4 ms·

I think the name is the only thing that is wrong with DDG. Another thing, I personally don't feel quite right about using a search engine that relies quite hea

by pavs 16y ago

I think the name is the only thing that is wrong with DDG. Another thing, I personally don't feel quite right about using a search engine that relies quite heavily on other search engines to give results. From what I understand DDG is not a search engine in the same sense Google or Bing is a search engine (pls correct me if I am wrong).

aantix 16y ago
Certainly ranking of returned results is a hard problem as the extraction/indexing/spider of web data? I don't have a problem with DDG being a sort of meta search engine. Just give me the most relevant results first.
- pavs 16y ago
  The only rational reason to use DDG over Google is that for some reason you are on the extreme end of the paranoia towards Google or any other search engine. That itself is not much of a good argument as there are number of things you can do to make sure that Google doesn't track your search results. From my point of view there are no compelling reason to use DDG over Bing or Google, the only reason DDG is a HN darling because we like to root for the small guy; lets see it for what it is. Personally I would love to see a search engine that really gives Google and Bing a run for the money and disrupts the search engine market. Unfortunately DDG doesn't do that.
  - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
    I'd love to know what you think might disrupt as I'm always looking for good ideas, but know that is what I'm trying to do. Our about page tries to explain why you should use it: http://duckduckgo.com/about.html http://duckduckgo.com/about.html The most visible things to me are the 0-click info and the less spam. Then there are lots of little things that start to add up, many listed on the goodies page: http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html
    - pavs 16y ago
      I have some ideas... I put a note on my task list to make sure that I email you (from the feedback page) on some of the things I believe might put you apart from others and also better promote your existing features (some of which I just saw for the first time). I need some time to sit down and give it a go for few hours and put down my fragmented ideas in a proper way. Hopefully tomorrow.
      - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
        Oh wow, thx so much. Looking forward to it!
      - pavs 16y ago
        Just replying to my own post to mention that I didn't get around to it yet... No excuses really. Just being lazy. Hopefully soon :)
    - adrianwaj 16y ago
      I came across these new search mashups today: http://kickdash.com http://kickdash.com (instant, with autosuggest, in categories, but no general search) http://www.liquidjelly.co.uk/supersearch/ http://www.liquidjelly.co.uk/supersearch/ (client side merging of bing+boss+google into 1 page) http://instantlyweb.com/ http://instantlyweb.com/ (i'm feeling lucky frame + instant)
    - joshuacc 16y ago
      One thing that might be helpful is to have a video showing off some of the "cool" features. I would think that this would at least get more non-techies to try it out.
  - stevejohnson 16y ago
    The only rational reason to use DDG over Google is that for some reason you are on the extreme end of the paranoia towards Google or any other search engine. That's a pretty bold statement. I have gained concrete benefit from switching to DDG full-time, mostly from the 0-click info but also from generally improved search results. But no, I guess you're the "rational" one, and my experience is not valid.
    - pavs 16y ago
      When did I say your experience is not valid? If you feel 0-click is must have feature and DDG search is better than Google search good for you. The text you quoted was my opinion, was it not obvious enough?
      - gloob 16y ago
        Statements that begin with the phrase "The only rational reason to..." usually are not intended as expressions of opinion, but rather as statements about how there is only one rational rational reason to do such-and-such, and this is it.
    - jackolas 16y ago
      I tend to only need to use google when i know what I'm looking for but forgot something about it or its something I want answered. Error codes seem rather hard to search for on DDG.
      - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
        Has anyone compiled a good error code database yet? Perhaps I can integrate it.
        duck 16y ago
        Not really a DB, but for Microsoft I have used http://www.eventid.net/ http://www.eventid.net/ quite a bit. I wouldn't say it is great, but I have found it helpful as a starting point.
  - smutticus 16y ago
    I use DDG for the simple reason that it gives me results in English all the time. I travel A LOT and Google is always trying to guess what language they should serve me my results in. If I'm sitting at a customer's site in Germany I'm not interested in German results. I also might not be able to login to Google on this computer so it gets my preferences. It might sound like a silly reason but it's a big deal for me.
epi0Bauqu 16y ago
It's a hybrid engine. I do my own crawling and indexing in addition to relying on external APIs. For the APIs I use, I've built a lot of relevancy and other logic on top of them so they often don't look the same as if you'd query them directly. I started out exclusively with my own stuff, and then started using BOSS when it came out so I could focus on what I think are my value-adds. Now I use a bunch of stuff (including my own). My approach is to just be a better search engine. If an API does something awesome, e.g. WolframAlpha or embed.ly, I figure why not use it.
- pavs 16y ago
  Do you think in the future you might exclusively use your own index and not be depended on others? Let's say hypothetically tomorrow, all the search API you rely on, decides to cut you off, what then? How good is your own index by itself? Just to be clear, I am not dissing on you, it takes a lot of gutso to take on search engine market alone, I applaud you for that, I don't see myself having that much guts to do it. I am trying to be realist about the meta-hybrid-search engine.
  - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
    I treat the deep Web search APIs as essentially commodities of the link graph. I was able to seamlessly switch between BOSS and Bing without anyone noticing. And there are several others I can use as well. So I don't feel much danger here. And now that BOSS is going to charge, I feel even less danger because it is turning into a real product. My index is not usable in this fashion. I've re-purposed it mainly for 0-click and for spam removal. Frankly though, I don't see why this comes up so much. Infospace is a public company that relies on other indexes pretty much exclusively. In other verticals, people routinely use more exclusive platforms, e.g. Twitter or Facebook or banking stuff.
bradendouglass 16y ago
In reply to the name comment I love it! It is different, fun, and super easy to remember. I can definitely see how it might not jive with some people though, to each their own.

by pavs 16y ago

aantix 16y ago

Certainly ranking of returned results is a hard problem as the extraction/indexing/spider of web data? I don't have a problem with DDG being a sort of meta search engine. Just give me the most relevant results first.

pavs 16y ago
The only rational reason to use DDG over Google is that for some reason you are on the extreme end of the paranoia towards Google or any other search engine. That itself is not much of a good argument as there are number of things you can do to make sure that Google doesn't track your search results. From my point of view there are no compelling reason to use DDG over Bing or Google, the only reason DDG is a HN darling because we like to root for the small guy; lets see it for what it is. Personally I would love to see a search engine that really gives Google and Bing a run for the money and disrupts the search engine market. Unfortunately DDG doesn't do that.
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  I'd love to know what you think might disrupt as I'm always looking for good ideas, but know that is what I'm trying to do. Our about page tries to explain why you should use it: http://duckduckgo.com/about.html http://duckduckgo.com/about.html The most visible things to me are the 0-click info and the less spam. Then there are lots of little things that start to add up, many listed on the goodies page: http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html
  - pavs 16y ago
    I have some ideas... I put a note on my task list to make sure that I email you (from the feedback page) on some of the things I believe might put you apart from others and also better promote your existing features (some of which I just saw for the first time). I need some time to sit down and give it a go for few hours and put down my fragmented ideas in a proper way. Hopefully tomorrow.
    - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
      Oh wow, thx so much. Looking forward to it!
    - pavs 16y ago
      Just replying to my own post to mention that I didn't get around to it yet... No excuses really. Just being lazy. Hopefully soon :)
  - adrianwaj 16y ago
    I came across these new search mashups today: http://kickdash.com http://kickdash.com (instant, with autosuggest, in categories, but no general search) http://www.liquidjelly.co.uk/supersearch/ http://www.liquidjelly.co.uk/supersearch/ (client side merging of bing+boss+google into 1 page) http://instantlyweb.com/ http://instantlyweb.com/ (i'm feeling lucky frame + instant)
  - joshuacc 16y ago
    One thing that might be helpful is to have a video showing off some of the "cool" features. I would think that this would at least get more non-techies to try it out.
- stevejohnson 16y ago
  The only rational reason to use DDG over Google is that for some reason you are on the extreme end of the paranoia towards Google or any other search engine. That's a pretty bold statement. I have gained concrete benefit from switching to DDG full-time, mostly from the 0-click info but also from generally improved search results. But no, I guess you're the "rational" one, and my experience is not valid.
  - pavs 16y ago
    When did I say your experience is not valid? If you feel 0-click is must have feature and DDG search is better than Google search good for you. The text you quoted was my opinion, was it not obvious enough?
    - gloob 16y ago
      Statements that begin with the phrase "The only rational reason to..." usually are not intended as expressions of opinion, but rather as statements about how there is only one rational rational reason to do such-and-such, and this is it.
  - jackolas 16y ago
    I tend to only need to use google when i know what I'm looking for but forgot something about it or its something I want answered. Error codes seem rather hard to search for on DDG.
    - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
      Has anyone compiled a good error code database yet? Perhaps I can integrate it.
      - duck 16y ago
        Not really a DB, but for Microsoft I have used http://www.eventid.net/ http://www.eventid.net/ quite a bit. I wouldn't say it is great, but I have found it helpful as a starting point.
- smutticus 16y ago
  I use DDG for the simple reason that it gives me results in English all the time. I travel A LOT and Google is always trying to guess what language they should serve me my results in. If I'm sitting at a customer's site in Germany I'm not interested in German results. I also might not be able to login to Google on this computer so it gets my preferences. It might sound like a silly reason but it's a big deal for me.

epi0Bauqu 16y ago

It's a hybrid engine. I do my own crawling and indexing in addition to relying on external APIs. For the APIs I use, I've built a lot of relevancy and other logic on top of them so they often don't look the same as if you'd query them directly. I started out exclusively with my own stuff, and then started using BOSS when it came out so I could focus on what I think are my value-adds. Now I use a bunch of stuff (including my own). My approach is to just be a better search engine. If an API does something awesome, e.g. WolframAlpha or embed.ly, I figure why not use it.

pavs 16y ago
Do you think in the future you might exclusively use your own index and not be depended on others? Let's say hypothetically tomorrow, all the search API you rely on, decides to cut you off, what then? How good is your own index by itself? Just to be clear, I am not dissing on you, it takes a lot of gutso to take on search engine market alone, I applaud you for that, I don't see myself having that much guts to do it. I am trying to be realist about the meta-hybrid-search engine.
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  I treat the deep Web search APIs as essentially commodities of the link graph. I was able to seamlessly switch between BOSS and Bing without anyone noticing. And there are several others I can use as well. So I don't feel much danger here. And now that BOSS is going to charge, I feel even less danger because it is turning into a real product. My index is not usable in this fashion. I've re-purposed it mainly for 0-click and for spam removal. Frankly though, I don't see why this comes up so much. Infospace is a public company that relies on other indexes pretty much exclusively. In other verticals, people routinely use more exclusive platforms, e.g. Twitter or Facebook or banking stuff.

bradendouglass 16y ago

In reply to the name comment I love it! It is different, fun, and super easy to remember. I can definitely see how it might not jive with some people though, to each their own.