19 ms·

DuckDuckGo moves beyond search to also protect you while browsing

727 points by brisance 9y ago

BadassFractal 9y ago
How does this differ from Disconnect or Ghostery?
- yegg 9y ago
  We're trying to put all the privacy essentials we can make seamless -- tracker blocking, upgraded encryption, private search and more to come -- all in one package, across all major browsers and platforms. In this respect, on any major mobile device or desktop browser, you should be able to look up DuckDuckGo and with one download get seamless privacy protection as you search and browse the web. With regards to tracker blocking in particular, there are more nuanced UX differences. In the UI we're trying to move away from 'x trackers blocked' and instead group trackers from networks together, trying to identify the umbrella company and purposes. Second, we're grading each site based on its privacy measures (including privacy policies with help from TOSDR), and telling you at a glance how protected you are on an A-F scale, based on what we could do (e.g. block trackers and upgrade encryption).
- piyush_soni 9y ago
  I came to ask the same question. Have been using 'Blur' [0] extension for the same (After hearing Ghostery is actually by an advertizing company). [0] : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplus/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplu...
  - Arnt 9y ago
    It isn't really. Ghostery makes/made its money selling things like a report on what advertising ends up being on your site, which you as site owner might quite reasonably want to know. (Advertising space is sold and resold at dizzying speed.) IIRC Ghostery recently sold itself to Cliqz, which in turn is owned by Burda, a publishing conglomerate. Mozilla owns a bit too.
    - piyush_soni 9y ago
      Yes, looks like they are now owned by some other company. Previously, one of many references [1] said this, which really smells fishy to me(Now not sure if the article itself is wrong): "Ghostery is owned by Evidon, a company that collects and provides data to advertising companies. It has a feature called GhostRank that you can check to "support" them. The problem is, Ghostery blocks sites from gathering personal information on you—but Ghostrank will take note the ads you encounter and which ones you block, and sends that information back to advertisers so they can better formulate their ads to avoid being blocked. The data is anonymous, and Ghostery still does everything it promises to do to protect your privacy." [1] : https://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actually-sells-data-to-a-514417864 https://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actual...
      - fencepost 9y ago
        Seems logical - if you're an advertising company or an organized group of advertising companies and you know that people are going to be doing ad-blocking or at least tracker-blocking, if you can provide a tool that's 90% of the way there which also gets you metrics, etc. then at least you get that little bit of data and the existence of a "good enough" option may also delay stronger measures implemented by someone else.
        Arnt 9y ago
        That assumes that ghostery users block some ads, not all. Try this alternative: The reports sold by ghostery tell example.com the link targets and reseller chains for each ad on its site, so it can keep away the ads for herbal viagra or fake gucci clothes. (Ad space is often sold through resellers, I've seen five-reseller chains myself and have heard stories about longer ones.)
- alimbada 9y ago
  Seems to me like it's Disconnect and HTTPS Everywhere rolled into one with a UX that's targeted towards less techy folks.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
JeanMarcS 9y ago
I like the grade system. Sometimes I’m amazed to see the number on my uBlock icon skyrocketing. It’s cool to know where not to go if you can avoid it
- akerro 9y ago
  >uBlock icon skyrocketing. Some sites have 100s of fallback ads and trackers (usually just domains and subdomains), once tracker 1 failed to load, it tries to load 2 which is the same file on a server, but with different URL. They have literally 100s or 1000s of such fallback URLs.
  - epicide 9y ago
    This is why the internet won't get better until ads are cut out like a cancer. It is more profitable for them to keep adding layers of ads and trackers than it is to actually build something useful that people would be willing to pay for.
  - janlaureys 9y ago
    Praise to everyone involved in managing blocking lists. <3
  - nerdponx 9y ago
    I'm just grateful that they still serve ads over separate domains, instead of rigging up the ad tech on the server side and embedding tracking into the "functional" Javascript. I get more worried that once Wasm hits, the only way to tell if you're being tracked will be to monitor individual HTTP requests, which even then might become impossible if everything is sent to and from opaque CDN domains. I imagine the only thing currently standing between us and this nightmare is that people don't want to actually work with any tracking on the backend; easier to embed it in the front-end and let the vendor put whatever they want in the script and serve all the requests.
    - dx034 9y ago
      Only a matter of time until Cloudflare starts offering ads. They can embed them at the edge with no/minimal JS and links/image files of the host domain.
fwdpropaganda 9y ago
I'm not sure I understand what value DDG is providing exactly. I use Bing with cookies and JS disabled. DDG on the other hand can't be used with JS disabled. Before you say that privacy is about cookies and JS has no bearing in it, think that Google for example uses all kinds of JS to gather information about your browser. That's extra datapoints that they gather about you.
- pferde 9y ago
  Of course it can be used with JS disabled: https://duckduckgo.com/html/ https://duckduckgo.com/html/
  - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
    Oh thanks for that. But don't say "of course" please. Typically the stuff you're looking for should be on the front page, not hidden away in /html. In any case, I'm still waiting to understand why this is better than using any other search engine with cookies and JS turned off.
    - pferde 9y ago
      Yes, I agree that the JS-less version could be more discoverable. I learned about it years ago when DDG was new, in some online discussion forum - perhaps even here on HN - and have been using it via a keyworded bookmark ever since. I never even visit their title page.
      - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
        > via a keyworded bookmark I'm trying to get this working on Firefox right now. Doesn't work for some reason. I'm trying to associate keyword "d" with duckduckgo.com/html, but instead I just land on duckduckgo.com/html itself.
        pferde 9y ago
        I did it with right-click on the text box, and "Add a Keyword for this Search..." context menu entry.
acct1771 9y ago
Is nobody here aware of/concerned by DDG ownership's previous endeavors?
- neospice 9y ago
  Please elaborate, I'm genuinely not aware of any of their previous endeavours nor who the ownership is.
  - yegg 9y ago
    I occasionally get trolled around my previous company, Opobox, an early social networking company that I ran from 2003-2006. As far as I can tell, the trolling theme is that since I ever was associated with any kind of social networking company, that somehow taints me/DuckDuckGo. It's purpose was to help reunite old friends and classmates, and it actually helped develop my privacy views and practices for what became DuckDuckGo. For example we did what I think were some innovative things: --We collected the minimum amount of information possible. --Allowed people to automatically remove all their minimal information permanently with one click or email. --Actually charged money as a business model instead of using advertising. --Never worked with any third-parties in terms of data targeting (and didn't need to since that wasn't our business model). Of course, these also made the company ultimately not able to compete in the space, which was completely subsumed by Facebook. I took these privacy ideas to DuckDuckGo, though, and realized in the case of Web search the minimum amount of information needed is actually zero. Hence, our privacy policy.
    - lakechfoma 9y ago
      That's a good history and makes a lot of sense. Thanks for being active in the community and for everything that DDG does!
    - davidcuddeback 9y ago
      > --Actually charged money as a business model instead of using advertising. Have you considered charging for premium DDG features? IOW, what's the long-term viability of DDG?
edraferi 9y ago
Very interesting. I wonder how DDG's new privacy tools compare to uBlock and Brave. The Terms of Service; Didn't Read [0] project is super cool. Looks like their information is a bit dated though. Hopefully teaming with DDG will give them a boost. [0] https://tosdr.org/index.html https://tosdr.org/index.html
vinny_36 9y ago
moving to DDG right now. and it's done
Flow 9y ago
Installed the iOS app and figured they would offer a content blocker for iOS Safari, just like Firefox Focus do. But their app didn't offer any. Let's hope they do in the future.
- yegg 9y ago
  We're working on that. Because the content blocking mechanism doesn't offer fine-grained controls, we couldn't make it seamless and still block the things we think should be blocked -- like Google Analytics.
  - Flow 9y ago
    Hmm, can't speak for other people, but I seldom whitelist anything. I just leave or avoid the site. I also has Safari configured to go into Reader Mode automatically. Makes for a very clean web. Have DDG written anything about how you make money? I wouldn't mind paying a modest yearly fee. And I also wouldn't mind getting to vote on feature-requests such as "Better support for presenting stackoverflow results".
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    > Because the content blocking mechanism doesn't offer fine-grained controls, we couldn't make it seamless and still block the things we think should be blocked -- like Google Analytics. Just curious, what about the Content Blocking API makes this impossible? I was under the impression that you could block JavaScript from the rule list.
    - yegg 9y ago
      Some google analytics code is embedded into buttons that are essential for the Web site to operate, so if you block them then the website will cease functioning properly. To get around that, we still block it, but insert some inert code in its place that will make the button function again properly. This nuanced replacement is not available through the API -- it's more all or nothing.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
KozmoNau7 9y ago
I applaud the initiative, but how does the Firefox extension differ from Privacy Badger or Disconnect? Does the extension learn trackers as it goes, like Privacy Badger? What does it offer over something like uBlock Origin with the appropriate tracking blocklists? Also in Firefox, I now have two "Search DuckDuckGo" entries in the right click menu, one from being the default search engine, and one (with an icon) from the extension. They do the exact same thing, so why have them both?
- yegg 9y ago
  We're trying to put all the privacy essentials we can make seamless -- tracker blocking, upgraded encryption, private search and more to come -- all in one package, across all major browsers and platforms. In this respect, on any major mobile device or desktop browser, you should be able to look up DuckDuckGo and with one download get seamless privacy protection as you search and browse the web. With regards to other extensions, we found that they generally lack some combination of all the essentials (e.g. missing encryption, private search), aren't totally seamless (i.e. break some of the web), or aren't available across all major browsers and platforms. With regards to tracker blocking in particular, we would like to be as comprehensive as possible while not breaking the Web, and are close to that with this initial launch, utilizing some open source lists including Disconnect and Easylist. We are not currently using the machine learning aspects of Privacy Badger, however. There are more nuanced UX differences, however. In the UI we're trying to move away from 'x trackers blocked' and instead group trackers from networks together, trying to identify the umbrella company and purposes. Second, we're grading each site based on its privacy measures (including privacy policies with help from TOSDR), and telling you at a glance how protected you are on an A-F scale, based on what we could do (e.g. block trackers and upgrade encryption). Thank you for the feedback on the right-click menu. We will look into that.
  - pknight 9y ago
    One privacy essential is a built-in vpn/proxy like Opera has done with its browser, this makes it slightly harder for some fingerprinting ad trackers to follow a user around.
philg_jr 9y ago
DDG as a search engine is just good. Its been my default for a long time. I wish Mozilla would make it the default so more users could be introduced to it. Why hasn't this happened yet?
- louhike 9y ago
  Most of Mozilla revenue comes from patnerships for the default search engine.
- tmikaeld 9y ago
  Google pay Mozilla Almost $1B for Firefox Search, Mozilla also need money even though they are trying to go by donations as much as possible. With time, as DDG is getting bigger and getting more revenue I think and hope that they will become the default instead!
  - BatFastard 9y ago
    What is the monetization model of DDG?
    - antimatter 9y ago
      Advertising. But not via tracking and personalization. They show ads to you based on the keywords you used to search and don’t follow you around the web.
    - kerberos84 9y ago
      Ads of course. Bot not as greedy as google. Not tracking every fingerprint of you. They just show sponsored search results according to your search terms at that moment, in contrast to your whole browsing history/habits.
      - simias 9y ago
        I use ddg as my main search engine but disabled ads because I can't stand them. I wish they'd let me pay for the service. "If you're not the customer you're the product". I want to be the customer.
seba_dos1 9y ago
Let me use this thread to lazily look for simple advice. For privacy, I'm now using: DuckDuckGo Plus, First Party Isolation, Smart Referer, HTTPS Everywhere, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Canvas Defender and Decentraleyes. There's also NoScript installed, but disabled (waiting for its clickjacking protection to return in WebExt version, although I might switch back to whitelisting JS sometime). Plus there's also Firefox's Tracking Protection enabled all the time. Anything worth adding? Anything that can be removed for sure, cause it just duplicates something else from this list? Anything should be replaced? (if yes, then why?)
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  Instead of Noscript, use uBlock Origin in dynamic mode: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering
  - seba_dos1 9y ago
    ClearClick is what I'm interested in, not script blocking, at least right now. WebExt version doesn't have it now, but I'm keeping it installed, so it just upgrades when it's added back.
    - my_ghola 9y ago
      Firefox bypasses right-click blocking when you press shift. What it doesn't bypass is websites placing transparent things on top of what you wish to right-click on (for example images on Twitter). For that I use Stylus to add CSS and move things away.
      - seba_dos1 9y ago
        It's not about right-click bypassing, it's exactly about transparent things. ClearClick checks whether the image of what you click matches the image of element that's being clicked, shows you the preview and asks if you really want to click it. The best pre-WebExt feature of NoScript.
azag0 9y ago
How does the Safari extension play with the native content blockers like 1blocker? Is this supported? I noticed that with 1blocker enabled, the initial grade is usually higher than what it would be without 1blocker.
Nelkins 9y ago
What is the advantage of this over Firefox Focus? And is the Privacy Essentials extension available for Firefox for Android? Trying to understand why I should use the DDG app over either of those two, since the DDG app seems like it is just a browser without tab functionality. Also, not really related, but does anybody know how to make the home screen search bar on Nexus/Pixel phones use DDG instead of Google?
- yegg 9y ago
  Tab functionality should be coming shortly, along with other standard browser functionality -- feel free to influence the roadmap with more suggestions :). It is not available yet for Firefox for Android, though we would like to make it so shortly. Our app additionally includes a few things: --Upgraded encryption, in that if we can determine a site works on an encrypted version, we will also send you there automatically. --Privacy grading, in that we show you at a glance how protected you are, which you can tap to dig into the details. We have more to do, though we've spent a long time trying to make this UX intuitive and informative, including an A-F grading scheme, grouping trackers by networks, and showing you over time who we caught trying to track you. --Special attention given to blocking while at the same time not breaking the Web.
  - minkiu 9y ago
    Hi, thanks for all you guys do at DDG. I was wondering if the app will get the "Open Link in Browser" option? I tend to search with DDG and when I find what I want, open it in FF and keep it there. (I noticed the Bookmark bit). Cheers!
    - yegg 9y ago
      Thanks for the suggestion -- duly noted.
Raphmedia 9y ago
Whenever I try to put back the search engine that I use as Chrome toolbar search engine it uninstall the app. Edit: Quick support made me change my wording to a less passive aggressive one.
- yegg 9y ago
  Can you please elaborate as to the issue -- I'm having trouble understanding exactly what is going on. If it is easier, you can email me directly at yegg at duckduckgo.com
  - Raphmedia 9y ago
    Problem A: 1) Install App on chrome 2) Do a search using the browser's address bar 3) A dialog with the text "is this the search engine you expected" appears. 4) Click the button to revert to previous settings. 5) App is now uninstalled. --- Problem B: 1) Install App on chrome 2) Go to chrome://settings/ 3) Scroll to "Search engine used in the address bar" 4) Unable to change the settings as Chrome says "DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials is controlling this setting". 5) Click "Disable" in the hope that the app will still be installed but with a different default search engine. 6) Entire app is disabled.
    - fencepost 9y ago
      OK, so when the Extension is installed in Chrome it takes over the omnibox search, directs it to DDG, and does not allow it to be changed. Put differently, to get the features like tracker blocking, privacy policy scoring, etc. you must also be using DDG for search. I'd call that something that probably should be changed, or at least changeable in the options.
      - yegg 9y ago
        Unfortunately, this is currently the way Chrome works. We're looking for a way around it, but it looks like they changed this behavior sometime last year. In other browsers you can easily use another search engine without disabling the entire thing.
Zhyl 9y ago
I see that the DuckDuckGo app is retiring stories. I am sad about this as I really liked the mix of articles it would provide. @yegg, any chance of a stories-only spin-off app?
- yegg 9y ago
  I actually made that stories feed originally for myself, before DuckDuckGo even existed. As I still rely on it, I ported it personally to https://twitter.com/watrcoolr https://twitter.com/watrcoolr
  - Zhyl 9y ago
    This makes me happy! Watrcoolr.us (linked in the bio) seems to be a parked domain though, just as a heads up.
    - yegg 9y ago
      Ahh, I'll delete that -- used to be where it was ages ago.
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
Not sure how it can do this AND work with Yandex. A company thats allowed to operate in Russia.
kevlar1818 9y ago
This isn't really a big deal, but the features they are touting as new "today" have been in the FF version of the extension for at least the month or so I've had it installed. I'm honestly curious if I'm missing something or not.
- yegg 9y ago
  We had to soft-launch early in Firefox because of the change in Firefox 57 of how extensions work, though were still getting out the kinks and preparing it for the rest of the platforms.
figers 9y ago
Use DuckDuckGo every day, but wish it had a date range of one year as a search filter like google, needed for programming searches where the landscape changes rapidly...
- yegg 9y ago
  This has been a long-term struggle to get right, though I really see the light at the end of the tunnel and think it may come sometime this year, hopefully sooner than later. For others who may not know though, we do have last month -- drop down above results.
  - pweissbrod 9y ago
    I just wanted to take a moment and write my appreciation for your fantastic work. Services such as duckduckgo are needed now more than ever. The fact that it is stable and responsive enough for me to depend on it 100% every work day is amazing
  - 01001010 9y ago
    The lack of this feature probably accounts for half my !g searches – happy to hear it's on its way! DuckDuckGo is a beacon of hope – thank you.
  - ClassyJacket 9y ago
    Curious, why is that of all things so hard to implement compared to the gargantuan task of searching the entire internet? I know nothing about the field of search or big data but it seems to an outsider like it would be almost trivial compared to the rest of what you do.
- JTon 9y ago
  Agreed. I use date filters when troubleshooting software issues after new patches/updates; so I can find the freshest discussions.
- userbinator 9y ago
  Adding the current year to your search query often works if you want to find very new results.
batat 9y ago
Ukraine region not available any more: while "ua-uk" URL parameter is still mentioned on search params page[1], it's not working. I didn't get the answers on DDG forum (now closed in favor of reddit), neither on /r/duckduckgo. I suspect this could be connected somehow to Yandex block. Anyway, currently can't use DDG for local search, sad :( [1] https://duckduckgo.com/params https://duckduckgo.com/params
altern8tif 9y ago
@yegg, is DuckDuckHack coming back? That was one of my first forays into open source and was hoping that there is more that I (and the community) can do to help improve DDG further.
- yegg 9y ago
  We are trying to find ways to make that work. Right now though, all of these apps and extensions are open source, and we would welcome contributions.
beaconfield 9y ago
Good. Glad to see DDG keeps moving forward.
phillipcarter 9y ago
Just came here to say that I’ve been using duckduckgo for the past year and absolutely love it. Keep up the wonderful work.
- yegg 9y ago
  Thank you so much! We really appreciate the support and are glad that you're enjoying the search experience. This announcement should give you more privacy protection when you leave our search results pages.
  - z_open 9y ago
    I notice AdNauseam blocks your adds even when I have it set to allow non-tracking ads. What sort precautions does DDG do to protect users who use your ads?
    - yegg 9y ago
      Our entire search results page is anonymous at page load, and our ads are non-tracking in the sense that they are just based on that one search page request and have nothing to do with any other personal information (as we don't have any). It's unfortunate that adblockers are blocking our ads, but I understand that our more privacy-aware ads are extremely rare.
  - burfog 9y ago
    Privacy is cool and all, but I switched because Google was very obviously suppressing results. I don't want to be in a political bubble, completely unaware of events that might not be pleasing to Google employees. I'm not Google's small child.
- koheripbal 9y ago
  One thing I often add to my search terms is the site: tag to restrict results to, say stackexchange, reddit, etc... In the past it's been a necessity to get non-spam results on DuckDuckGo. I'm not sure how needed it still is. Any thoughts?
SubiculumCode 9y ago
Was there any truth to the Russia-DDG connection rumor going around the internet a few years back?
- djsumdog 9y ago
  Well DDG does buy indexes/data from Yandex for search, if that's what you're referring to.
nukeop 9y ago
I'm using DuckDuckGo every day, but I wish DuckDuckHack was easier to contribute to. Maybe something like letting users load their own modules for local use, and public repositories? I'd like to help improve instant answers and widgets (like json pretty print).
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  Similarly, I'd like to vote with my wallet, without having to see ads to do so.
- j_s 9y ago
  DuckDuckHack is now in Maintenance Mode | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15199489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15199489 (Sep 2017)
- granda 9y ago
  You can, I'm on mobile at the moment so I can't pull a link but if you Google it (DDG it) you'll find it
- r3bl 9y ago
  It wasn't really difficult to contribute to them about a year or two ago. I've contributed a couple of cheatsheets (for example, clicking on the info icon when searching for "nmap cheatsheet" will reveal my GitHub username), which were, at the time, considered a low-hanging fruit way of contributing instant answers. Later on, I was later on added to the DuckDuckHack Contributors team[0], which was border-line spamming, up to the point where I had to redirect email notifications from the DuckDuckGo organization to my non-primary email address. Occasional email is fine, a dozen or two dozens of emails in my inbox almost every single day was not. And finally, I am aware that there was some grand change about how people contribute to DuckDuckGo introduced relatively recently, which makes my experience a bit outdated. The combination of their actions after I've contributed to them made me pretty uninterested in the idea of contributing more instant answers. Nowadays, I only suggest bangs from time to time, which is as easy as filling out a form[1]. [0] https://github.com/orgs/duckduckgo/teams/duckduckhack-contributors https://github.com/orgs/duckduckgo/teams/duckduckhack-contri... [1] https://duckduckgo.com/newbang https://duckduckgo.com/newbang
Taylor_OD 9y ago
Is it worth the switching costs of going from google to duckduckgo?
- macintux 9y ago
  One of the many nice features of DDG is that you can fall back to Google searches trivially enough by adding a "!g" at the front of your search results. The bang syntax also works for directing searches to YouTube, Wikipedia, etc. I value my privacy, so the few times I have to redirect a search to Google is a small price to pay. Definitely recommend making the switch. (Of course, if Google already knows everything about you, you'll probably find their results much better tuned for you, so YMMV. I was quite amused and pleased when all the suggested search completions for—IIRC—"git" in a recent DDG search were completely irrelevant to me.)
  - cpeterso 9y ago
    You can also use "!sp" to get Google search results anonymized by startpage.com.
prepend 9y ago
Google started this really annoying habit of including results that don’t have the words you are searching. You can get around this by including the word in quotes but it’s frustrating to spend a few minutes looking items returned by Google to not find what you’re looking for to realize they showed it to you even though it didn’t have your search terms. I bet this is great for current events like “when is Star Wars 1 playing” when the person probably meant Star Wars 8. But sucks when researching items or searching for a paper or particular product. I started using Duck Duck Go and it works great. The privacy is an added bonus.
- rlv-dan 9y ago
  My experience is that DDG does this too. Very annoying.
  - userbinator 9y ago
    Yes, DDG does it too. The other significant difference I've noticed, in my admittedly short-but-intense periods of DDG use, is that unlike Google, it won't block you with a CAPTCHA for "searching too hard"; but sometimes it just runs out of results. Looking through too many search pages, or using queries containing quotes and other "advanced" things like site: or intext: or intitle: operators tends to get you blocked by Google pretty quickly, which is extremely infuriating --- and the point at which I switch to DDG or something else for a while.
  - bitL 9y ago
    They started doing that recently :-/ I guess the appeal to ape leader is strong, even if leader lost its ways. But I am running out of options for search so have to live with it...
- garyclarke27 9y ago
  I agree, this is extremely annoying, Google should add an option - for their users who know what they are doing - to always do a verbatim search. I also still detest their mobile first format on iPad, again why on earth don’t they let their users choose Desktop format, if they prefer this. I have to use slower than Safari iCab Browser to get around this.
iandanforth 9y ago
Edit - Chrome only issue for which the devs don't have good options. I was very disappointed to discover that the app forces you to use DDG for search. In Chrome there doesn't appear to be a way to use Google as your default search engine while the extension is active. I like its other features but Google search IMO is much much better than DDG and don't want to be forced to switch.
- C0nCave 9y ago
  One of the advantages of DDG over other search engines is that with only a few keystrokes you can search anywhere you like. !g blah will search google, !gi will search google images, !rdoc will search the Ruby documentation.
  - bwanab 9y ago
    DDG even allows users to add their own search prefixes. !mmls Margaret Atwood searches my local library system for the books by that author.
- chrisper 9y ago
  I guess that decision was made because you can use Google Search with DDG. Just add "!g " in front of your search query.
  - salvar 9y ago
    That does not justify this in my view. "It's easy for users to change their search habits to get the same experience they had before, so let's just change the default search for them".
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  Just to add to the other comments already addressing the !g option: I use DuckDuckGo exclusively but I almost never use it's actual search results as a Google replacement for precisely this reason. It's just that I use !w, !imdb, !m, !n, !ups & friends so often, than it's worth it to just prefix my search with !g when I do want traditional web search. But now I've stopped using Google as a shortcut to get to what I already know I'm looking for but don't want to type the full address. I really just use DuckDuckGo results when I do want the privacy especially.
mk89 9y ago
Duckduckgo improved drastically over the last 6-7 years. I have no idea how they did it, but they did a great job.
mlinksva 9y ago
Are the apps and browser extensions 100% open source? I didn't notice anything in the text, but _maybe_ https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo-privacy-extension https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo-privacy-extension https://github.com/duckduckgo/Android https://github.com/duckduckgo/Android https://github.com/duckduckgo/iOS https://github.com/duckduckgo/iOS have the complete source code?
- yegg 9y ago
  Yes they are all completely open source.
benwilber0 9y ago
I've been using DuckDuckGo for a few months since I switched to the new Firefox. It's generally OK but I can tell that the results are just ever so slightly worse than Google. I get irrelevant results and old results. It's just obviously not nearly as smart and that's probably because it doesn't know as much about me as Google does.
- bambataa 9y ago
  DDG is usually good enough but I do find myself dropping back to Google for some searches (easy enough with !g). It does make clear how tailored Google searches are to the user. For example, when I search for programming terms that have non-programming meanings (library names etc) I get a much more diverse list. Google pretty much exclusively only shows me programming-related results. With DDG I need to add my location to the search rather than relying on Google knowing my exact address. I do find DDG location search very annoying as clicking on a map result always tries to open it in the Maps application, which I don't want.
granda 9y ago
Can't use 1Password on the iOS app. Deal breaker.
dwg 9y ago
Very cool... Some areas for improvement I noticed off the bat while using the app: * Scrolling sometimes feels slow. * Doesn't seem to work with 1 password autofill. Not sure if 1password, DuckDuckGo, or both are needed to address this. * Would be nice to be able to use Google as a search engine (though I admit I could just go to google.com first).
- __blockcipher__ 9y ago
  With DDG you should be able to use !bangs. example: "!g my google query"
titanomachy 9y ago
I was curious about the "fake" site they used in their example, creepysite.com. I was pretty surprised to find that it redirects to google.com by an HTTP 302 redirect. Good marketing for duckduckgo.
mattlondon 9y ago
Generally I am positive about this but I'd have to give some feedback that tag containers/managers are not automatically bad. At the moment it seems like this tool just flags tag containers (e.g. tagcommander, google tag manager) as a "tracker network" which they are not. Of course, a tag container might contain tracking beacons and tags etc but they might also contain benign other scripts (e.g. for A/B testing). I would prefer it if these sorts of tools blacklisted the tags inside the container (they are just loaded via ajax like everything else), rather than the containers themselves.
mattferderer 9y ago
If you're interested in this, I suggest the new web browser Brave. It does a great job of cleaning up all the ads & protecting your privacy. I also haven't ran into sites that block me yet like I do when using an ad blocker on Chrome. You can choose the search engine you want to use unlike this extension. It's also built on top of the same code as Chrome so you get all those benefits as well. Brendan Eich (JavaScript & Mozilla) is the CEO. Slightly off topic, Brave also has an interesting feature as well to help support content creators. Since a lot of content creators rely on ads, you have the ability to add a small amount of funds to a crypto wallet that Brave can use which get distributed to the websites you visit the most over the month. You can enable or disable this for specific websites as well. I think this is a great idea but it may have a hard time catching on. I think people will have a hard time adding money to a virtual wallet to pay for something they "think" they are already getting for free. At the same time I love the concept as it is a way for you to reward people for good content & create a disincentive for bad content.
- radicaldreamer 9y ago
  I love Brave but I've found battery life to be much lower when using Brave on my MacBook than either the latest Chrome or Safari.
  - NotQuantum 9y ago
    It drains my 2017 MBP about 40% faster than Firefox Quantum. I wonder if it's mining crypto in the background...
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  How about a simply browser extension that let's you donate to page / site X? This would also be great on GitHub and GitLab. You could buy credits in bulk so the credit card transaction fee only happens once. And then, if the page has an account, dole out those credits as you surf. Probably not massive amounts of money but better than the ads based model. At least there would be a option.
  - 9y ago
dwg 9y ago
Improving privacy is great, but I find the extreme approach to erase all history taken by DuckDuckGo and others make them difficult to adopt. I often use the history feature to re-find sites I remember visiting before. Bookmarks don't solve this problem because even if I tried to remember to bookmark anything that might be important later, I wouldn't be able to nor would I always be able to make that judgement accurately. So, what I like to have instead of the nuclear option (erase all history) is a browser that protects my identity but also my history (e.g. behind a locked gate) that I can use always without having to think about so I don't have to choose between privacy or history.
adreamingsoul 9y ago
This is awesome.
a_c 9y ago
To prevent suffering from tyranny of small decisions[1], I want to support duckduckgo, financially and technically. Do they take donation? Or do they have an open sets of challenge to work on? Would love to help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_small_decisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_small_decisions
gimmeayrwlt 9y ago
Weldone DuckDuckGo! I am so happy, that there is companies like you guys have. Freedom of search without censorship like google. You guys Rock!
dumbfounder 9y ago
Maybe it's just a semantic argument because I am a search engine developer, but I wouldn't really call DDG a "search engine". It uses Bing to power results. I would describe it as a "search interface" that gives you advanced search related tools in addition to standard search, some stratified results, and then it takes a privacy angle to differentiate itself. As such, I think the move to browser safety is a natural extension of what they do. That said, how the heck do they make money? I only very rarely see a single ad, and there isn't much money in NOT tracking people. It's very hard to make money on search if you aren't Google (I would know, I have tried several times).
- huphtur 9y ago
  Amazon Associates is one way DDG monetizes. Not sure how much revenue that brings in, but would love to see some stats on this.
  - dumbfounder 9y ago
    I didn't think that was kosher as it incentivizes them to prioritize results from Amazon.
    - yegg 9y ago
      Here's some more details on how we make money: https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates Short answer is we're profitable since 2014 primarily with non-tracking search ads based on the keyword (type in car and get a car ad). While we don't serve that many ads, these are still lucrative enough to pay all the bills. The affiliate portion is quite small now, and we do not change any rankings based on them.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
sixothree 9y ago
I really do like the design of the post-install splash page. The vista scene reminds me of the firefox post install page.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tomxor 9y ago
creepysite.com ... used in their screenshot as an example, so funny that creepysite.com actually does redirect to google.com :D
01001010 9y ago
This is great! I have been waiting for an extension such as this which: (1) is seamless, (2) doesn't break the web, (3) doesn't require too much tweaking, and (4) is offered by a company I trust. Mainly in order to install on friends' and family's devices who aren't tech savvy – this appears to be exactly that. Thank you. Love the UX (sans below), nice touch integrating with ToS;DR. Feedback: The "enhanced from X to Y" is not perfectly clear to me. I'm guessing you're saying "we were able to upgrade the rating to Y from X". Correct? The badge seems to be showing the upgraded rating rather than the "actual" rating – this is not what I expected. I expected to see the privacy grade of said website, not the grade received by blocking scripts and/or redirecting to https. Question: Will the extension for Safari be available from the Safari Extensions Gallery[1]? This would be even better, avoiding (said friends and family) having to "Trust" the safariextz and get the disclaimer that it isn't from the gallery. (I currently only see your old search extension in the gallery, will they, perhaps, be merged?) [1]: https://safari-extensions.apple.com/?q=duckduckgo https://safari-extensions.apple.com/?q=duckduckgo
- eridius 9y ago
  Not only will putting it in the gallery avoid having to "trust" it but it will also allow the extension to auto-update.
  - yegg 9y ago
    Yes, we are trying to update the extensions gallery as we speak.
- 01001010 9y ago
  Update: The extension is now available through the Safari Extensions Gallery[1] and has, as far as I can tell, replaced the previous search extension. [1]: https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.duckduckgo.safari-HKE973VLUW https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.duckduck...
TheCoreh 9y ago
Won't using ToS;DR alienate smaller services that are not listed there? I only see reasonably big sites on their site.
- yegg 9y ago
  The hope is to work with them and their process in such a way that we can dramatically increase the number of sites rated.
throwawayfinal 9y ago
Please put the install links at the top.
djhworld 9y ago
I use a pi-hole on my network so I think that achieves most of the things this extension offers (minus the site rating thing) I use DDG as my main search engine though, and will continue to do so.
rapnie 9y ago
what i _really_ dislike from Google is how they offer downgraded UI's to non-Chrome browsers like firefox on android. so no 'tools' to specify filters, and no 'Related images' in image search. i looked why this was and its apparently intentional. brr.. evil :)
jacksmith21006 9y ago
Choice is good. Big fan of Google and use a lot as super curious person but if does not work for you good there are other choices that work for your needs.
godelski 9y ago
Kind of interesting seeing some of the ratings. Like Mozilla and HN have a B because of unknown privacy practices. Both these websites are fairly old, and it seems odd to me that the privacy practices of Mozilla are unknown.
jnordwick 9y ago
I miss Alta Vista and all the operators you could add to your queries.
nunobrito 9y ago
Very happy to see the improvements. Personally I stopped feeling comfortable on using search engines across the Atlantic since about a decade. In case you'd be living around Europe, http://qwant.com http://qwant.com is picking up the pace here as a search engine focused on privacy-aware users. As an engineer, the service is answering quite well to my queries related to software.
xkarga00 9y ago
Does the DDG addon replace other addons like HTTPSEverywhere or uBlock?
pmoriarty 9y ago
I'm concerned that I'd be handing over data about my browsing habits to DDG and its partners in order to use some of the features described in the article: - The Privacy Grade rating (A-F) when visiting a website. - Scoring of websites in terms of service and privacy, by partnering with Terms of Service Didn't Read. I'm not sure how these services can be provided by DDG and its partners without them knowing which websites I'm browsing to. IMO, it's none of their business, even if they promise not to keep the data or give/sell it to anyone -- a promise which is not verified by any trusted third party, as far as I know.
- yegg 9y ago
  All of this calculation happens on your device, and is not handed over to us. Additionally, our privacy policy is to not store or collect any personal information at all: https://duckduckgo.com/privacy https://duckduckgo.com/privacy
  - pmoriarty 9y ago
    How can I be sure that DDG is actually following its own privacy policies?
    - yegg 9y ago
      Our privacy policy is extremely strict, and is the basis for our company. If we are to be found violating it at all, we would be ruined, and would probably be criminally liable. In addition, a lot of what we do, including this new app and extension is open source so the code can be examined.
benp84 9y ago
This is blocking Google Analytics, Facebook Connect and New Relic on my site. How would DuckDuckGo prefer that startups measure traffic, ad ROI and site performance? What's the "right" way?
- freeone3000 9y ago
  traffic and ad roi is exactly the type of thing I'd like to keep private! The correct way would be not to measure these things. for performance, chrome and firefox have built-in profilers, and chrome connects quite well to mobile.
- tombrossman 9y ago
  The "right" way is to accept that privacy-conscious visitors reject your use of third-party tracking, and if you really need to track their visits you must use a first-party tool (Piwik, GoAccess, plain old logfile parsing...). It may not seem fair and it may be frustrating, but blocking third-party tracking is just so easy and anyone who cares about privacy can do it with minimal effort. As a side benefit, when you start doing your own tracking from server logs, you gain valuable insight into where the gaps in data are from the third-party trackers, and precisely how many visitors are under counted.
  - benp84 9y ago
    You're right that third-party trackers aren't that reliable, and I do my own log analytics for the easy/important stuff, but I'm not about to roll my own New Relic. This also seems bad for early-stage startups, where developer time is severely limited.
    - quadrangle 9y ago
      Early stage startups could simply skip all the analytics and do more qualitative UX research with smaller numbers of people they actually interact with in a human way and use large stats for things that actually matter like sales and revenue etc. The whole idea that you need all the analytics is at least overblown and suffers from the streetlight effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect
TimMurnaghan 9y ago
Are people mostly positive about this? I was already using DDG - then I get an unexpected pop up asking for permission to rewrite everything. I think we should develop a reflex to routinely refuse to give popups permission - so now I've lost DDG in the search bar. I would much rather that it stayed as a non-evil search provider rather than bundling ABP/Ghostery. Maybe I'm in a minority wanting separation of concerns? Or maybe it really is better than ABP and Ghostery and I've missed it by being put off by the delivery mechanism?
- edraferi 9y ago
  hmm you should be able to use DDG in your search bar without using the extension. Just add them as a search provider. Here are instructions to do so in Chrome: http://www.omgchrome.com/duckduckgo-chrome-chrome-os/ http://www.omgchrome.com/duckduckgo-chrome-chrome-os/
- yegg 9y ago
  I'm sorry for putting you off. The intention is to have all the privacy essentials in one package, and make those essentials each best in class. Over the coming months we will explain more about how we're doing so and why we think that is the case. Right now though know that it is doing more than just tracker blocking and private search: it is also upgrading encryption where possible and exposing poor privacy practices when known. In any case though, I understand if you feel you are covered with other extensions and just want search. In that case, you don't really need a DuckDuckGo extension and can set the search via these instructions: https://duckduckgo.com/install https://duckduckgo.com/install
  - nedt 9y ago
    I'd still be nice if the omnibox search can be changed. That's the reason I've removed the extension after 15 minutes. I have my own search service with a couple of keywords I need all the time. The fallback/default search is ddg anyway.
pablo-massa 9y ago
To block trackers I use Brave on my phone and Chrome + uBlock Origin on desktop. I just checked this extensions and seems that they put a lot of attention on UX, I loved it and is all in one product, I like the vision of DDG. Someone knows if the blocking part is as good as uBlock and Brave?
LeoPanthera 9y ago
This gives my (personal) site a "B", but literally the only thing it "fails" is that it doesn't have a privacy policy listed at the (third party) site "ToS;DR". My site is a personal site, doesn't have logins, and doesn't even have any Javascript, so I think the "B" is a little misleading. (Side note: Amusingly, if you go to https://tosdr.org https://tosdr.org with the plugin installed, they also fail for apparently not having a privacy policy listed on their own site. Also it says in a very large font that their ratings are outdated, so I really don't know how useful this is.)
- yegg 9y ago
  We don't feel we can give anything an "A" until TOSDR vets the privacy policy, and unfortunately they don't have a ton of sites vetted yet. However, we are committed to working with them to dramatically increase the number of sites rated.
Accacin 9y ago
At the moment I use uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, NoScript. Can this addon replace all of these?
- aorth 9y ago
  Don't you worry that your extensions are fighting each other? I only use uBlock Origin.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
User_424 9y ago
Here is a list of G operators https://goo.gl/jYQk2t https://goo.gl/jYQk2t
dawnbreez 9y ago
"Install an arbitrary piece of code on your machine to improve your privacy." Note that there is no link to the source code, no checksum. There's no indication that DDG isn't doing exactly what they claim to be protecting against. And the question comes up: what do they stand to gain from having users install a mobile app on their phone?
- O5vYtytb 9y ago
  Isn't this it? https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo-privacy-extension https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo-privacy-extension
- eikenberry 9y ago
  Doesn't DDG publish almost all their code via github? https://github.com/duckduckgo https://github.com/duckduckgo
Sonnol53 9y ago
Saw you guys on Product Hunt!!
tuxracer 9y ago
Is the TOSDR data included with the add-on and referenced offline or is every URL being sent to TOSDR?
Tepix 9y ago
I don't like the fact that the browser combines the search bar and the address bar. It means that when I enter a URL character by character, the search engine will know where I am going next even thought I didn't need the assistance of a search engine in the first place. A "privacy first" browser can do better in this regard.
latexr 9y ago
My biggest frustration with search engines is that certain websites I consider bad are common in results. These include sites that require a login to use properly (Pinterest and Quora) as well as websites that are known to have wrong information (W3Schools). What I’d like to have is an option in my search engine (ideally that would not require a login) to always exclude certain domains from results. That would improve my browsing experience more than any other feature. Blocking trackers is something others are already doing well.
anttharj 9y ago
I installed DuckDuckGo on my android in order to have a DuckDuckGo search widget and now it's replaced with a laggy browser. smh

727 points by brisance 9y ago

BadassFractal 9y ago

How does this differ from Disconnect or Ghostery?

yegg 9y ago
We're trying to put all the privacy essentials we can make seamless -- tracker blocking, upgraded encryption, private search and more to come -- all in one package, across all major browsers and platforms. In this respect, on any major mobile device or desktop browser, you should be able to look up DuckDuckGo and with one download get seamless privacy protection as you search and browse the web. With regards to tracker blocking in particular, there are more nuanced UX differences. In the UI we're trying to move away from 'x trackers blocked' and instead group trackers from networks together, trying to identify the umbrella company and purposes. Second, we're grading each site based on its privacy measures (including privacy policies with help from TOSDR), and telling you at a glance how protected you are on an A-F scale, based on what we could do (e.g. block trackers and upgrade encryption).
piyush_soni 9y ago
I came to ask the same question. Have been using 'Blur' [0] extension for the same (After hearing Ghostery is actually by an advertizing company). [0] : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplus/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplu...
- Arnt 9y ago
  It isn't really. Ghostery makes/made its money selling things like a report on what advertising ends up being on your site, which you as site owner might quite reasonably want to know. (Advertising space is sold and resold at dizzying speed.) IIRC Ghostery recently sold itself to Cliqz, which in turn is owned by Burda, a publishing conglomerate. Mozilla owns a bit too.
  - piyush_soni 9y ago
    Yes, looks like they are now owned by some other company. Previously, one of many references [1] said this, which really smells fishy to me(Now not sure if the article itself is wrong): "Ghostery is owned by Evidon, a company that collects and provides data to advertising companies. It has a feature called GhostRank that you can check to "support" them. The problem is, Ghostery blocks sites from gathering personal information on you—but Ghostrank will take note the ads you encounter and which ones you block, and sends that information back to advertisers so they can better formulate their ads to avoid being blocked. The data is anonymous, and Ghostery still does everything it promises to do to protect your privacy." [1] : https://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actually-sells-data-to-a-514417864 https://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actual...
    - fencepost 9y ago
      Seems logical - if you're an advertising company or an organized group of advertising companies and you know that people are going to be doing ad-blocking or at least tracker-blocking, if you can provide a tool that's 90% of the way there which also gets you metrics, etc. then at least you get that little bit of data and the existence of a "good enough" option may also delay stronger measures implemented by someone else.
      - Arnt 9y ago
        That assumes that ghostery users block some ads, not all. Try this alternative: The reports sold by ghostery tell example.com the link targets and reseller chains for each ad on its site, so it can keep away the ads for herbal viagra or fake gucci clothes. (Ad space is often sold through resellers, I've seen five-reseller chains myself and have heard stories about longer ones.)
alimbada 9y ago
Seems to me like it's Disconnect and HTTPS Everywhere rolled into one with a UX that's targeted towards less techy folks.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

JeanMarcS 9y ago

I like the grade system. Sometimes I’m amazed to see the number on my uBlock icon skyrocketing. It’s cool to know where not to go if you can avoid it

akerro 9y ago
>uBlock icon skyrocketing. Some sites have 100s of fallback ads and trackers (usually just domains and subdomains), once tracker 1 failed to load, it tries to load 2 which is the same file on a server, but with different URL. They have literally 100s or 1000s of such fallback URLs.
- epicide 9y ago
  This is why the internet won't get better until ads are cut out like a cancer. It is more profitable for them to keep adding layers of ads and trackers than it is to actually build something useful that people would be willing to pay for.
- janlaureys 9y ago
  Praise to everyone involved in managing blocking lists. <3
- nerdponx 9y ago
  I'm just grateful that they still serve ads over separate domains, instead of rigging up the ad tech on the server side and embedding tracking into the "functional" Javascript. I get more worried that once Wasm hits, the only way to tell if you're being tracked will be to monitor individual HTTP requests, which even then might become impossible if everything is sent to and from opaque CDN domains. I imagine the only thing currently standing between us and this nightmare is that people don't want to actually work with any tracking on the backend; easier to embed it in the front-end and let the vendor put whatever they want in the script and serve all the requests.
  - dx034 9y ago
    Only a matter of time until Cloudflare starts offering ads. They can embed them at the edge with no/minimal JS and links/image files of the host domain.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago

I'm not sure I understand what value DDG is providing exactly. I use Bing with cookies and JS disabled. DDG on the other hand can't be used with JS disabled. Before you say that privacy is about cookies and JS has no bearing in it, think that Google for example uses all kinds of JS to gather information about your browser. That's extra datapoints that they gather about you.

pferde 9y ago
Of course it can be used with JS disabled: https://duckduckgo.com/html/ https://duckduckgo.com/html/
- fwdpropaganda 9y ago
  Oh thanks for that. But don't say "of course" please. Typically the stuff you're looking for should be on the front page, not hidden away in /html. In any case, I'm still waiting to understand why this is better than using any other search engine with cookies and JS turned off.
  - pferde 9y ago
    Yes, I agree that the JS-less version could be more discoverable. I learned about it years ago when DDG was new, in some online discussion forum - perhaps even here on HN - and have been using it via a keyworded bookmark ever since. I never even visit their title page.
    - fwdpropaganda 9y ago
      > via a keyworded bookmark I'm trying to get this working on Firefox right now. Doesn't work for some reason. I'm trying to associate keyword "d" with duckduckgo.com/html, but instead I just land on duckduckgo.com/html itself.
      - pferde 9y ago
        I did it with right-click on the text box, and "Add a Keyword for this Search..." context menu entry.

acct1771 9y ago

Is nobody here aware of/concerned by DDG ownership's previous endeavors?

neospice 9y ago
Please elaborate, I'm genuinely not aware of any of their previous endeavours nor who the ownership is.
- yegg 9y ago
  I occasionally get trolled around my previous company, Opobox, an early social networking company that I ran from 2003-2006. As far as I can tell, the trolling theme is that since I ever was associated with any kind of social networking company, that somehow taints me/DuckDuckGo. It's purpose was to help reunite old friends and classmates, and it actually helped develop my privacy views and practices for what became DuckDuckGo. For example we did what I think were some innovative things: --We collected the minimum amount of information possible. --Allowed people to automatically remove all their minimal information permanently with one click or email. --Actually charged money as a business model instead of using advertising. --Never worked with any third-parties in terms of data targeting (and didn't need to since that wasn't our business model). Of course, these also made the company ultimately not able to compete in the space, which was completely subsumed by Facebook. I took these privacy ideas to DuckDuckGo, though, and realized in the case of Web search the minimum amount of information needed is actually zero. Hence, our privacy policy.
  - lakechfoma 9y ago
    That's a good history and makes a lot of sense. Thanks for being active in the community and for everything that DDG does!
  - davidcuddeback 9y ago
    > --Actually charged money as a business model instead of using advertising. Have you considered charging for premium DDG features? IOW, what's the long-term viability of DDG?

edraferi 9y ago

Very interesting. I wonder how DDG's new privacy tools compare to uBlock and Brave. The Terms of Service; Didn't Read [0] project is super cool. Looks like their information is a bit dated though. Hopefully teaming with DDG will give them a boost. [0] https://tosdr.org/index.html https://tosdr.org/index.html

vinny_36 9y ago

moving to DDG right now. and it's done

Flow 9y ago

Installed the iOS app and figured they would offer a content blocker for iOS Safari, just like Firefox Focus do. But their app didn't offer any. Let's hope they do in the future.

yegg 9y ago
We're working on that. Because the content blocking mechanism doesn't offer fine-grained controls, we couldn't make it seamless and still block the things we think should be blocked -- like Google Analytics.
- Flow 9y ago
  Hmm, can't speak for other people, but I seldom whitelist anything. I just leave or avoid the site. I also has Safari configured to go into Reader Mode automatically. Makes for a very clean web. Have DDG written anything about how you make money? I wouldn't mind paying a modest yearly fee. And I also wouldn't mind getting to vote on feature-requests such as "Better support for presenting stackoverflow results".
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > Because the content blocking mechanism doesn't offer fine-grained controls, we couldn't make it seamless and still block the things we think should be blocked -- like Google Analytics. Just curious, what about the Content Blocking API makes this impossible? I was under the impression that you could block JavaScript from the rule list.
  - yegg 9y ago
    Some google analytics code is embedded into buttons that are essential for the Web site to operate, so if you block them then the website will cease functioning properly. To get around that, we still block it, but insert some inert code in its place that will make the button function again properly. This nuanced replacement is not available through the API -- it's more all or nothing.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

KozmoNau7 9y ago

I applaud the initiative, but how does the Firefox extension differ from Privacy Badger or Disconnect? Does the extension learn trackers as it goes, like Privacy Badger? What does it offer over something like uBlock Origin with the appropriate tracking blocklists? Also in Firefox, I now have two "Search DuckDuckGo" entries in the right click menu, one from being the default search engine, and one (with an icon) from the extension. They do the exact same thing, so why have them both?

yegg 9y ago
We're trying to put all the privacy essentials we can make seamless -- tracker blocking, upgraded encryption, private search and more to come -- all in one package, across all major browsers and platforms. In this respect, on any major mobile device or desktop browser, you should be able to look up DuckDuckGo and with one download get seamless privacy protection as you search and browse the web. With regards to other extensions, we found that they generally lack some combination of all the essentials (e.g. missing encryption, private search), aren't totally seamless (i.e. break some of the web), or aren't available across all major browsers and platforms. With regards to tracker blocking in particular, we would like to be as comprehensive as possible while not breaking the Web, and are close to that with this initial launch, utilizing some open source lists including Disconnect and Easylist. We are not currently using the machine learning aspects of Privacy Badger, however. There are more nuanced UX differences, however. In the UI we're trying to move away from 'x trackers blocked' and instead group trackers from networks together, trying to identify the umbrella company and purposes. Second, we're grading each site based on its privacy measures (including privacy policies with help from TOSDR), and telling you at a glance how protected you are on an A-F scale, based on what we could do (e.g. block trackers and upgrade encryption). Thank you for the feedback on the right-click menu. We will look into that.
- pknight 9y ago
  One privacy essential is a built-in vpn/proxy like Opera has done with its browser, this makes it slightly harder for some fingerprinting ad trackers to follow a user around.

philg_jr 9y ago

DDG as a search engine is just good. Its been my default for a long time. I wish Mozilla would make it the default so more users could be introduced to it. Why hasn't this happened yet?

louhike 9y ago
Most of Mozilla revenue comes from patnerships for the default search engine.
tmikaeld 9y ago
Google pay Mozilla Almost $1B for Firefox Search, Mozilla also need money even though they are trying to go by donations as much as possible. With time, as DDG is getting bigger and getting more revenue I think and hope that they will become the default instead!
- BatFastard 9y ago
  What is the monetization model of DDG?
  - antimatter 9y ago
    Advertising. But not via tracking and personalization. They show ads to you based on the keywords you used to search and don’t follow you around the web.
  - kerberos84 9y ago
    Ads of course. Bot not as greedy as google. Not tracking every fingerprint of you. They just show sponsored search results according to your search terms at that moment, in contrast to your whole browsing history/habits.
    - simias 9y ago
      I use ddg as my main search engine but disabled ads because I can't stand them. I wish they'd let me pay for the service. "If you're not the customer you're the product". I want to be the customer.

seba_dos1 9y ago

Let me use this thread to lazily look for simple advice. For privacy, I'm now using: DuckDuckGo Plus, First Party Isolation, Smart Referer, HTTPS Everywhere, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Canvas Defender and Decentraleyes. There's also NoScript installed, but disabled (waiting for its clickjacking protection to return in WebExt version, although I might switch back to whitelisting JS sometime). Plus there's also Firefox's Tracking Protection enabled all the time. Anything worth adding? Anything that can be removed for sure, cause it just duplicates something else from this list? Anything should be replaced? (if yes, then why?)

KozmoNau7 9y ago
Instead of Noscript, use uBlock Origin in dynamic mode: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering
- seba_dos1 9y ago
  ClearClick is what I'm interested in, not script blocking, at least right now. WebExt version doesn't have it now, but I'm keeping it installed, so it just upgrades when it's added back.
  - my_ghola 9y ago
    Firefox bypasses right-click blocking when you press shift. What it doesn't bypass is websites placing transparent things on top of what you wish to right-click on (for example images on Twitter). For that I use Stylus to add CSS and move things away.
    - seba_dos1 9y ago
      It's not about right-click bypassing, it's exactly about transparent things. ClearClick checks whether the image of what you click matches the image of element that's being clicked, shows you the preview and asks if you really want to click it. The best pre-WebExt feature of NoScript.

azag0 9y ago

How does the Safari extension play with the native content blockers like 1blocker? Is this supported? I noticed that with 1blocker enabled, the initial grade is usually higher than what it would be without 1blocker.

Nelkins 9y ago

What is the advantage of this over Firefox Focus? And is the Privacy Essentials extension available for Firefox for Android? Trying to understand why I should use the DDG app over either of those two, since the DDG app seems like it is just a browser without tab functionality. Also, not really related, but does anybody know how to make the home screen search bar on Nexus/Pixel phones use DDG instead of Google?

yegg 9y ago
Tab functionality should be coming shortly, along with other standard browser functionality -- feel free to influence the roadmap with more suggestions :). It is not available yet for Firefox for Android, though we would like to make it so shortly. Our app additionally includes a few things: --Upgraded encryption, in that if we can determine a site works on an encrypted version, we will also send you there automatically. --Privacy grading, in that we show you at a glance how protected you are, which you can tap to dig into the details. We have more to do, though we've spent a long time trying to make this UX intuitive and informative, including an A-F grading scheme, grouping trackers by networks, and showing you over time who we caught trying to track you. --Special attention given to blocking while at the same time not breaking the Web.
- minkiu 9y ago
  Hi, thanks for all you guys do at DDG. I was wondering if the app will get the "Open Link in Browser" option? I tend to search with DDG and when I find what I want, open it in FF and keep it there. (I noticed the Bookmark bit). Cheers!
  - yegg 9y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion -- duly noted.

Raphmedia 9y ago

Whenever I try to put back the search engine that I use as Chrome toolbar search engine it uninstall the app. Edit: Quick support made me change my wording to a less passive aggressive one.

yegg 9y ago
Can you please elaborate as to the issue -- I'm having trouble understanding exactly what is going on. If it is easier, you can email me directly at yegg at duckduckgo.com
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  Problem A: 1) Install App on chrome 2) Do a search using the browser's address bar 3) A dialog with the text "is this the search engine you expected" appears. 4) Click the button to revert to previous settings. 5) App is now uninstalled. --- Problem B: 1) Install App on chrome 2) Go to chrome://settings/ 3) Scroll to "Search engine used in the address bar" 4) Unable to change the settings as Chrome says "DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials is controlling this setting". 5) Click "Disable" in the hope that the app will still be installed but with a different default search engine. 6) Entire app is disabled.
  - fencepost 9y ago
    OK, so when the Extension is installed in Chrome it takes over the omnibox search, directs it to DDG, and does not allow it to be changed. Put differently, to get the features like tracker blocking, privacy policy scoring, etc. you must also be using DDG for search. I'd call that something that probably should be changed, or at least changeable in the options.
    - yegg 9y ago
      Unfortunately, this is currently the way Chrome works. We're looking for a way around it, but it looks like they changed this behavior sometime last year. In other browsers you can easily use another search engine without disabling the entire thing.

Zhyl 9y ago

I see that the DuckDuckGo app is retiring stories. I am sad about this as I really liked the mix of articles it would provide. @yegg, any chance of a stories-only spin-off app?

yegg 9y ago
I actually made that stories feed originally for myself, before DuckDuckGo even existed. As I still rely on it, I ported it personally to https://twitter.com/watrcoolr https://twitter.com/watrcoolr
- Zhyl 9y ago
  This makes me happy! Watrcoolr.us (linked in the bio) seems to be a parked domain though, just as a heads up.
  - yegg 9y ago
    Ahh, I'll delete that -- used to be where it was ages ago.

throwawaymanbot 9y ago

Not sure how it can do this AND work with Yandex. A company thats allowed to operate in Russia.

kevlar1818 9y ago

This isn't really a big deal, but the features they are touting as new "today" have been in the FF version of the extension for at least the month or so I've had it installed. I'm honestly curious if I'm missing something or not.

yegg 9y ago
We had to soft-launch early in Firefox because of the change in Firefox 57 of how extensions work, though were still getting out the kinks and preparing it for the rest of the platforms.

figers 9y ago

Use DuckDuckGo every day, but wish it had a date range of one year as a search filter like google, needed for programming searches where the landscape changes rapidly...

yegg 9y ago
This has been a long-term struggle to get right, though I really see the light at the end of the tunnel and think it may come sometime this year, hopefully sooner than later. For others who may not know though, we do have last month -- drop down above results.
- pweissbrod 9y ago
  I just wanted to take a moment and write my appreciation for your fantastic work. Services such as duckduckgo are needed now more than ever. The fact that it is stable and responsive enough for me to depend on it 100% every work day is amazing
- 01001010 9y ago
  The lack of this feature probably accounts for half my !g searches – happy to hear it's on its way! DuckDuckGo is a beacon of hope – thank you.
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  Curious, why is that of all things so hard to implement compared to the gargantuan task of searching the entire internet? I know nothing about the field of search or big data but it seems to an outsider like it would be almost trivial compared to the rest of what you do.
JTon 9y ago
Agreed. I use date filters when troubleshooting software issues after new patches/updates; so I can find the freshest discussions.
userbinator 9y ago
Adding the current year to your search query often works if you want to find very new results.

batat 9y ago

Ukraine region not available any more: while "ua-uk" URL parameter is still mentioned on search params page[1], it's not working. I didn't get the answers on DDG forum (now closed in favor of reddit), neither on /r/duckduckgo. I suspect this could be connected somehow to Yandex block. Anyway, currently can't use DDG for local search, sad :( [1] https://duckduckgo.com/params https://duckduckgo.com/params

altern8tif 9y ago

@yegg, is DuckDuckHack coming back? That was one of my first forays into open source and was hoping that there is more that I (and the community) can do to help improve DDG further.

yegg 9y ago
We are trying to find ways to make that work. Right now though, all of these apps and extensions are open source, and we would welcome contributions.

beaconfield 9y ago

Good. Glad to see DDG keeps moving forward.

phillipcarter 9y ago

Just came here to say that I’ve been using duckduckgo for the past year and absolutely love it. Keep up the wonderful work.

yegg 9y ago
Thank you so much! We really appreciate the support and are glad that you're enjoying the search experience. This announcement should give you more privacy protection when you leave our search results pages.
- z_open 9y ago
  I notice AdNauseam blocks your adds even when I have it set to allow non-tracking ads. What sort precautions does DDG do to protect users who use your ads?
  - yegg 9y ago
    Our entire search results page is anonymous at page load, and our ads are non-tracking in the sense that they are just based on that one search page request and have nothing to do with any other personal information (as we don't have any). It's unfortunate that adblockers are blocking our ads, but I understand that our more privacy-aware ads are extremely rare.
- burfog 9y ago
  Privacy is cool and all, but I switched because Google was very obviously suppressing results. I don't want to be in a political bubble, completely unaware of events that might not be pleasing to Google employees. I'm not Google's small child.
koheripbal 9y ago
One thing I often add to my search terms is the site: tag to restrict results to, say stackexchange, reddit, etc... In the past it's been a necessity to get non-spam results on DuckDuckGo. I'm not sure how needed it still is. Any thoughts?

SubiculumCode 9y ago

Was there any truth to the Russia-DDG connection rumor going around the internet a few years back?

djsumdog 9y ago
Well DDG does buy indexes/data from Yandex for search, if that's what you're referring to.

nukeop 9y ago

I'm using DuckDuckGo every day, but I wish DuckDuckHack was easier to contribute to. Maybe something like letting users load their own modules for local use, and public repositories? I'd like to help improve instant answers and widgets (like json pretty print).

vanderZwan 9y ago
Similarly, I'd like to vote with my wallet, without having to see ads to do so.
j_s 9y ago
DuckDuckHack is now in Maintenance Mode | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15199489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15199489 (Sep 2017)
granda 9y ago
You can, I'm on mobile at the moment so I can't pull a link but if you Google it (DDG it) you'll find it
r3bl 9y ago
It wasn't really difficult to contribute to them about a year or two ago. I've contributed a couple of cheatsheets (for example, clicking on the info icon when searching for "nmap cheatsheet" will reveal my GitHub username), which were, at the time, considered a low-hanging fruit way of contributing instant answers. Later on, I was later on added to the DuckDuckHack Contributors team[0], which was border-line spamming, up to the point where I had to redirect email notifications from the DuckDuckGo organization to my non-primary email address. Occasional email is fine, a dozen or two dozens of emails in my inbox almost every single day was not. And finally, I am aware that there was some grand change about how people contribute to DuckDuckGo introduced relatively recently, which makes my experience a bit outdated. The combination of their actions after I've contributed to them made me pretty uninterested in the idea of contributing more instant answers. Nowadays, I only suggest bangs from time to time, which is as easy as filling out a form[1]. [0] https://github.com/orgs/duckduckgo/teams/duckduckhack-contributors https://github.com/orgs/duckduckgo/teams/duckduckhack-contri... [1] https://duckduckgo.com/newbang https://duckduckgo.com/newbang

Taylor_OD 9y ago

Is it worth the switching costs of going from google to duckduckgo?

macintux 9y ago
One of the many nice features of DDG is that you can fall back to Google searches trivially enough by adding a "!g" at the front of your search results. The bang syntax also works for directing searches to YouTube, Wikipedia, etc. I value my privacy, so the few times I have to redirect a search to Google is a small price to pay. Definitely recommend making the switch. (Of course, if Google already knows everything about you, you'll probably find their results much better tuned for you, so YMMV. I was quite amused and pleased when all the suggested search completions for—IIRC—"git" in a recent DDG search were completely irrelevant to me.)
- cpeterso 9y ago
  You can also use "!sp" to get Google search results anonymized by startpage.com.

prepend 9y ago

Google started this really annoying habit of including results that don’t have the words you are searching. You can get around this by including the word in quotes but it’s frustrating to spend a few minutes looking items returned by Google to not find what you’re looking for to realize they showed it to you even though it didn’t have your search terms. I bet this is great for current events like “when is Star Wars 1 playing” when the person probably meant Star Wars 8. But sucks when researching items or searching for a paper or particular product. I started using Duck Duck Go and it works great. The privacy is an added bonus.

rlv-dan 9y ago
My experience is that DDG does this too. Very annoying.
- userbinator 9y ago
  Yes, DDG does it too. The other significant difference I've noticed, in my admittedly short-but-intense periods of DDG use, is that unlike Google, it won't block you with a CAPTCHA for "searching too hard"; but sometimes it just runs out of results. Looking through too many search pages, or using queries containing quotes and other "advanced" things like site: or intext: or intitle: operators tends to get you blocked by Google pretty quickly, which is extremely infuriating --- and the point at which I switch to DDG or something else for a while.
- bitL 9y ago
  They started doing that recently :-/ I guess the appeal to ape leader is strong, even if leader lost its ways. But I am running out of options for search so have to live with it...
garyclarke27 9y ago
I agree, this is extremely annoying, Google should add an option - for their users who know what they are doing - to always do a verbatim search. I also still detest their mobile first format on iPad, again why on earth don’t they let their users choose Desktop format, if they prefer this. I have to use slower than Safari iCab Browser to get around this.

iandanforth 9y ago

Edit - Chrome only issue for which the devs don't have good options. I was very disappointed to discover that the app forces you to use DDG for search. In Chrome there doesn't appear to be a way to use Google as your default search engine while the extension is active. I like its other features but Google search IMO is much much better than DDG and don't want to be forced to switch.

C0nCave 9y ago
One of the advantages of DDG over other search engines is that with only a few keystrokes you can search anywhere you like. !g blah will search google, !gi will search google images, !rdoc will search the Ruby documentation.
- bwanab 9y ago
  DDG even allows users to add their own search prefixes. !mmls Margaret Atwood searches my local library system for the books by that author.
chrisper 9y ago
I guess that decision was made because you can use Google Search with DDG. Just add "!g " in front of your search query.
- salvar 9y ago
  That does not justify this in my view. "It's easy for users to change their search habits to get the same experience they had before, so let's just change the default search for them".
TallGuyShort 9y ago
Just to add to the other comments already addressing the !g option: I use DuckDuckGo exclusively but I almost never use it's actual search results as a Google replacement for precisely this reason. It's just that I use !w, !imdb, !m, !n, !ups & friends so often, than it's worth it to just prefix my search with !g when I do want traditional web search. But now I've stopped using Google as a shortcut to get to what I already know I'm looking for but don't want to type the full address. I really just use DuckDuckGo results when I do want the privacy especially.

mk89 9y ago

Duckduckgo improved drastically over the last 6-7 years. I have no idea how they did it, but they did a great job.

mlinksva 9y ago

Are the apps and browser extensions 100% open source? I didn't notice anything in the text, but _maybe_ https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo-privacy-extension https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo-privacy-extension https://github.com/duckduckgo/Android https://github.com/duckduckgo/Android https://github.com/duckduckgo/iOS https://github.com/duckduckgo/iOS have the complete source code?

yegg 9y ago
Yes they are all completely open source.

benwilber0 9y ago

I've been using DuckDuckGo for a few months since I switched to the new Firefox. It's generally OK but I can tell that the results are just ever so slightly worse than Google. I get irrelevant results and old results. It's just obviously not nearly as smart and that's probably because it doesn't know as much about me as Google does.

bambataa 9y ago
DDG is usually good enough but I do find myself dropping back to Google for some searches (easy enough with !g). It does make clear how tailored Google searches are to the user. For example, when I search for programming terms that have non-programming meanings (library names etc) I get a much more diverse list. Google pretty much exclusively only shows me programming-related results. With DDG I need to add my location to the search rather than relying on Google knowing my exact address. I do find DDG location search very annoying as clicking on a map result always tries to open it in the Maps application, which I don't want.

granda 9y ago

Can't use 1Password on the iOS app. Deal breaker.

dwg 9y ago

Very cool... Some areas for improvement I noticed off the bat while using the app: * Scrolling sometimes feels slow. * Doesn't seem to work with 1 password autofill. Not sure if 1password, DuckDuckGo, or both are needed to address this. * Would be nice to be able to use Google as a search engine (though I admit I could just go to google.com first).

__blockcipher__ 9y ago
With DDG you should be able to use !bangs. example: "!g my google query"

titanomachy 9y ago

I was curious about the "fake" site they used in their example, creepysite.com. I was pretty surprised to find that it redirects to google.com by an HTTP 302 redirect. Good marketing for duckduckgo.

mattlondon 9y ago

Generally I am positive about this but I'd have to give some feedback that tag containers/managers are not automatically bad. At the moment it seems like this tool just flags tag containers (e.g. tagcommander, google tag manager) as a "tracker network" which they are not. Of course, a tag container might contain tracking beacons and tags etc but they might also contain benign other scripts (e.g. for A/B testing). I would prefer it if these sorts of tools blacklisted the tags inside the container (they are just loaded via ajax like everything else), rather than the containers themselves.

mattferderer 9y ago

If you're interested in this, I suggest the new web browser Brave. It does a great job of cleaning up all the ads & protecting your privacy. I also haven't ran into sites that block me yet like I do when using an ad blocker on Chrome. You can choose the search engine you want to use unlike this extension. It's also built on top of the same code as Chrome so you get all those benefits as well. Brendan Eich (JavaScript & Mozilla) is the CEO. Slightly off topic, Brave also has an interesting feature as well to help support content creators. Since a lot of content creators rely on ads, you have the ability to add a small amount of funds to a crypto wallet that Brave can use which get distributed to the websites you visit the most over the month. You can enable or disable this for specific websites as well. I think this is a great idea but it may have a hard time catching on. I think people will have a hard time adding money to a virtual wallet to pay for something they "think" they are already getting for free. At the same time I love the concept as it is a way for you to reward people for good content & create a disincentive for bad content.

radicaldreamer 9y ago
I love Brave but I've found battery life to be much lower when using Brave on my MacBook than either the latest Chrome or Safari.
- NotQuantum 9y ago
  It drains my 2017 MBP about 40% faster than Firefox Quantum. I wonder if it's mining crypto in the background...
chiefalchemist 9y ago
How about a simply browser extension that let's you donate to page / site X? This would also be great on GitHub and GitLab. You could buy credits in bulk so the credit card transaction fee only happens once. And then, if the page has an account, dole out those credits as you surf. Probably not massive amounts of money but better than the ads based model. At least there would be a option.
- 9y ago

dwg 9y ago

Improving privacy is great, but I find the extreme approach to erase all history taken by DuckDuckGo and others make them difficult to adopt. I often use the history feature to re-find sites I remember visiting before. Bookmarks don't solve this problem because even if I tried to remember to bookmark anything that might be important later, I wouldn't be able to nor would I always be able to make that judgement accurately. So, what I like to have instead of the nuclear option (erase all history) is a browser that protects my identity but also my history (e.g. behind a locked gate) that I can use always without having to think about so I don't have to choose between privacy or history.

adreamingsoul 9y ago

This is awesome.

a_c 9y ago

To prevent suffering from tyranny of small decisions[1], I want to support duckduckgo, financially and technically. Do they take donation? Or do they have an open sets of challenge to work on? Would love to help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_small_decisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_small_decisions

gimmeayrwlt 9y ago

Weldone DuckDuckGo! I am so happy, that there is companies like you guys have. Freedom of search without censorship like google. You guys Rock!

dumbfounder 9y ago

Maybe it's just a semantic argument because I am a search engine developer, but I wouldn't really call DDG a "search engine". It uses Bing to power results. I would describe it as a "search interface" that gives you advanced search related tools in addition to standard search, some stratified results, and then it takes a privacy angle to differentiate itself. As such, I think the move to browser safety is a natural extension of what they do. That said, how the heck do they make money? I only very rarely see a single ad, and there isn't much money in NOT tracking people. It's very hard to make money on search if you aren't Google (I would know, I have tried several times).

huphtur 9y ago
Amazon Associates is one way DDG monetizes. Not sure how much revenue that brings in, but would love to see some stats on this.
- dumbfounder 9y ago
  I didn't think that was kosher as it incentivizes them to prioritize results from Amazon.
  - yegg 9y ago
    Here's some more details on how we make money: https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates Short answer is we're profitable since 2014 primarily with non-tracking search ads based on the keyword (type in car and get a car ad). While we don't serve that many ads, these are still lucrative enough to pay all the bills. The affiliate portion is quite small now, and we do not change any rankings based on them.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

sixothree 9y ago

I really do like the design of the post-install splash page. The vista scene reminds me of the firefox post install page.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tomxor 9y ago

creepysite.com ... used in their screenshot as an example, so funny that creepysite.com actually does redirect to google.com :D

01001010 9y ago

This is great! I have been waiting for an extension such as this which: (1) is seamless, (2) doesn't break the web, (3) doesn't require too much tweaking, and (4) is offered by a company I trust. Mainly in order to install on friends' and family's devices who aren't tech savvy – this appears to be exactly that. Thank you. Love the UX (sans below), nice touch integrating with ToS;DR. Feedback: The "enhanced from X to Y" is not perfectly clear to me. I'm guessing you're saying "we were able to upgrade the rating to Y from X". Correct? The badge seems to be showing the upgraded rating rather than the "actual" rating – this is not what I expected. I expected to see the privacy grade of said website, not the grade received by blocking scripts and/or redirecting to https. Question: Will the extension for Safari be available from the Safari Extensions Gallery[1]? This would be even better, avoiding (said friends and family) having to "Trust" the safariextz and get the disclaimer that it isn't from the gallery. (I currently only see your old search extension in the gallery, will they, perhaps, be merged?) [1]: https://safari-extensions.apple.com/?q=duckduckgo https://safari-extensions.apple.com/?q=duckduckgo

eridius 9y ago
Not only will putting it in the gallery avoid having to "trust" it but it will also allow the extension to auto-update.
- yegg 9y ago
  Yes, we are trying to update the extensions gallery as we speak.
01001010 9y ago
Update: The extension is now available through the Safari Extensions Gallery[1] and has, as far as I can tell, replaced the previous search extension. [1]: https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.duckduckgo.safari-HKE973VLUW https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.duckduck...

TheCoreh 9y ago

Won't using ToS;DR alienate smaller services that are not listed there? I only see reasonably big sites on their site.

yegg 9y ago
The hope is to work with them and their process in such a way that we can dramatically increase the number of sites rated.

throwawayfinal 9y ago

Please put the install links at the top.

djhworld 9y ago

I use a pi-hole on my network so I think that achieves most of the things this extension offers (minus the site rating thing) I use DDG as my main search engine though, and will continue to do so.

rapnie 9y ago

what i _really_ dislike from Google is how they offer downgraded UI's to non-Chrome browsers like firefox on android. so no 'tools' to specify filters, and no 'Related images' in image search. i looked why this was and its apparently intentional. brr.. evil :)

jacksmith21006 9y ago

Choice is good. Big fan of Google and use a lot as super curious person but if does not work for you good there are other choices that work for your needs.

godelski 9y ago

Kind of interesting seeing some of the ratings. Like Mozilla and HN have a B because of unknown privacy practices. Both these websites are fairly old, and it seems odd to me that the privacy practices of Mozilla are unknown.

jnordwick 9y ago

I miss Alta Vista and all the operators you could add to your queries.

nunobrito 9y ago

Very happy to see the improvements. Personally I stopped feeling comfortable on using search engines across the Atlantic since about a decade. In case you'd be living around Europe, http://qwant.com http://qwant.com is picking up the pace here as a search engine focused on privacy-aware users. As an engineer, the service is answering quite well to my queries related to software.

xkarga00 9y ago

Does the DDG addon replace other addons like HTTPSEverywhere or uBlock?

pmoriarty 9y ago

I'm concerned that I'd be handing over data about my browsing habits to DDG and its partners in order to use some of the features described in the article: - The Privacy Grade rating (A-F) when visiting a website. - Scoring of websites in terms of service and privacy, by partnering with Terms of Service Didn't Read. I'm not sure how these services can be provided by DDG and its partners without them knowing which websites I'm browsing to. IMO, it's none of their business, even if they promise not to keep the data or give/sell it to anyone -- a promise which is not verified by any trusted third party, as far as I know.

yegg 9y ago
All of this calculation happens on your device, and is not handed over to us. Additionally, our privacy policy is to not store or collect any personal information at all: https://duckduckgo.com/privacy https://duckduckgo.com/privacy
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  How can I be sure that DDG is actually following its own privacy policies?
  - yegg 9y ago
    Our privacy policy is extremely strict, and is the basis for our company. If we are to be found violating it at all, we would be ruined, and would probably be criminally liable. In addition, a lot of what we do, including this new app and extension is open source so the code can be examined.

benp84 9y ago

This is blocking Google Analytics, Facebook Connect and New Relic on my site. How would DuckDuckGo prefer that startups measure traffic, ad ROI and site performance? What's the "right" way?

freeone3000 9y ago
traffic and ad roi is exactly the type of thing I'd like to keep private! The correct way would be not to measure these things. for performance, chrome and firefox have built-in profilers, and chrome connects quite well to mobile.
tombrossman 9y ago
The "right" way is to accept that privacy-conscious visitors reject your use of third-party tracking, and if you really need to track their visits you must use a first-party tool (Piwik, GoAccess, plain old logfile parsing...). It may not seem fair and it may be frustrating, but blocking third-party tracking is just so easy and anyone who cares about privacy can do it with minimal effort. As a side benefit, when you start doing your own tracking from server logs, you gain valuable insight into where the gaps in data are from the third-party trackers, and precisely how many visitors are under counted.
- benp84 9y ago
  You're right that third-party trackers aren't that reliable, and I do my own log analytics for the easy/important stuff, but I'm not about to roll my own New Relic. This also seems bad for early-stage startups, where developer time is severely limited.
  - quadrangle 9y ago
    Early stage startups could simply skip all the analytics and do more qualitative UX research with smaller numbers of people they actually interact with in a human way and use large stats for things that actually matter like sales and revenue etc. The whole idea that you need all the analytics is at least overblown and suffers from the streetlight effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect

TimMurnaghan 9y ago

Are people mostly positive about this? I was already using DDG - then I get an unexpected pop up asking for permission to rewrite everything. I think we should develop a reflex to routinely refuse to give popups permission - so now I've lost DDG in the search bar. I would much rather that it stayed as a non-evil search provider rather than bundling ABP/Ghostery. Maybe I'm in a minority wanting separation of concerns? Or maybe it really is better than ABP and Ghostery and I've missed it by being put off by the delivery mechanism?

edraferi 9y ago
hmm you should be able to use DDG in your search bar without using the extension. Just add them as a search provider. Here are instructions to do so in Chrome: http://www.omgchrome.com/duckduckgo-chrome-chrome-os/ http://www.omgchrome.com/duckduckgo-chrome-chrome-os/
yegg 9y ago
I'm sorry for putting you off. The intention is to have all the privacy essentials in one package, and make those essentials each best in class. Over the coming months we will explain more about how we're doing so and why we think that is the case. Right now though know that it is doing more than just tracker blocking and private search: it is also upgrading encryption where possible and exposing poor privacy practices when known. In any case though, I understand if you feel you are covered with other extensions and just want search. In that case, you don't really need a DuckDuckGo extension and can set the search via these instructions: https://duckduckgo.com/install https://duckduckgo.com/install
- nedt 9y ago
  I'd still be nice if the omnibox search can be changed. That's the reason I've removed the extension after 15 minutes. I have my own search service with a couple of keywords I need all the time. The fallback/default search is ddg anyway.

pablo-massa 9y ago

To block trackers I use Brave on my phone and Chrome + uBlock Origin on desktop. I just checked this extensions and seems that they put a lot of attention on UX, I loved it and is all in one product, I like the vision of DDG. Someone knows if the blocking part is as good as uBlock and Brave?

LeoPanthera 9y ago

This gives my (personal) site a "B", but literally the only thing it "fails" is that it doesn't have a privacy policy listed at the (third party) site "ToS;DR". My site is a personal site, doesn't have logins, and doesn't even have any Javascript, so I think the "B" is a little misleading. (Side note: Amusingly, if you go to https://tosdr.org https://tosdr.org with the plugin installed, they also fail for apparently not having a privacy policy listed on their own site. Also it says in a very large font that their ratings are outdated, so I really don't know how useful this is.)

yegg 9y ago
We don't feel we can give anything an "A" until TOSDR vets the privacy policy, and unfortunately they don't have a ton of sites vetted yet. However, we are committed to working with them to dramatically increase the number of sites rated.

Accacin 9y ago

At the moment I use uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, NoScript. Can this addon replace all of these?

aorth 9y ago
Don't you worry that your extensions are fighting each other? I only use uBlock Origin.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

User_424 9y ago

Here is a list of G operators https://goo.gl/jYQk2t https://goo.gl/jYQk2t

dawnbreez 9y ago

"Install an arbitrary piece of code on your machine to improve your privacy." Note that there is no link to the source code, no checksum. There's no indication that DDG isn't doing exactly what they claim to be protecting against. And the question comes up: what do they stand to gain from having users install a mobile app on their phone?

O5vYtytb 9y ago
Isn't this it? https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo-privacy-extension https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo-privacy-extension
eikenberry 9y ago
Doesn't DDG publish almost all their code via github? https://github.com/duckduckgo https://github.com/duckduckgo

Sonnol53 9y ago

Saw you guys on Product Hunt!!

tuxracer 9y ago

Is the TOSDR data included with the add-on and referenced offline or is every URL being sent to TOSDR?

Tepix 9y ago

I don't like the fact that the browser combines the search bar and the address bar. It means that when I enter a URL character by character, the search engine will know where I am going next even thought I didn't need the assistance of a search engine in the first place. A "privacy first" browser can do better in this regard.

latexr 9y ago

My biggest frustration with search engines is that certain websites I consider bad are common in results. These include sites that require a login to use properly (Pinterest and Quora) as well as websites that are known to have wrong information (W3Schools). What I’d like to have is an option in my search engine (ideally that would not require a login) to always exclude certain domains from results. That would improve my browsing experience more than any other feature. Blocking trackers is something others are already doing well.

anttharj 9y ago

I installed DuckDuckGo on my android in order to have a DuckDuckGo search widget and now it's replaced with a laggy browser. smh