDuckGo for the past few months, but I'm going to try using exclusively this for the next week and see how it works out :P
- AndrewWarner 17y agoBecause I've watched Gabriel think through his business here on HN, seeing him get recognition and having his work complimented makes feel pretty freakin' proud.
- rms 17y agoHave you considered marketing yourself in China? You'll have a good year or two before being censored.
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoConsidered it, but honestly have no idea how to approach it. Ideas appreciated!
- arch_hunter 17y agoHaving lived in China for years, I am highly sceptical of any foriegner's chance at conquering the Chinese search engine market. (For multiple reasons, first because noone else knows Chinese like a native Chinese speaker, and second because from what I understand it is technically illegal for a foriegner to start an internet based buisness in China, so you could not even hire Chinese locals to help you.[Although there are supposed to be several ways around this, including opening your buisness in Hong Kong with a rep office in the mainland, or opening a consulting buisness in China that 'consults' your search engine and helps them run their China operations.) However I would give you a much higher chance of conquering the English-speaking market in China (expats, edjucated Chinese, etc.) who are afraid that Google will suddenly be blocked from under them, or after Google does finally get blocked from under them.
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoYes, this is pretty much why I haven't done anything. Is there anything in particular you can suggest for appealing to the English-speaking market in China?
- arch_hunter 17y agoThere are a bunch of websites that are frequented by expats in various parts of China (like gokunming.com), so any kind of advertising, either through forum posts or traditional ads might get you some trafic. But apart from that I can not think of anything easily done to advertise to the English-speakers in China.
- motters 17y agoI've been using DuckDuckGo for a week or so, and it seems pretty good. I like their privacy terms, and it makes a change from using Google. Search results seem quite satisfactory, and there a few nice features which Google doesn't have, although I expect in time they will probably imitate.
- rmorrison 17y agoI just started seeing traffic from DDG in the past few weeks or so, cool = )
- John212 17y agoWell done Gabriel. I'd love to read an article on how you created this, the problems you faced and your thoughts on the future of search. I think it would be fascinating!
- varaon 17y agoLinked articles, technical details and philosophy: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/duck-duck-go/ http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/duck-duck-go/
- shadowsun7 17y agoJust curious: why is the search engine called Duck Duck Go? Any reasons to the name? Update: found on Wikipedia - Some reporters have called the Duck Duck Go name silly or inappropriate for a search engine. When questioned about the name, founder Gabriel Weinberg has explained, "really it just popped in my head one day and I just liked it. It is certainly influenced/derived from Duck Duck Goose, but other than that there is no relation, e.g. a metaphor." The company's FAQ says something similar
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- idoh 17y agoDuck Duck Go is a game we played in elementary school. It has to do with a bunch of kids sitting in a big circle, and one kid chasing another around it. I can delve more into the rules if you want ... I don't know how this relates to the search engine though.
- setori88 17y agoduck bing punch duck google punch and go!
- philwelch 17y agoI express total incomprehension.
- 17y ago
- markbao 17y agoUpon recommendation from users on HN, I replaced my Chrome default search engine with Duck Duck Go. I haven't looked back since. Results are excellent, the zero-click data is amazing, and the semantic analysis ("Java can mean different things. Which one? (Some meanings grouped into sections Animals, Computer science, Consumables, Entertainment, Geography, Plants, and Transportation.)") is incredible. When I searched for my own name, immediately my official site, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and blog (among tens of other profiles) appeared. http://duckduckgo.com/?q=mark+bao&v= http://duckduckgo.com/?q=mark+bao&v= This is the kind of chatter that should be going on when we're talking about a "Google killer"—Duck Duck Go is more of a decision engine than Bing claims to be. Amazing work, Gabriel!
- justinchen 17y agogiving it a go as my default chrome search engine too. nice work gabriel! i love the infinite scroll.
- petercooper 17y agoWhen I searched for my own name, immediately my official site, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and blog (among tens of other profiles) appeared. When I searched for mine, 6 people and places (that aren't me) came up. I had to click a second time on "Try Web Links" and had two entries at #15 and #27. On Google I have 3 results in the top 10. For a search that actually matters I did "ruby blog." Ruby Inside was #2 but junk results contaminated positions 1,3,4,5, and 6. In Google, all top 10 results are relevant and high quality. From what I can make out doing various searches, Google's "trick" has been to rank popular/high traffic sites higher, whereas DDG doesn't have the benefit of Google's DNS and Google Analytics data.. if DDG somehow weeded out the results with very poor Alexa (or better) scores, though, I suspect the results would be stronger. Kudos to Gabriel for doing a top notch job though. DDG has a long way to go before I could use it instead of Google (who are too far ahead right now), but it's the best alternative I've seen for sure and competition is good.
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoThanks. I appreciate the detailed feedback. Certainly some queries are better than others. Your name hit a disambiguation page, which currently gets treated completely differently than other names. I should merge these in some much more useful way, but I haven't done this yet. The ruby blog results do suck. Sorry about that. Better blog results are currently in process.
- nishantmodak 17y agoWhat was awesome is - when i searched for something and it did not yield many results. As the last link, it suggested try this search on google. that's just gr8
- brandnewlow 17y agoCongratulations. Seriously. Go Duck Duck Go. I think this is a pretty good example of a guy taking his product along through iterations until it got good enough to garner some well-deserved coverage.
- pieter 17y agoOne issue I have with DDG is that sometimes, when it Doesnt find what I'm looking for, I try to press command-l to go to the location bar to use sone other service. It seems DDG eats up this shortcut for something else, very annoying.
- hcho 17y agoDuck Duck Go is all fine in English search queries but it is less impressive for languages other than English. If a word in the query happens to be a word in English, you get results in English scattered around. Here's an example, I searched for "radio hören" which means listening radio in German: http://duckduckgo.com/?q=radio+h%C3%B6ren&v= http://duckduckgo.com/?q=radio+h%C3%B6ren&v= The third result is in English. The search query has a trivial stop character in it, the umlaut o. It should be fairly straightforward to detect that this query is not in English. Any plans for better l10n?
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoYes, most definitely plans for this are on the list! It's a recurring piece of feedback.
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoFor the record, this joke was the idea of Alexis Ohanian (kn0thing) of YC & reddit fame. I want to check with him first before outing him--hence the delay :).
- dctoedt 17y agoMaybe I'm missing something, but at first glance "Cuiler" and "Cuilest" seem like pretty blatant trademark infringements of "Cuil." Possibly there's a parody defense; I dunno. (See generally http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_infringement for an overview of how trademark infringement claims are analyzed, especially the "eight digits of likely confusion" test. The sophistication-of-the-purchaser factor might be significant here, but some courts also recognize what's been called "initial-interest confusion.") Moreover, the Cuiler and Cuilest Web pages look _remarkably_ similar to the Cuil search page, and nothing like DDG's own search page. This makes me wonder about copyright infringement. (Again, possibly there's a parody defense.) If DDG didn't get a license from Cuil, perhaps Mr. Weinberg should anticipate getting a letter from Cuil's lawyers. Is there something I'm not aware of that changes things? (This isn't legal advice, etc., etc.)
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoYes, it's meant to be and to be interpreted as a parody, i.e. fair use, etc. No cease and desist or lawsuit filed yet :). I did email them after the fact saying no hard feelings and hoped they continue the joke, but we'll see!
- ramanujan 17y agoGabriel, you might consider using your position to do things the big search engines can't do. For example, one-click access to mp3s, pdfs, kindle books, movies, torrents, and the like for download. That is one of the killer features that propelled Baidu to prominence in China, and of course it's how Youtube got sold for $1.6 billion. Moreover as long as it's not hosted on your servers, it is a legal gray area. Google has made Lala into a world-beater by putting it at the top for all kinds of music searches. If you went one step beyond and added a little code that would convert that audio stream into an mp3...or that would convert a Youtube link (with one click) into an mp4...that would be very interesting and useful.
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoThat is basically a core piece of my strategy: http://duckduckgo.com/blog/what-google-cant-copy-easily.html http://duckduckgo.com/blog/what-google-cant-copy-easily.html I hadn't considered that feature though. Don't you think the RIAA and MPAA would come after me in like 3 sec?
- devin 17y agoFacilitating the download of something that previously was only available for streaming? Probably. I think he's on to something, though. You can get away with quite a bit as a search engine if you're creative in the way you present the search results.
- pinksoda 17y agoThey don't move that quick. Took them a few years to come after me with an old "grey area" site of mine, and it was ranked in the Alexa 500 for quite some time, receiving 400-800k unique visitors per day.
- udfalkso 17y agoIf I search for a location (i.e. Lafayetta, CA), it would be great to see a map and get a link to google maps. I find this to be one of Google's most useful features. Otherwise, I'm liking this thing :)