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DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- woofcat 8y agoShe's not loading any tiles for me....
- soperj 8y agoNot in the US - so realize that not everyone experiences this - but I've never had a mapping software be so terrible as Apple maps, led me completely out of the way and over a toll bridge that I didn't need to go over. Trip was over an hour longer than it needed to be. I'll definitely still be using !maps to get google maps on duckduckgo.
- mlok 8y ago!gm is shorter for Google Maps on duckduckgo (in case you didn't know about this shortcut)
- matwood 8y agoIs this recent? I'm in the US, and have found that Apple Maps have improved greatly since it was released. The directions and estimates are equal or better than Google Maps for my area now.
- mnem 8y agoFor Scotland, the maps are pretty good (much better than Google Maps here). I was quite surprised.
- baxtr 8y agoI live in Europe and only use Apple Maps. It is good enough. Sometimes POI are missing, that’s when I use Google Maps (Browser only)
- beezischillin 8y agoIt's such an inconsistent experience for me, in my home region, Transylvania, Google Maps is vastly superior even tho I'd prefer Apple. But I found that -- weirdly enough -- at least while vacationing in the UK, Google seems to show a lot less information on the map on the same zoom level, to a point where I need to zoom in to a level where I feel I can't see a large enough area at once. An example of this is the Brighton Marina, trying to look up the POIs there is frustrating on Google Maps while at the same time it's usable on Apple's offering.
- reaperducer 8y agoIt's regional. For a long time (in internet time), Apple Maps were clearly inferior to Google Maps. These days, it's more nuanced. In some geographies they have parity. In a select few, Apple is ahead. For most, though, Google is better. For speed and privacy reasons, I check Apple Maps first. If I don't find what I'm looking for, then I go to Google Maps and follow up by force-quitting Google Maps when I'm done.
- devereaux 8y agoAlternative: in countries where Apple maps suck, try Here maps: great UI and offline maps.
- FiveSquared 8y agoWhat aboyt maps.me? I use it and its excellent. https://maps.me/ https://maps.me/
- clairity 8y agowhere do you think apple maps is better than google? google maps is the only google service i still use on a regular basis because it's clearly better than apple maps for me (california mostly). apple maps is ok for simple use cases like finding a known business, but an ambiguous search on google maps is almost always better, as is their routing. i'd love to find a better mapping service for these more complicated use cases so i can avoid google altogether.
- saagarjha 8y agoInterestingly, I find Apple Maps to be at least par, and in some cases better, in California. This is following the push they had this summer to improve their maps here.
- pertymcpert 8y agoUsually it's now better in the Bay Area.
- 8y ago
- sveme 8y agoWhat‘s your country? Using Apple Maps all the time in Germany and found it to be actually better than Google Maps (though with a tendency to reroute around traffic more often than Google Maps used to do).
- wil421 8y agoIs Apple Maps good with public transit? I used Google maps in and around Stuttgart and Munich. It worked extremely well. Google Maps was extremely good with public transport in NYC but Apple Maps was not. Where I live but the Southern US Apple Maps is almost as good as Google Maps. Public Transport isn’t quite as good with Apple maps in my city.
- chipotle_coyote 8y agoI've found Apple Maps to usually be terrific with public transit -- with the caveat that they don't have transit data for nearly as many cities as Google does. For a while I considered Apple to be slightly ahead of Google, as Apple's system could tell you which exit from transit stations to take when you were walking/transferring, although I believe Google's caught up with that since.
- sveme 8y agoCrap for Munich at least. Just tried it, couldn‘t even find the route between home and work - and both are along major public transport routes. However, I typically use the DB Navigator app for these purposes in Germany. Highly recommended.
- rsynnott 8y agoIt's pretty regional. It's less confused about Dublin's public transport system these days than Google is, say, so I've started to use it more.
- graeme 8y agoOne thing is apple maps hasn't added bike maps for some reason. This is a seriously hindrance in Europe I expect. I'm in Montreal and this keeps me from using apple maps, as I like to assess walking/biking/transit/uber to decide how to get somewhere
- Konryan 8y agoThis map doesn't work for me. Completely blank.
- twoheadedboy 8y agoSame. Does image search work for you at all?
- babyslothzoo 8y agoWhy hasn't Apple bought DuckDuckGo? I also think the name DuckDuckGo is too long and too cumbersome, they should consider rebranding to something simpler. Branding matters.
- lindgrenj6 8y agoYou can use duck.com and it'll redirect :)
- lucasmullens 8y agoThey own duck.com now, figure it won't be long until they're rebranded as "Duck"
- yammajr 8y agoIn December they acquired the name duck.com, maybe they'll do something with that. Right now it just redirects to duckduckgo.com
- turdnagel 8y agoThe calls to MapKit seem to be going through a proxy on DDG's servers, which are currently (1/15/19 18:00 UTC) 403ing.
- bsstoner 8y agoSorry about that, we had a brief issue with our proxy, it should be working properly now.
- andrethegiant 8y agoI could see a future where DDG gets acquired by Apple.
- mtmail 8y agoSeparate discussion from last week, most argue against it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18816748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18816748
- devereaux 8y agoI'd argue for it. Apple is missing a search engine, has deep-enough pockets and resources to build its own engine if DDG API contracts were stopped, and is favored by people who value their privacy.
- bunderbunder 8y agoApple is missing a search engine. That doesn't imply that Apple needs a search engine, nor does it imply that acquiring one would be the most profitable thing they could be doing with their available resources. Arguably, a key part of Apple's success is that they don't behave like Microsoft.
- loueed 8y agoWould DDG improve apples AI work? Google seems to be ahead of Apple with smart assistants, maybe that only a result of bad privacy policies on Googles part.
- lowpro 8y agoWith Apple pushing privacy as a major feature of iOS compared to alternatives, if the company continues taking a consumer focused, privacy respecting approach acquiring DDG could help strengthen branding, and maybe bring together an integrated privacy solution competing with Google’s integrated ad solution.
- partiallypro 8y ago
- grsmto 8y agoI wish they were explaining why they moved away from Mapbox and OSM in general!
- lukeqsee 8y agoI believe Apple at least augments their data with OSM data; however, I suspect the primary driver of this decision was price. Edit: request are succeeding for me now.
- mtmail 8y agoApple employee spoke at a recent OSM conference. Yes, they use OSM data as well. In some countries more than others. Apple also has a fulltime staff working on OSM. https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues, https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/ https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/
- Brakenshire 8y agoApple can only use OSM data pre license change which is very old now, those links are to contributions Apple is making to OSM (similar to the big Microsoft contributions) which are probably there as a way of trying to prevent a Google monopoly, but not indications that Apple is using the data.
- Doctor_Fegg 8y agoThat’s not true. Apple is using and contributing current, ODbL-licensed OSM data.
- Brakenshire 8y agoHow does that work? Do you mean using it behind the scenes? I thought ODbL prevented combinations unless the combined dataset could be released.
- mtmail 8y agoSome paint it as if the main reason to switch was privacy (https://www.imore.com/duckduckgo-switches-apple-maps-because-privacy https://www.imore.com/duckduckgo-switches-apple-maps-because... "DuckDuckGo switches to Apple Maps, because privacy"), but the previous map provider was mapbox (openstreetmap plus commercial sources) and I doubt mapbox collected more data than Apple is now.
- gowld 8y agoDDG's main marketing model is talking about how they believe Google is privacy threat, so they'll highlight that angle in any change.
- lukeqsee 8y agoIf any of you are looking for a company (that is not Apple) that provides map tiles while respecting your customer's privacy, my company (link in profile) does not keep logs beyond debugging necessity and has plans to further improve our privacy profile. We also can make provision for proxy servers in the interest of privacy, if that is helpful for your use case. (We currently use Analytics on our homepage, but have plans to replace that on our next iteration.)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- spurgu 8y agoReplace it with what if I may ask?
- lukeqsee 8y agoHey spurgu, that's yet to be decided. :) We're investigating some of the self-hosted options or our own log-based metrics (think ElasticSearch + Kibana). We're trying to avoid third-parties, if at all possible.
- CobrastanJorji 8y agoWhat would your analytics stack store if you plan to keep no logs other than those that are necessary for debugging?
- lukeqsee 8y agoThe analytics I'm referring to would be for our marketing page (and only our marketing page). The logs are for our services themselves. It may seem like splitting hairs, but I believe it's entirely reasonable to collect useful data on the marketing site vs collecting data via the services our customers pay for (and are used primarily by those who are not our direct customers). There's also a difference between aggregated data (e.g., number of page hits / avg time spent on page) and PII (e.g., IP addresses, browser fingerprinting).
- ncbrit 8y agoScroll wheel isn't zooming the map for me.
- eyesee 8y agoAt least in Safari, pinch-to-zoom does work.
- smoser 8y agoBut it does support other/better trackpad gestures like pinch to zoom and twist to rotate the map.
- mattlondon 8y agoNot for me it doesn't - pinch zooms the entire page, not the map. Mouse wheel does nothing. Rotate does nothing. Total usability fail here. Very disappointed in DDG :(
- braum 8y agoApple map sucks on non-MacOS... no idea why DDG chose them unless its prep for acquisition. you can use CTRL+MouseWheel to zoom in/out.
- convivialdingo 8y agoZoom doesn't work on Sierra w/ Safari for me in any way - only tapping the +/- buttons works.
- aibara 8y agoYep, very annoying, especially for people who use trackpoints.
- smoser 8y agoHold down shift while scrolling to zoom, just like Maps.app.
- 8y ago
- virusduck 8y agoOne thing I notice is that there is no way to restrict search to the map area, or to refine by "Search this Area."
- twoheadedboy 8y agoSomewhat related but DuckDuckGo Image and Map search results have been broken for months for me. I just get blank, broken images. Anyone else have this problem? Kind of defeats the purpose if I have to use google for half of my searches.
- dan-robertson 8y agoSome kind of extension blocking the images/js from loading?
- bwblabs 8y agoOr faking/randomizing your UA? Some sites (e.g. YT) serves other image formats based on the UA string.
- oth001 8y agoHttps://Startpage.com
- zbruhnke 8y agoI really wish DDG would build a Google Apps competitor ... as long as gmail dominates email and business email the privacy argument is largely irrelevant because people will spend hours per day logged in and locked in to the Google ecosystem
- joemi 8y agoI think the main motivation for a search company to go and build an email service (or an entire Google Apps competitor) would be the same reason Google did it... to mine user data. So to that end I don't think it really makes sense for DDG to do such a thing.
- nerfhammer 8y agoI think they did it because existing alternatives were terrible
- josteink 8y agoI don’t use Gmail. FastMail works nicely for me, with no google-login required. Don’t see why DDG (a search engine) should run an email-service, nor vica-verse really.
- spurgu 8y agoIf you want to control all the world's data...
- ethagnawl 8y agoI could see Proton* making this play.
- jonas21 8y agoHow would that work? Surely they'd need to index your documents and emails so you could search over them. And I think many DDG users would find that pretty unappealing.
- jlarocco 8y ago
- cygned 8y agoWhen DuckDuckGo is set to a dark theme, the map is also in dark mode! To me, that is an incredible valuable feature. Edit: which is a fallback to Mapbox, no Apple Maps feature.
- blabus 8y agoIt seems they're falling back to Mapbox when a dark theme is used, presumably because MapKit JS doesn't support any theming or styling of maps.
- cygned 8y agoGood catch, I missed that. However, I guess that Apple will provide a dark mode for their map, too, at some point since they build dark mode into their OS(es?) anyway.
- master-litty 8y agoWe can send people to the moon but we can barely get dark mode right :)
- njarboe 8y agoWe can't currently send people to the moon, unfortunately. SpaceX is working on creating that capability in the next decade or so though and with there track record it might even happen.
- jenhsun 8y agoCaution: DuckDuckGo's Apple Maps might kill your macOS's default map (show completely blank map) if your app has non-English language setting. If so, open your active monitor and search "geod", kill it and run map app again. It can return your apple map app back to normal state.
- saagarjha 8y agoHow so?
- mrlala 8y agoI like DDG android app. Nice that you can automatically set it to clear the data/history after 5/10/15 min of inactivity instead of having to remember to manually do it.
- betolink 8y agoI'm looking forward to the day that privacy and convenience are mainstream again(if there were ever). This feature is a right step on that direction.
- danso 8y agoWhen was convenience not mainstream, except in the earlier days of the Internet before centralized logins (e.g. Google, Facebook), which are associated with a tradeoff in privacy?
- betolink 8y agoYeah, you're right. What I meant is that in our day they are mutually exclusive, either you have privacy or you have convenience. I like duckduckgo and I use it as my default search engine but we can agree that it lacks many of the convenient features Google maps has. So I'm looking forward to the day that privacy and convenience are the norm.
- jethro_tell 8y agoThey were using an open source map company, not google maps. By that standard, I feel this is probably a privacy regression. I'm looking forward to the day when people know what they are talking about.
- lukeqsee 8y ago> They were using an open source map company, not google maps. By that standard, I feel this is probably a privacy regression. I'm not sure this is a fair comparison. Open source is not the same as privacy-friendly. Apple makes privacy a core-tenet of their product. I do not see the same stance from Mapbox.
- jethro_tell 8y agoApples core tenet is making money, they have recently started making privacy a concern probably because they think that it will make money.
- tabtab 8y agoRe: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps When you use Apple Maps to go anywhere, you do have to duck :-)
- godelski 8y agoI have to say I'm pretty upset about this. Not over privacy stuff (I don't trust Apple that much either), but because Apple maps just sucks. Unless things changed within the last 4 months, Apple Maps couldn't accurately navigate me from Custer State Park to Mt. Rushmore (which really isn't far).
- elicash 8y agoHave you previously used OpenStreetMap? I'd be interested in hearing from those who have. I can say as a DDG user that presentation-wise I disliked what DDG was using before -- but from a direction-accuracy perspective I simply have no idea and would love to hear from others.
- godelski 8y agoI'll be fair in that I've never used it for navigation. But I have used it for looking up locations of places, and it never seemed bad. But I don't do that very often.
- scrooched_moose 8y agoIt's either great or useless, 100% dependent on your location. Maybe 40% of my city is missing (top-20 in the US) including absolutely everything in my neighborhood other than a couple parks and churches. It gets my address to the correct block (between X and Y Aves) but that's it. Some small towns around me barely exist, others are absolutely complete. You'll probably do ok in SF/NYC/LA/Chicago etc, but it gets really spotty beyond that.
- sabas_ge 8y agoLink the area, someone will add something if it comes to this thread :)
- chrisxcross 8y agoOSM is really awesome in (western) Europe. I use it all the time. All new bike trails are in it. Even the trees in down town are in it. It is even great for car navigation. I used the map data to navigate in tiny beach villages in Spain, for a round trip in Iceland and on several other occasions in western Europe. However, i only relied on the data and let my Garmin device create the routes.
- rgrieselhuber 8y agoStartPage and Searx are two interesting alternatives to DDG.
- saagarjha 8y agoInterestingly, it seems like the Maps data that Apple is providing here is inconsistent. In southern California, through the native apps I'm getting high-quality maps, while DuckDuckGo is still showing me the older low-quality ones.
- fady 8y agoA+ DDG! I have been using DDG (duck duck go) since Gabriel created it in 2008. It’s been my default search on all my devices. When I need to route searches through Google, I do, as Google is still king at knowing and giving you the exact results you want, whereas DDG, gives you great results, with a different algorithm on the type results plus the added security of what DDG is about. They don’t track you. They don’t save your searches. I don’t use apple maps as i use android, but I like that DDG continues to go against the grain and choose privacy over comfort. Lastly, I know the bulk of my searches go through DDG so I don’t have to think about what I searched, on what devices, was it on a public net, was VPN enabled?? etc etc.. What are you thoughts? Do you use DDG?
- JohnFen 8y ago> Google is still king at knowing and giving you the exact results you want Not for me, it's not. The quality of Google search results for me has been falling for years now. These days, DDG and Google are about equally good on that score. I suspect that it's because Google tries to tailor my search results to what it thinks I'm looking for rather than just giving me the results I actually asked for, and it's really, really terrible at it.
- bhhaskin 8y agoTotally. I find that most of my Google searches are not relevant. It started to go down hill once they started pushing ML on search. Google is a marketing platform and no longer a search engine.
- see-dante 8y agoOut of curiosity, why would Apple's privacy statement on searches be any different than Google's?
- fady 8y agoI do not know specifically as I have not read Apple Maps policy but to choose Apple Maps over Google Maps says a lot. I use google maps personally. Apple maps is getting better, but it's not google maps. So one can assume, the choice to choose apple over google means, IMHO, is that with Apple Maps they do not track as much as google would/does. Apple stance on privacy, publicly, has been pretty good. Tracking is everywhere and DDG still is sticking to their privacy first method. Lastly, I love that I can dump random searches from my weird brain into DDG without the feeling that I'm giving some random machine, data that at some point can tell someone what I may want or do or have searched. Everyone knows what you're doing on the toilet, everybody poops, but we still close the door for privacy.
- thinkindie 8y ago"pizza in berlin" lacks several options, and I just checked my neighbourhood. This is why I'm still using google maps on my iphone, their search results are far better and more accurate
- wojcikstefan 8y agoThe results themselves are powered by Yelp (and have been before the map switch). The only difference is that now their location is displayed on Apple Maps, not Mapbox.
- Krasnol 8y ago"pizza in frankfurt am main" is terrible. Scrolling with shift (!?) doesn't work at all in my FF. I can't change the search term on the map page... The satellite view doesn't have street names (????!) Edit: the link I click is a yelp.com link. Why are we even talking about Apples privacy here and not yelps? What a horrible step back...
- saagarjha 8y ago> The satellite view doesn't have street name Are you sure you're not in hybrid view?
- yeukhon 8y agoWhat's DDG's business model?
- amanzi 8y agoTo get acquired by a bigger company.
- the_other_guy 8y agoThis.
- Ajax25 8y agoVery True
- aboutruby 8y agoApple is probably going to buy DuckDuckGo this year
- detaro 8y agoApple can buy the same search index access DDG has (and probably would have to re-negotiate DDGs existing contracts when taking them over) if it wants to get into search. Although DDG has some additions on top of that, if it'd be cheap enough those could be a reasonable deal for Apple. I'm not sure Apple wants to get into the mess that offering a major search engine is. Google is paying them quite well for the opportunity to be the search engine on Apple devices.
- mrmondo 8y agoPersonally - I find Apple maps (now, not at all in the early days) much better than Google maps - except for one thing: On several occasions where I enter a street address and if it's in a heavily populated area particularly if it's on an intersection the pointer will be in the wrong place on the street - I've reported these when I've encountered them and Apple has fixed each one within 24-48 hours but it's still a bit annoying when it does happen. My guessing is that because Google farms a tremendous amount of public and private data from Android devices and Google searches / services they are able to use their privately held wealth of peoples information to improve street numbering especially when new roads are added or intersections have been changed - that combined with Google maps being 14 years old and Apple maps only being 7. Still, a sensible move for a privacy focused system I believe.
- tracker1 8y agoI've had the same issue with locations on google maps a few times and iirc it's taken a bit longer than that. What I really hate are mall locations. I wish pin markers put the actual stores in the right portion of the building(s) themselves... hate parking on the wrong side of the complex to find out that I parked on the wrong side. Increase that to when the temperatures are more extreme (under 40F in the north or over 100F in the southwest).
- jchw 8y agoOne thing Google Maps does have that I don't think Apple Maps has is crowd sourced edits. You can actually propose edits to Google Maps as a user. It's especially prominent with business information, but it is even possible to adjust road geometry.
- Twisell 8y agoThere is a reporting tool on both iOS/macOS Maps and you can input suggested edit such as displacing POI to its correct position. Used that in the past and got a notification when suggestion was accepted & pushed to the map. I’d guess it’s curated somehow.
- somebodynew 8y ago
- amanzi 8y agoI guess DDG are angling for Apple to purchase them. Personally I would have preferred for them to stick with OSM. Also, after a quick test, the Apple maps load slowly and driving directions are offloaded to another provider (Bing, Here, Google. or OSM)
- jchw 8y agoApple Maps has seen impressive improvements in the past couple years. With Mapbox/OSM in the mix as well, I look forward to seeing where the competition in the maps space leads us. Mapkit JS took me by surprise when it came out. But so far, it seems to have been a solid decision, especially at a time when many were looking for new solutions after Google Maps changes finally rolled out. And for the most part it looks pretty good. (Disclosure: I work for Google but not on Maps, opinions mine and not my employer, etc etc. I wish I didn't have to write this so often.)
- aembleton 8y agoTo zoom in using my mouse wheel, I have to hold down shift, and then it zooms in the opposite direction to how it works in Google Maps (Firefox 64.0 on Ubuntu). The behaviour works fine for the MapBox maps.
- wjoe 8y agoSame experience with the zooming. Thanks for the tip on holding shift, but it's realllly slow too. I also can't drag the map around or click on any items on the map. Really inferior experience so far. Did you find a way to switch back to the Mapbox maps?
- the_other_guy 8y ago>another DDG shilling thread on HN I know this must be a coincidence that so much shilli.. I mean love for DDG is being expressed through those countless posts on major online communities like HN and reddit almost on a daily basis.
- latexr 8y agoSo DDG will now use Apple’s data to find places? Please don’t. It should be the other way around. Not even a month ago I made a search for a famous place in Lisbon (you know, big metropolitan area, capital of Portugal, 11th-most populous urban area in the European Union) and Apple Maps didn’t even know it existed. Made the search in DDG and it found it, from where I had to copy the address and manually search for it in Maps. Or I could’ve used Google Maps in one try, but I genuinely want DDG and Apple Maps to succeed so I keep trying. But please do use the best data of both, don’t replace one with the other.
- adtac 8y ago>best data of both Isn't that basically just Google Maps? I thought Apple Maps' data was just a subset of Google Maps'. What does Apple Maps do better? Genuinely curious.
- uniformlyrandom 8y agoIt is, but without the desire to monetize your searches.
- latexr 8y agoYes, Google Maps is superior in my region, but as I mentioned, I’d rather support Apple and DDG. I do so for their stances on privacy, but also because usability-wise I do prefer Apple Maps. > I thought Apple Maps' data was just a subset of Google Maps' They must be different datasets; I doubt Google would want to give Apple any data, or data Apple would take it. I will mention that once I have found one place in Apple Maps that was not in Google Maps. It was a small hostel in Europe.
- briandear 8y ago> I thought Apple Maps' data was just a subset of Google Maps That hasn't ever been true with Apple Maps (to my knowledge, but absolutely not true now.) Here's a bit on Apple Maps's current situation: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-maps-from-the-ground-up/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-maps-f...
- imandride 8y agoI can't imagine many people use the maps features in DDG. Switching over to Apple maps isn't going to help, considering that everyone I know in New England stops using Apple maps after about the fifth attempt. Absolutely everyone has an iPhone yet I have no idea how Apple Maps looks like at this point.
- Ajax25 8y agoIdiots
- Paraesthetic 8y agoWell looks like I wont be using DDG for directions then, their directions are going to be trash.
- t0astbread 8y agoIt's a shame to see that DuckDuckGo and many other such companies (yes, also Apple) jump on every "privacy" marketing opportunity they get but largely ignore related user rights such as freedom of information and free software. Actions like this, the fact that DDGs core components are still proprietary and the freezing of DuckDuckHack just kinda make me think DDG sometimes cares more about the PR than its users. Don't get me wrong I do think DDG does a good job at providing a good search engine service that respects its users' privacy. It just bothers me that (almost) no one around here seems to care about freedom. It's a similar thing with Apple, with the exception that Apple actively goes against even the most basic freedoms by forbidding sideloading (if that's still happening), forbidding the GPL on the App Store and being in control of the whole stack - from hardware to software - on almost every platform they have, amongst others. I'm not saying you need to love freedom but it's a good thing to have, so why not propagate it alongside with privacy? And if you don't do it for yourself, do it for those who care about their freedom.
- briandear 8y agoHow is free software a right? I'm not dismissing the value of free software, but considering it a right? If free software is a right, that diminishes the what "right" actually means. Freedom of speech is a right. The ability to defend oneself is a right. Privacy is a right. But free software? How does the map provider of DDG have any effect on a person's ability to use, create, or distribute free software?
- t0astbread 8y agoI believe it is a user's right to know and verify what a specific piece of software does to his data and machine and adjust that behaviour if needed. For that, they need access to the source code. I believe it is a user's right to share the software and configuration they use to help out their neighbour and for that they need to be able to share copies of the software. Lastly, I obviously believe it is a user's right to run the software wherever they want. So yeah, free software is a right in my opinion, like freedom of information and free speech. Unfortunately, not many companies care about it (yet). You're also right in the point that DDG not setting OSM as the default map provider won't actually hurt OSM, really. But it does piss me off a bit when a company always talks about how "privacy friendly" and "open source" they are yet they completely dismiss the (related) freedom aspect. Because "privacy" and "open source" are just the buzzwords the media is talking about. Does DDG not know about freedom? Does DDG not care about freedom? Why? I know they probably have a good reason for that and good intent in what they're doing but without having an answer to these questions, it just looks like they're grabbing the low hanging fruit sometimes.
- cageface 8y agoI’m a bit concerned about how much data Google has on me and I do think Apple is genuinely more concerned about user privacy. But what’s the difference in practical terms really? Google uses my data to target ads at me but doesn’t actually give any of my data to its ad-buying customers. Apple doesn’t do this but is obliged to turn over my iCloud data to the government with a subpoena. Since this is really the scenario we should be most concerned about and since all tech companies are required to comply with the law it seems to me that the only way to have any meaningful online privacy is to not use cloud services from any vendor.
- zaksoup 8y agoSeems to me like one of the key differences is in how much data is actually collected. DDG claims in their blog post that they send no PII to apple, they're just using apple to provide a map view and search data. I'm not even sure this level of anonymized usage is possible with google's APIs. Edit: I just had the experience of trying to use biking directions in google maps the other day. In order to enable actual turn-by-turn directions I had to turn on something called "Web and App activity" which, as best as I can tell, is an unbelievably invasive set of technologies designed to track you across websites, real locations, and non-google owned apps using google APIs. There's a real and meaningful difference in the amount and depth of the data collected by google vs. its competitors. I think a huge motivating factor for why google collects that data is their ad-driven revenue model. To tie it back to your original question: Sure we could all just not use cloud services but in the mean time there are clear differences in how vulnerable you are to privacy violations by nation-states through legal means based on how much data various cloud services are actively trying to collect on you.
- cageface 8y agoYeah I agree this is very shady. Until recently you couldn't use Google Assistant at all without enabling that, which means that every time you launch an app it's logged on their servers. They've fixed this recently but they still require you to turn it on for a lot of features in Android.
- SubMachineGhost 8y ago
- edraferi 8y agoExcited to see DDG's local search improving. I once ordered take out from a restaurant in another state based on a careless DDG search...
- NelsonMinar 8y agoIs this the first consumer web interface for Apple Maps? I guess the JS toolkit has been around for about half a year now, but is anyone else significant publishing web maps with it?
- bekadu 8y agohttps://www.technogeez.com https://www.technogeez.com
- Brakenshire 8y agoThis decision to move away from open infrastructure actually clarifies something I’ve been thinking about DDG recently. When you think about it, DDG is actually very similar to Apple in terms of its offer to users. It is a closed service which offers privacy as part of its marketing. That’s not to dismiss it outright or say the offer is not useful or not sincere, both are valuable alternatives to Google, but in the long run their promise has no legal backing. Both could switch to a different model overnight if their incentives shifted. We could spend a decade evangelising for DDG, it becomes a significant mainstream player, and then gets sold to someone with totally different priorities. I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong, is there a legal barrier to this scenario playing out?
- Terretta 8y agoBusiness models are probably stickier than tech stacks.
- Brakenshire 8y agoIt’s not really a choice of one or the other, most companies that contribute to open infrastructure also have a business model that relies on that. For instance Red Hat, it can be bought but both the business model and the legal backing for the tech licensing are sticky.
- foxes 8y agoWhy are people such fans of Ddg and not searx.me? searx is entirely open source and you can run your own instance. Ddg reportedly does collect some information (?), and their core is closed source.
- thekyle 8y agoI think it's probably that DDG does a better job at marketing themselves. Whenever there is any sort of privacy scandal there always seems to be some comment from their PR dept. Personally, I am highly skeptical regarding DDG and find much of their marketing to be hyperbolic (see the duck.com foolishness [0]). For me, I feel that if I'm just going to get Bing search results and Bing ads, I might as well just use Bing. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/20/17595612/google-antitrust-eu-duckduckgo-chrome https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/20/17595612/google-antitrust...
- MrBra 8y agoDoes it have its own crawling engine?
- jordache 8y agoduck duck go is pretty horrible compared to google, for search results... i wish it wasn't. Tried it, both myself and my less tech savvy wife, thought wtf is this?
- dcow 8y agoThe experience is already better. Thank you. Now please delete Yelp (or at least let me turn it off).
- charliebrownau 8y agoWhats wrong with using Openstreetmaps Instead of Company XZY cloud solution ?
- ac130kz 8y agoTheir core is proprietary, therefore there is virtually no difference between Google and DDG in terms of privacy
- paul7986 8y agoCool I don’t have to bang Google for directions anymore! I started using DDG (slowly trying to remove Google as much out of my daily life as possible) after reading about how Google ATAP tried to patent a MIT researchers life’s work without her knowledge or consent.
- known 8y agohttp://wikimapia.org http://wikimapia.org can be a win-win to DDG
- needle0 8y agoI wasn't even aware DDG had maps at all since they never once showed up for me. Probably because I am entering Japanese addresses, and their address parser isn't recognizing them as such. As much as I wish to use it, much of DDG has been and continues to be really abysmal if you're living in non-English-speaking Asia. I really worry if they're aware and/or are bothering to improve this.
- vkaku 8y agoApple should launch an alternative to Google Maps on Android. I can slowly see the transition coming. I love Here Maps too, it's good to have alternatives to Google products.
- SudoEpoch 8y agoI've been waiting on a better alternative to google for many years. I've use DDG when I can but the quality indexes are just not there. Google was at the pinnacle of balance just before they got rid of uncle-sam and reg exp search options. Now every search is tailored to your previous metadata.
- arendtio 8y agoI wish they would have done a bit more testing: With Firefox I can't change my position by dragging (looks like an image) and with chrome, I can't zoom with the mouse wheel...
- 0ld 8y agoIs there any point in talking about DDG "privacy" as long as they use yandex (which is basically an fsb (kgb) outlet) as a search backend?
- buster 8y agoAs much as Google is an FBI outlet or what do you mean? Is there a point if DDG doesn't send personal data to yandex? I'd expect DDG to not send my IP address or browser info to yandex. Is that not the case?
- diorray 8y agoDDG and Apple? seems fishy
- koolhead17 8y agoWho uses Apple Maps?
- zelphirkalt 8y agoEh ... What?! This thing isn't functioning at all! How did they think what they have now with Apply maps could ever replace what they had before in terms of functionality?! What were they thinking? Just to mention a few issues I hit on the first attempt of using it: - I cannot search?! I can only search on DuckDuckGo, THEN click on the map tab and see a SINGLE location, no similar locations or whatever. And then I cannot in the map tab search? How ridiculous is that? Now I need to do a completely new DuckDuckGo search, hope that it will magically find the street or whatever I search, even if there are multiple ones in the same city. - I cannot look for directions from A to B?! When I click the "Directions" button I get redirected to bing.com, which is currently blocked to a 100%. I don't want to go to bing, I want to get DIRECTIONS, on the DuckDuckGo map tab and not on another website. - I cannot even ZOOM, wtf? I keep using the mouse wheel and nothing happens! This thing is so broken. And this is only the first visit of the map tab. How they f'ed that up, omg.