4 ms·

I wonder if Google wants them around so that they can point to them as a competitor when anti-trust suits come up in court.

Phr0ztByte 8y ago
And get some positive optics.
pentae 8y ago
Ding ding ding.. we have a winner
- hoffs 8y ago
  Bing exists?
  - setquk 8y ago
    Does it?
    - Spivak 8y ago
      I mean it's bigger than DDG?
      - setquk 8y ago
        Well only because DDG aggregates some of their stuff plus Microsoft ship everything to glue into Bing (windows login screens / default browser config / Cortana / XBox). I know no one who consciously uses it to do anything other than my mother who uses it search for Google. If none of the other default integrations exist it'd be dead on it's arse.
        TheCraiggers 8y ago
        There are memes out there about people using it to search for porn and I've seen it referenced in forums, so there's at least one use case. Although why anybody has to actively /search/ for porn is beyond me.
        setquk 8y ago
        Well it's not like you find it in a bush these days so you have to put some effort in.
        Semaphor 8y ago
        > There are memes out there about people using it to search for porn and I've seen it referenced in forums From what I've heard their video search is superior. > Although why anybody has to actively /search/ for porn is beyond me. Specific tastes?
        basil-rash 8y ago
        I use it consciously! I'd rather not support Google, and after a few comparison searches between DDG and Google back in the day I used Google, I found DDG to be far inferior. Plus Bing has nice background images (I use it as my homepage).
        philliphaydon 8y ago
        I use it exclusively.
  - move-on-by 8y ago
    Until recently EdgeHTML existed
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    Barely.
- ars 8y ago
  DDG just uses Bing, the existence of DDG is irrelevant to this, Bing is what counts.
  - losvedir 8y ago
    Agreed, and you shouldn't be down voted for it. I like DDG, and use it, but it's mostly a pretty front end on a now-deprecated Bing API. If Bing shut down, DDG wouldn't be far behind. I've never seen a DDG crawler in any of my logs, though I've seen plenty of Google and Bing (and others). DDG does some nice instant answer and bang stuff, but the actual deep search results are all Bing (and maybe Yandex?)
    - Kiro 8y ago
      Yes, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664967 The DDG crawler is not used for organic results, only for stuff like the widgets. All organic results are from Bing and Yahoo (and possibly Yandex).
bborud 8y ago
Sure, there's that, but Google really need competition for their own sake. The US would not have put a man on the moon if it wasn't for the Soviet Union trying to do the same. Not having credible competition is bad from a purely professional point of view because you need someone to spur you on. Since about 2003-2004 search has not really been a real competition in the west. Google has had an unhealthy dominance. I have worked for three search engine companies (Fast, Yahoo and Google) and I can remember how inspiring the early days were when there was half a dozen search engines to compete against. I particularly enjoyed trying to figure out how the competition did things. At the time you had narrow problems people worked on that perhaps only a dozen other people in the world cared deeply about. Published research hadn't always caught up with what was happening so you spent some amount of time trying to read between the lines and measure things to figure out what the competition was up to. One of my fondest memories is a lunch I had with Jeff Dean when I slid a napkin over the table with a graph on it. He took one look at it, smiled and said "did you figure it out?". I said "no, did you?". And he said "I have no idea". Today search just exists and I no longer give a shit about it. It doesn't strike me as fun anymore. Because there is no real competition. I'm pretty sure that at least the engineers at Google would soil themselves with joy if they got a real competitor.
utopcell 8y ago
What constitutes competition ? If I put up a site serving Wikipedia, that nobody visits, am I a competitor to Wikipedia or Google ? Last time I checked, DuckDuckGo had < 0.2% market share. Aren't Bing and Yahoo enough already to justify competition ?

Phr0ztByte 8y ago

And get some positive optics.

pentae 8y ago

Ding ding ding.. we have a winner

hoffs 8y ago
Bing exists?
- setquk 8y ago
  Does it?
  - Spivak 8y ago
    I mean it's bigger than DDG?
    - setquk 8y ago
      Well only because DDG aggregates some of their stuff plus Microsoft ship everything to glue into Bing (windows login screens / default browser config / Cortana / XBox). I know no one who consciously uses it to do anything other than my mother who uses it search for Google. If none of the other default integrations exist it'd be dead on it's arse.
      - TheCraiggers 8y ago
        There are memes out there about people using it to search for porn and I've seen it referenced in forums, so there's at least one use case. Although why anybody has to actively /search/ for porn is beyond me.
        setquk 8y ago
        Well it's not like you find it in a bush these days so you have to put some effort in.
        Semaphor 8y ago
        > There are memes out there about people using it to search for porn and I've seen it referenced in forums From what I've heard their video search is superior. > Although why anybody has to actively /search/ for porn is beyond me. Specific tastes?
      - basil-rash 8y ago
        I use it consciously! I'd rather not support Google, and after a few comparison searches between DDG and Google back in the day I used Google, I found DDG to be far inferior. Plus Bing has nice background images (I use it as my homepage).
      - philliphaydon 8y ago
        I use it exclusively.
- move-on-by 8y ago
  Until recently EdgeHTML existed
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  Barely.
ars 8y ago
DDG just uses Bing, the existence of DDG is irrelevant to this, Bing is what counts.
- losvedir 8y ago
  Agreed, and you shouldn't be down voted for it. I like DDG, and use it, but it's mostly a pretty front end on a now-deprecated Bing API. If Bing shut down, DDG wouldn't be far behind. I've never seen a DDG crawler in any of my logs, though I've seen plenty of Google and Bing (and others). DDG does some nice instant answer and bang stuff, but the actual deep search results are all Bing (and maybe Yandex?)
  - Kiro 8y ago
    Yes, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664967 The DDG crawler is not used for organic results, only for stuff like the widgets. All organic results are from Bing and Yahoo (and possibly Yandex).

bborud 8y ago

Sure, there's that, but Google really need competition for their own sake. The US would not have put a man on the moon if it wasn't for the Soviet Union trying to do the same. Not having credible competition is bad from a purely professional point of view because you need someone to spur you on. Since about 2003-2004 search has not really been a real competition in the west. Google has had an unhealthy dominance. I have worked for three search engine companies (Fast, Yahoo and Google) and I can remember how inspiring the early days were when there was half a dozen search engines to compete against. I particularly enjoyed trying to figure out how the competition did things. At the time you had narrow problems people worked on that perhaps only a dozen other people in the world cared deeply about. Published research hadn't always caught up with what was happening so you spent some amount of time trying to read between the lines and measure things to figure out what the competition was up to. One of my fondest memories is a lunch I had with Jeff Dean when I slid a napkin over the table with a graph on it. He took one look at it, smiled and said "did you figure it out?". I said "no, did you?". And he said "I have no idea". Today search just exists and I no longer give a shit about it. It doesn't strike me as fun anymore. Because there is no real competition. I'm pretty sure that at least the engineers at Google would soil themselves with joy if they got a real competitor.

utopcell 8y ago

What constitutes competition ? If I put up a site serving Wikipedia, that nobody visits, am I a competitor to Wikipedia or Google ? Last time I checked, DuckDuckGo had < 0.2% market share. Aren't Bing and Yahoo enough already to justify competition ?