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“Google-free” in that the name is impossible to google? /s I had not heard of Qwant before this. How does it compare to other privacy-focused search engines e.

by nxrabl 7y ago

“Google-free” in that the name is impossible to google? /s I had not heard of Qwant before this. How does it compare to other privacy-focused search engines e.g. Duck Duck Go?

tsukurimashou 7y ago
Last time I read about it it wasn't very promising. If I remember correctly their code is proprietary and last time I checked it was just aggregating results from other search engines.
- mapniels 7y ago
  If I remember correctly, they did so in the early days - but should be using their own crawlers now.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  Isn't this exactly what DDG does? Closed-source, aggregating/proxying other search engines like Yandex.
big_chungus 7y ago
When I use DDG, I get results nearly as good as Google. I tried qwant; nowhere near as good. It is used mostly by those who resent the dominance and techical superiority of American tech companies, because it is based in france.
- mapniels 7y ago
  > It is used mostly by those who resent the dominance and techical superiority of American tech companies, because it is based in france. Or maybe because they are subject, as an European company, to GDPR?
  - monocasa 7y ago
    Isn't Google subject to GDPR despite being based in the US practically? And isn't Google technically a EU company since they use the double irish with a dutch sandwich tax scheme?
  - big_chungus 7y ago
    The gdpr applies to Google's operations in europe.
csagan5 7y ago
To be honest, '/e/' is also not that easy to search for.
krlx 7y ago
For search queries in French, DDG is a total no go for me while Qwant has decent results. But then, anything technical or in English I find myself automatically adding the &g suffix to search on Google. They were based on Bing, but it changed years ago now and have their own crawlers.
stereolambda 7y ago
One thing that I like about DuckDuckGo is that you can browse results with arrow keys and enter. No simple way to load the next page, sadly. If you have it set as the search engine in Firefox, you can get mouseless search with ctrl+t and f6 if needed. This is not to say that Qwant is horrible because of not having this (I just ran a couple of test queries and the results seem decent), just it would be nice if different "indie" search engines allowed navigation with keyboard.
- RMPR 7y ago
  > you can get mouseless search with ctrl+t and f6 You can get "very mouseless" with vim vixen add-on
perlwle 7y ago
I use it in China whenever my VPN is down. It's not blocked, yet. On an unrelated note, hackernews has been blocked for at least a month or two. Probably due to lots of HK protest submissions in recent months.

by nxrabl 7y ago

“Google-free” in that the name is impossible to google? /s I had not heard of Qwant before this. How does it compare to other privacy-focused search engines e.g. Duck Duck Go?

tsukurimashou 7y ago

Last time I read about it it wasn't very promising. If I remember correctly their code is proprietary and last time I checked it was just aggregating results from other search engines.

mapniels 7y ago
If I remember correctly, they did so in the early days - but should be using their own crawlers now.
nerdponx 7y ago
Isn't this exactly what DDG does? Closed-source, aggregating/proxying other search engines like Yandex.

big_chungus 7y ago

When I use DDG, I get results nearly as good as Google. I tried qwant; nowhere near as good. It is used mostly by those who resent the dominance and techical superiority of American tech companies, because it is based in france.

mapniels 7y ago
> It is used mostly by those who resent the dominance and techical superiority of American tech companies, because it is based in france. Or maybe because they are subject, as an European company, to GDPR?
- monocasa 7y ago
  Isn't Google subject to GDPR despite being based in the US practically? And isn't Google technically a EU company since they use the double irish with a dutch sandwich tax scheme?
- big_chungus 7y ago
  The gdpr applies to Google's operations in europe.

csagan5 7y ago

To be honest, '/e/' is also not that easy to search for.

krlx 7y ago

For search queries in French, DDG is a total no go for me while Qwant has decent results. But then, anything technical or in English I find myself automatically adding the &g suffix to search on Google. They were based on Bing, but it changed years ago now and have their own crawlers.

stereolambda 7y ago

One thing that I like about DuckDuckGo is that you can browse results with arrow keys and enter. No simple way to load the next page, sadly. If you have it set as the search engine in Firefox, you can get mouseless search with ctrl+t and f6 if needed. This is not to say that Qwant is horrible because of not having this (I just ran a couple of test queries and the results seem decent), just it would be nice if different "indie" search engines allowed navigation with keyboard.

RMPR 7y ago
> you can get mouseless search with ctrl+t and f6 You can get "very mouseless" with vim vixen add-on

perlwle 7y ago

I use it in China whenever my VPN is down. It's not blocked, yet. On an unrelated note, hackernews has been blocked for at least a month or two. Probably due to lots of HK protest submissions in recent months.