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The average tech person has been switching away from Google products, and this filters down to their social networks, and then their networks, and so on. It's a
by seibelj 8y ago
The average tech person has been switching away from Google products, and this filters down to their social networks, and then their networks, and so on. It's a big deal when the tech people decide to switch.
For me, it was Chrome making me log-in to my account. Now I use Firefox, DDG, ublock, privacy badger, etc. I think society writ large will begin to take privacy more seriously in the coming years.
Edit FYI: If you want google results, add '!g' to the end of a DDG query and it will route to google. I use it sometimes, but not that often given that DDG is usually good.
- ColanR 8y agoThere's all kinds of awesome 'bangs'. I realized it's actually easier to use the variety of google/bing search engines from ddg. google scholar: !gsc google images: !gi bing: !b
- lliamander 8y agoMy favorites: etymology dictionary: !etym encyclopedia of integer sequences: !oeis
- therein 8y agoThere is even !hn
- was_boring 8y agomdn: !mdn wikipedia: !wiki django: !django python: !py All sorts of them for your average developer.
- kgwxd 8y agoBing should have been !bing and !b should have been reserved from something more useful, like butternut squash recipes.
- kryogen1c 8y agoNot only is this funny, it's very true. I work in IT, and even the most computer illiterate people generally can't get tricked into using Bing.
- spiritcat 8y ago..except by putting a privacy skin around it
- anders_p 8y agoBing's video search is actually surprisingly good. Some of my friends have told me that it's a lot better for porn than Google.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y agoThat's the only (positive) thing I ever hear about Bing.
- aclsid 8y agoWait until you go to China and you will love Bing. That is unless you enjoy turning on and off VPNs
- edoceo 8y agoYou can make your own and submit them too. It's all written in gasp PERL. !pw generates password :)
- makewavesnotwar 8y agoI was curious what type of hash I would get and !pw took me to pricewatch.com. What am I missing here?
- edoceo 8y agoIt seems you just need to say 'strong password' now. Edit: their tweet to announce https://mobile.twitter.com/duckduckgo/status/827516489251041280?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/duckduckgo/status/827516489251041...
- aembleton 8y agoI find it easier to create keyword searches in Firefox
- fx32s 8y agoNot sure if the average tech person is switching (from what I see in my environment) or if it's the vocal minority on HN. I'm happy for their success although the number is still not very significant
- dymk 8y agoIf it helps offset the echo chamber, I’ve been much happier with Google search than DDG (after setting it as my provider for a year). I’ve got no plans to move away from Google services, because I don’t think they actually pose some huge moral or privacy threat.
- mgalgs 8y agoFamous last words ;) I've been exactly where you are until very recently... It might be a general cynicism towards the world at large recently, but I've found myself finally honestly considering that Google might do some actual evil, and if they really wanted to it could get ugly... Removing "don't do evil" from their company motto may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy?
- jvolkman 8y agoIt wasn't removed, it was just moved to the concluding sentence. https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html
- chx 8y ago> The average tech person has been switching away from Google products I would like to see something to back that up. HN is not "the average tech person" and even here I have the feeling there are a few people who decided to die on the anti Google hill but it's nowhere near the foregone conclusion you state. A few problems: Firefox wiped the extensions store clean less than a year ago and the long tail didn't, couldn't recover yet. If you are any sort of consultant, Google Docs invitations are par for the course. I might be missing something but Google Mail is still the only mail application with labels instead of folders. A simple and cheap Gsuite subscription gives you infinite storage.
- MisterOctober 8y agoYep, Docs is going to be a tough nut to crack. I use DDG for search, but Docs [/Sheets, etc] is hard to get away from in business. [Sorta like Office was 20 years ago, I guess]
- 300bps 8y agoMy kids use G Suite in school but I have never seen anyone in business use it. Office (and more specifically, Office 365) are very prevalent still.
- mgalgs 8y agoI know a lot of small companies (including mine) use it a lot.
- kwk1 8y agoNextcloud + Collabora is a pretty nice alternative and good enough to meet my needs.