7 ms·

DDG is more neutral in political themes. You usually see some results that you wouldn't see on the first page on google. Google still has a slight advantage wh

DDG is more neutral in political themes. You usually see some results that you wouldn't see on the first page on google. Google still has a slight advantage when searching for technical info, but most of times DDG is good enough for them too.

benjohnson 7y ago
I'll second this - Google is starting to hide things that it deems objectionable and I've found myself using DDG now and then for controversial topics.
- turk73 7y ago
  As someone who worked on search engine algorithms in grad school in the late '90s when Google was coming of age and everyone admired them and thought their engineers were brilliant, it is just discouraging to witness what they have become. Technology was supposed to free mankind, not make everywhere like China or the former East Germany. Depressing.
utopcell 7y ago
You do know that DDG just serves Bing organic results, right ?
- machello13 7y ago
  People keep saying this, but from what I could find on DDG's website, Bing is just one of several sources they use, one of which is their own crawler.
  - utopcell 7y ago
    No need to take my word for it, just search on both and look at the 10 blue links. Makes you think why they present Google as compromising your privacy, but they're dead-silent when it comes to Microsoft. Or Yandex, their other search partner.
    - machello13 7y ago
      I just tried this and the first 2 results matched up, but the rest were different. And not just ordering (on the first page at least) — DuckDuckGo had some Bing didn't, and vice versa.
      - utopcell 7y ago
        What was your query ?
    - jerf 7y ago
      If all DuckDuckGo did was proxy my search request through to Bing while stripping away all identifying information, while not storing any identifying information themselves, they would still achieve the goal of securing my privacy. It's not about search engines seeing search requests, it's about tying them to particular people.
      - elihu 7y ago
        Privacy is a big deal, but even when privacy is guaranteed it's still a problem that the public's ability to find information on the Internet is effectively controlled by two large tech companies, Google and Microsoft. I hope that eventually we have a lot more competing search engines.
      - utopcell 7y ago
        Whatever makes you happy as a user. If they make you think your privacy is respected, all the more power to you. It really boils down to this: Can you trust a small company that chooses to grow via smearing campaigns, provides sub-par results, and _claims_ that it protects your data while sometimes feeding your queries off-shore, or the tech leader that tells you exactly what it knows about you, allows you to search privately and is widely believed to be the best search offering ?
        osamagirl69 7y ago
        Is that a serious question? I trust DDG infinitely more than I trust google, because google openly admits they are abusing me where as DDG states in clear writing that they are not. I mean it is possible that DDG is lying, but what could they do that is _worse_ than google?
- greglindahl 7y ago
  It's more complicated than that. Bing sells results and charges a lot, Yahoo BOSS used to sell 2 different levels of results, one older (and cheaper) than the normal Bing feed and one much older (and even cheaper.) So if it's a query with a lot of temporal churn in the results, it's easy to be confused.
paulddraper 7y ago
Obviously lacks the privacy aspect, but I've noticed Bing is also politically neutral. This seems to be a Google-specific problem. --- Example that I just double-checked: (I don't claim any political views here; JUST an example) Reddit's largest subreddit for a political candidate is r/The_Donald. Objectively, a rather popular site. Google (with or without SafeSearch) returns zero results for "Reddit The_Donald" linking to the subreddit. [1] It's only results are indirect discussions about the subreddit. Whereas DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Yahoo show the subreddit itself as the very first result. [2] [3] [4] (https://np.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/ https://np.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/ which is Reddit's public non-logged in site.) So Google won't display a high-traffic site. I can only assume they find the content objectionable and so will not link directly to it. I understand how some may want that, but that's not a simply not a service I want my search engine to perform, especially when SafeSearch is disabled. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Reddit+The_Donald https://www.google.com/search?q=Reddit+The_Donald [2] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Reddit+The_Donald https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Reddit+The_Donald [3] https://www.bing.com/search?q=Reddit+The_Donald https://www.bing.com/search?q=Reddit+The_Donald [4] https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Reddit+The_Donald https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Reddit+The_Donald
- sct202 7y ago
  Google doesn't look like it indexs any subreddits under the np.reddit.com subdomain.
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    That's a red herring. All subreddit content is available under both www.reddit.com and np.reddit.com. (I'm not 100% sure why Reddit has both.) Example: r/ChapoTrapHouse is a left-leaning political subreddit (and in the interest of true apples-to-apples comparison, also has a content warning by Reddit like the earlier example). "Reddit ChapoTrapHouse" has top results for www. or np. from all search engines. * Google: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ [1] * DuckDuckGo: https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ [2] * Bing: https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ [3] * Yahoo: https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ [4] [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse https://www.google.com/search?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse [2] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse [3] https://www.bing.com/search?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse https://www.bing.com/search?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse [4] https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse --- I'd love a simpler explanation than "Google being politically biased Big Brother", but I can't see one.
colordrops 7y ago
I'm glad that we are at a point where we can point out obvious political bias by Google without being trashed as nutjob conspiracy theorists.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  But now they have all the Fox News crackpot stories featured in the news feed. What bias?
defertoreptar 7y ago
Sometimes I find myself searching for something I specifically remember in the past, but I can only find one side of the story. Then I remember, "oh yeah, I have to use duckduckgo for political subjects." Google's bias has gotten especially noticeable this past year.

benjohnson 7y ago

I'll second this - Google is starting to hide things that it deems objectionable and I've found myself using DDG now and then for controversial topics.

turk73 7y ago
As someone who worked on search engine algorithms in grad school in the late '90s when Google was coming of age and everyone admired them and thought their engineers were brilliant, it is just discouraging to witness what they have become. Technology was supposed to free mankind, not make everywhere like China or the former East Germany. Depressing.

utopcell 7y ago

You do know that DDG just serves Bing organic results, right ?

machello13 7y ago
People keep saying this, but from what I could find on DDG's website, Bing is just one of several sources they use, one of which is their own crawler.
- utopcell 7y ago
  No need to take my word for it, just search on both and look at the 10 blue links. Makes you think why they present Google as compromising your privacy, but they're dead-silent when it comes to Microsoft. Or Yandex, their other search partner.
  - machello13 7y ago
    I just tried this and the first 2 results matched up, but the rest were different. And not just ordering (on the first page at least) — DuckDuckGo had some Bing didn't, and vice versa.
    - utopcell 7y ago
      What was your query ?
  - jerf 7y ago
    If all DuckDuckGo did was proxy my search request through to Bing while stripping away all identifying information, while not storing any identifying information themselves, they would still achieve the goal of securing my privacy. It's not about search engines seeing search requests, it's about tying them to particular people.
    - elihu 7y ago
      Privacy is a big deal, but even when privacy is guaranteed it's still a problem that the public's ability to find information on the Internet is effectively controlled by two large tech companies, Google and Microsoft. I hope that eventually we have a lot more competing search engines.
    - utopcell 7y ago
      Whatever makes you happy as a user. If they make you think your privacy is respected, all the more power to you. It really boils down to this: Can you trust a small company that chooses to grow via smearing campaigns, provides sub-par results, and _claims_ that it protects your data while sometimes feeding your queries off-shore, or the tech leader that tells you exactly what it knows about you, allows you to search privately and is widely believed to be the best search offering ?
      - osamagirl69 7y ago
        Is that a serious question? I trust DDG infinitely more than I trust google, because google openly admits they are abusing me where as DDG states in clear writing that they are not. I mean it is possible that DDG is lying, but what could they do that is _worse_ than google?
greglindahl 7y ago
It's more complicated than that. Bing sells results and charges a lot, Yahoo BOSS used to sell 2 different levels of results, one older (and cheaper) than the normal Bing feed and one much older (and even cheaper.) So if it's a query with a lot of temporal churn in the results, it's easy to be confused.

paulddraper 7y ago

Obviously lacks the privacy aspect, but I've noticed Bing is also politically neutral. This seems to be a Google-specific problem. --- Example that I just double-checked: (I don't claim any political views here; JUST an example) Reddit's largest subreddit for a political candidate is r/The_Donald. Objectively, a rather popular site. Google (with or without SafeSearch) returns zero results for "Reddit The_Donald" linking to the subreddit. [1] It's only results are indirect discussions about the subreddit. Whereas DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Yahoo show the subreddit itself as the very first result. [2] [3] [4] (https://np.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/ https://np.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/ which is Reddit's public non-logged in site.) So Google won't display a high-traffic site. I can only assume they find the content objectionable and so will not link directly to it. I understand how some may want that, but that's not a simply not a service I want my search engine to perform, especially when SafeSearch is disabled. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Reddit+The_Donald https://www.google.com/search?q=Reddit+The_Donald [2] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Reddit+The_Donald https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Reddit+The_Donald [3] https://www.bing.com/search?q=Reddit+The_Donald https://www.bing.com/search?q=Reddit+The_Donald [4] https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Reddit+The_Donald https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Reddit+The_Donald

sct202 7y ago
Google doesn't look like it indexs any subreddits under the np.reddit.com subdomain.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  That's a red herring. All subreddit content is available under both www.reddit.com and np.reddit.com. (I'm not 100% sure why Reddit has both.) Example: r/ChapoTrapHouse is a left-leaning political subreddit (and in the interest of true apples-to-apples comparison, also has a content warning by Reddit like the earlier example). "Reddit ChapoTrapHouse" has top results for www. or np. from all search engines. * Google: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ [1] * DuckDuckGo: https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ [2] * Bing: https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ [3] * Yahoo: https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ https://np.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/ [4] [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse https://www.google.com/search?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse [2] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse [3] https://www.bing.com/search?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse https://www.bing.com/search?q=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse [4] https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Reddit+ChapoTrapHouse --- I'd love a simpler explanation than "Google being politically biased Big Brother", but I can't see one.

colordrops 7y ago

I'm glad that we are at a point where we can point out obvious political bias by Google without being trashed as nutjob conspiracy theorists.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
But now they have all the Fox News crackpot stories featured in the news feed. What bias?

defertoreptar 7y ago

Sometimes I find myself searching for something I specifically remember in the past, but I can only find one side of the story. Then I remember, "oh yeah, I have to use duckduckgo for political subjects." Google's bias has gotten especially noticeable this past year.