5 ms·

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

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.
      - loceng 9y ago
        If you're willing to pay, you're likely worth more to advertisers..
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
fknop 9y ago
I think Google pays Mozilla to have Google as default. https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/mozilla-terminates-its-deal-with-yahoo-and-makes-google-the-default-in-firefox-again/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/mozilla-terminates-its-dea...
janlaureys 9y ago
I tend to agree, but at least a few times a day have to resort to using !g to actually find a decent result. It's usually Angular/Symfony related but just last week I couldn't find the website of my local tennis club at all, not even by exact name. On google it was the first result...
- epicide 9y ago
  Using something like Dash Docs or devdocs.io might help!
- tannhaeuser 9y ago
  The answer I suppose is almost always found on stackoverflow.com anyway, so why not go to SO search directly? Because SO search isn't up to it of course. Why don't they improve their search system? I think they're really leaving money on the table, or maybe it's a job for a third-party SO search app for a fellow HNer (not that there aren't already enough SO scrapers showing up in searches).
sethgecko 9y ago
For me DDG results are vastly inferior to Google's. If there was a search bar addon that defaults to DDG with the !g bang I would happily set it as default though
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  How would that help with anything? If I use the !g bang I still see my account logged in on the right, so you're still being tracked.
  - sethgecko 9y ago
    I haven't noticed that. So what's the purpose of !g in that case ?
    - fencepost 9y ago
      Convenient redirection? If you do a search on DDG and don't get a viable result, move to the beginning of the search field and add !g and try again. Depending on their logging, this may also allow DDG to see what kinds of searches are being done and then redone/redirected to Google. In aggregate, that may provide useful information on areas where their search results aren't good enough.
      - r3bl 9y ago
        > move to the beginning of the search field Just to clear things up: it really doesn't matter where you include the bang. The beginning, the middle, or the end of the search query, the result is the same. When looking at the search results H, left or right arrow, and type in the bang.
    - jdeibele 9y ago
      Use Firefox and Container Tabs. I have set up a Container for Gmail and use tabs for Google Calendar, sites that use Google for authorization, etc. My default window (and other Container Tabs) doesn't have a Google account attached to it. So I see "Sign In" on the top right when doing Google searches.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Kiro 9y ago
Most of the results on DDG come from external sources such as Bing and Yahoo.
detaro 9y ago
It's really odd - sometimes it's great or even better than Google, other times it just does really weird stuff. Putting porn at the top of the results, totally ignoring one aspect of a topic and giving 2 pages for only one meaning of the word (I assume Google has special handling for that?), when maps are shown for geographic queries seems to follow no pattern at all, ...
- philfrasty 9y ago
  DDG's porn problem is seriously annoying. Two searches I did recently that yielded porn as results: - „Christian Guzman dog ava“ (dog of a YouTuber) - „nkd dpd“ (drop-off locations for postal carrier DPD)
  - detaro 9y ago
    found "fake teeth" recently.

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.
    - loceng 9y ago
      If you're willing to pay, you're likely worth more to advertisers..
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

fknop 9y ago

I think Google pays Mozilla to have Google as default. https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/mozilla-terminates-its-deal-with-yahoo-and-makes-google-the-default-in-firefox-again/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/mozilla-terminates-its-dea...

janlaureys 9y ago

I tend to agree, but at least a few times a day have to resort to using !g to actually find a decent result. It's usually Angular/Symfony related but just last week I couldn't find the website of my local tennis club at all, not even by exact name. On google it was the first result...

epicide 9y ago
Using something like Dash Docs or devdocs.io might help!
tannhaeuser 9y ago
The answer I suppose is almost always found on stackoverflow.com anyway, so why not go to SO search directly? Because SO search isn't up to it of course. Why don't they improve their search system? I think they're really leaving money on the table, or maybe it's a job for a third-party SO search app for a fellow HNer (not that there aren't already enough SO scrapers showing up in searches).

sethgecko 9y ago

For me DDG results are vastly inferior to Google's. If there was a search bar addon that defaults to DDG with the !g bang I would happily set it as default though

vanderZwan 9y ago
How would that help with anything? If I use the !g bang I still see my account logged in on the right, so you're still being tracked.
- sethgecko 9y ago
  I haven't noticed that. So what's the purpose of !g in that case ?
  - fencepost 9y ago
    Convenient redirection? If you do a search on DDG and don't get a viable result, move to the beginning of the search field and add !g and try again. Depending on their logging, this may also allow DDG to see what kinds of searches are being done and then redone/redirected to Google. In aggregate, that may provide useful information on areas where their search results aren't good enough.
    - r3bl 9y ago
      > move to the beginning of the search field Just to clear things up: it really doesn't matter where you include the bang. The beginning, the middle, or the end of the search query, the result is the same. When looking at the search results H, left or right arrow, and type in the bang.
  - jdeibele 9y ago
    Use Firefox and Container Tabs. I have set up a Container for Gmail and use tabs for Google Calendar, sites that use Google for authorization, etc. My default window (and other Container Tabs) doesn't have a Google account attached to it. So I see "Sign In" on the top right when doing Google searches.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Kiro 9y ago

Most of the results on DDG come from external sources such as Bing and Yahoo.

detaro 9y ago

It's really odd - sometimes it's great or even better than Google, other times it just does really weird stuff. Putting porn at the top of the results, totally ignoring one aspect of a topic and giving 2 pages for only one meaning of the word (I assume Google has special handling for that?), when maps are shown for geographic queries seems to follow no pattern at all, ...

philfrasty 9y ago
DDG's porn problem is seriously annoying. Two searches I did recently that yielded porn as results: - „Christian Guzman dog ava“ (dog of a YouTuber) - „nkd dpd“ (drop-off locations for postal carrier DPD)
- detaro 9y ago
  found "fake teeth" recently.