10 ms·

This is a purely anti-user move. No user gains anything by it, this actually helps phishing sites. Oh, and it happens to help Google's AMP effort, which can no

by yyyk 7y ago

This is a purely anti-user move. No user gains anything by it, this actually helps phishing sites. Oh, and it happens to help Google's AMP effort, which can now pretend to be the original site even more effectively. Time to get everyone to use Duck Duck Go, and to get rid of those Google CAPTCHAs which are an even bigger data harvesting operation than search.

backtoyoujim 7y ago
Does Duck Duck Go use google ?
- ddingus 7y ago
  With the URLs missing, that just got harder.
- themodelplumber 7y ago
  I thought they used Bing and some other services sprinkled in here and there, like weather. BTW DDG was very nice during the PSPS recently, as our cell data was extremely slow and DDG was nice and fast on that connection. Relatively speaking.
jsilence 7y ago
Would love to switch to DDG, but it consistently gives me search results that do not contain s search term at all, even when I wrap it in double quotes. So they give me thousands of non relevant search results.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  It's actually weird to see that in a DDG x Google comparison... But yes, DDG has started giving me results with entire terms removed from the search since recently, and I have to add quotes all the time to get them back. But at least with DDG we have to option of quoting the terms. Google is much worse at this in any way you care to measure.
  - bitL 7y ago
    No, they actually started removing even quoted terms from search like 2-3 months ago or so; as a consequence I am now looking for DDG alternatives. First Google results became bad, now DDG seems to copy the same "failure" of the "dominant player" instead of standing out and being useful.
  - ConceptJunkie 7y ago
    Yes, I've found this to be the case. Today I was searching for "DVD-RAM" and most of the results from DDG did not contain the term at all, with or without quotes.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- swebs 7y ago
  Duckduckgo uses Bing search in the back end, which is dogshit. Alternatively, you can use Startpage, which uses Google results, but anonymized.
  - paulryanrogers 7y ago
    Is Startpage still anonymous? I thought they got bought by an adtech firm
    - MeteorMarc 7y ago
      Startpage.com is and always has been anonymous, according to Wikipedia and without any credible sources denying this. Where did you get your suggestion?
      - ghostpepper 7y ago
        This is linked from another comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577
      - briandear 7y ago
        On the other hand, Wikipedia isn’t a “creditable source.” I have no dog in this fight, but the tendency to use Wikipedia to prove things is annoying.
    - F00bart 7y ago
      Link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577
  - F00bart 7y ago
    Duckduckgo claims to use 400 sources [0], so you’re probably not totally spot on. Edit: However, that includes their Instant Answers feature, and the numbers are outdated, it’s 1600 sources, most of which are catering to an specific and tiny niche (like angular.js docs, or a dictionary of accounting terms). Main sources are Bing, Yahoo, Wolfram Alpha and their own crawler (according to Wikipedia). [0] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
- jordigh 7y ago
  Use +"quotes and a plus sign".
- mrpopo 7y ago
  I've seen this a lot more with Google search actually. Google tries to outsmart me and show me what they think I want instead of what I'm searching. And I can't believe that you would get thousands of non relevant results. Please show an example.
- Pxtl 7y ago
  It also doesn't have the good locality of Google search. It's like a timewarp back 15 years ago when I had to put "Canada" into every Google search query to tell them I want the Canadian version of the site.
  - ghostpepper 7y ago
    This used to annoy me as well until I realized it's a very minor inconvenience compared to the benefit of not having my location data collected every time I search.
  - zrobotics 7y ago
    You can enable localization on DDG, but by default it's off. Personally, I think that not tracking location is a saner default, but it is an option that you can enable.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  When you run across broken searches like that, you can report them to DDG and they'll fix them.
dessant 7y ago
Do we have any recourse against this monopoly, other than voicing our concerns repeatedly while they ignore us? Can we launch a class action lawsuit against Google if they harm people by limiting consumer choice, and force us to be tracked everywhere using reCAPTCHA v3 and various other methods? Keep in mind that not sending your data to Google is not a real option, there are several government services, health care providers and utility companies using reCAPTCHA, you personal data either gets harvested by Google, or you're barred from accessing essential online services. What can EU and US citizens do to initiate an investigation into Google's data harvesting practices?
- microcolonel 7y ago
  When it comes to search results, there are great competitors. You can not credibly argue that Google holds a monopoly on webpage search.
- ddtaylor 7y ago
  What is wrong with just not using Google instead?
  - progval 7y ago
    As your parent comment wrote: "Keep in mind that not sending your data to Google is not a real option, there are several government services, heath care providers and utility companies using reCAPTCHA, you personal data either gets harvested by Google, or you're barred from accessing essential online services."
    - ddtaylor 7y ago
      Thanks I missed that part
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
    It's impossible, they track and bother you even if you selectively ignore them. It's sick that we tolerate it, you wouldn't tolerate peeping Tom's either if they promised to anonymity their data. Hey your daughter is anonymous and face blurred, there is no harm done. You can ignore all the public beaches, just opt out like that.
notus 7y ago
Side note: For those who tried DDG in the past and were unimpressed I suggest giving it a whirl again. I kind of wrote it off a few years ago and then tried it recently and its pretty good. You may have to modify some search habits. If you enable location tracking they do anonymous localized results (can read about it here: https://help.duckduckgo.com/privacy/anonymous-localized-results/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/privacy/anonymous-localized-resu...) Usually good if you're used to typing in food choices and getting local results
- tarsinge 7y ago
  Same here, switched my default search engine to DDG a few months and it took only a few days to get used to it. So much that I was very surprised to discover that I know dislike Google results UI (something I never imagined could happen). I still fallback to Google for advanced search (usually technical subjects) with !g but in the majority of common searches the DDG default results are what I expect. Seriously to all people thinking there is no alternative give it a try, I switched my family and they don’t see a difference.
  - behnamoh 7y ago
    DDG should seriously drop the infinite scrolling on their results page. It's so annoying, even Google tried it once and gave up on it.
    - tcpekin 7y ago
      This looks to be a setting you can change in their "Other Settings" page.
    - Zetaphor 7y ago
      You can easily disable that here, among other handy settings: https://duckduckgo.com/settings https://duckduckgo.com/settings
  - dorgo 7y ago
    >I know dislike Google results UI I use DDG as a default search engine for a while, but fell back to google search often, because I felt that Google results are better. At some point i enabled a stylesheet which made DDG results look like google's. And the search results improved significantly. I stopped using Google search for anything other than Google maps.
CivBase 7y ago
DDG is a pretty easy switch once you learn how to use bang searches. DDG usually finds what I'm looking for, but in the rare occasion it doesn't I just add !g to the search and it takes me to google.
- Grimm665 7y ago
  This gets even more powerful when you have DDG as the default browser search. I use !w in the address bar to jump to a wikipedia page when I know what I'm searching for will have one. An even better one, something like "30GB at 20Mbit/s !wa" brings you to wolfram alpha and starts the calculation automatically.
slim 7y ago
duck duck go has also a great lite version. Try it with lynx
jjtheblunt 7y ago
Why Duck Duck Go and not Bing?
fionnafire 7y ago
I really don't understand why everyone is hating on amp, it helps me save data and load pages faster I also don't really understand what's wrong with data harvesting, if anyone wants to enlighten me, please do
- f1refly 7y ago
  I hate on amp because it locks pages into very heavy libraries that should really be kilobytes of html/css. It also nags me that google can do whatever they want with the content that way, completely taking control away from the publishing site. > I also don't really understand what's wrong with data harvesting If you don't understand why people get pissed when they're forced to get every detail of their lifes put on permanent record by google without a choice to opt out, I can't help you with that. You should probably move to china, I recon you'll like it there.

by yyyk 7y ago

backtoyoujim 7y ago

Does Duck Duck Go use google ?

ddingus 7y ago
With the URLs missing, that just got harder.
themodelplumber 7y ago
I thought they used Bing and some other services sprinkled in here and there, like weather. BTW DDG was very nice during the PSPS recently, as our cell data was extremely slow and DDG was nice and fast on that connection. Relatively speaking.

jsilence 7y ago

Would love to switch to DDG, but it consistently gives me search results that do not contain s search term at all, even when I wrap it in double quotes. So they give me thousands of non relevant search results.

marcosdumay 7y ago
It's actually weird to see that in a DDG x Google comparison... But yes, DDG has started giving me results with entire terms removed from the search since recently, and I have to add quotes all the time to get them back. But at least with DDG we have to option of quoting the terms. Google is much worse at this in any way you care to measure.
- bitL 7y ago
  No, they actually started removing even quoted terms from search like 2-3 months ago or so; as a consequence I am now looking for DDG alternatives. First Google results became bad, now DDG seems to copy the same "failure" of the "dominant player" instead of standing out and being useful.
- ConceptJunkie 7y ago
  Yes, I've found this to be the case. Today I was searching for "DVD-RAM" and most of the results from DDG did not contain the term at all, with or without quotes.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
swebs 7y ago
Duckduckgo uses Bing search in the back end, which is dogshit. Alternatively, you can use Startpage, which uses Google results, but anonymized.
- paulryanrogers 7y ago
  Is Startpage still anonymous? I thought they got bought by an adtech firm
  - MeteorMarc 7y ago
    Startpage.com is and always has been anonymous, according to Wikipedia and without any credible sources denying this. Where did you get your suggestion?
    - ghostpepper 7y ago
      This is linked from another comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577
    - briandear 7y ago
      On the other hand, Wikipedia isn’t a “creditable source.” I have no dog in this fight, but the tendency to use Wikipedia to prove things is annoying.
  - F00bart 7y ago
    Link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577
- F00bart 7y ago
  Duckduckgo claims to use 400 sources [0], so you’re probably not totally spot on. Edit: However, that includes their Instant Answers feature, and the numbers are outdated, it’s 1600 sources, most of which are catering to an specific and tiny niche (like angular.js docs, or a dictionary of accounting terms). Main sources are Bing, Yahoo, Wolfram Alpha and their own crawler (according to Wikipedia). [0] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
jordigh 7y ago
Use +"quotes and a plus sign".
mrpopo 7y ago
I've seen this a lot more with Google search actually. Google tries to outsmart me and show me what they think I want instead of what I'm searching. And I can't believe that you would get thousands of non relevant results. Please show an example.
Pxtl 7y ago
It also doesn't have the good locality of Google search. It's like a timewarp back 15 years ago when I had to put "Canada" into every Google search query to tell them I want the Canadian version of the site.
- ghostpepper 7y ago
  This used to annoy me as well until I realized it's a very minor inconvenience compared to the benefit of not having my location data collected every time I search.
- zrobotics 7y ago
  You can enable localization on DDG, but by default it's off. Personally, I think that not tracking location is a saner default, but it is an option that you can enable.
pmoriarty 7y ago
When you run across broken searches like that, you can report them to DDG and they'll fix them.

dessant 7y ago

Do we have any recourse against this monopoly, other than voicing our concerns repeatedly while they ignore us? Can we launch a class action lawsuit against Google if they harm people by limiting consumer choice, and force us to be tracked everywhere using reCAPTCHA v3 and various other methods? Keep in mind that not sending your data to Google is not a real option, there are several government services, health care providers and utility companies using reCAPTCHA, you personal data either gets harvested by Google, or you're barred from accessing essential online services. What can EU and US citizens do to initiate an investigation into Google's data harvesting practices?

microcolonel 7y ago
When it comes to search results, there are great competitors. You can not credibly argue that Google holds a monopoly on webpage search.
ddtaylor 7y ago
What is wrong with just not using Google instead?
- progval 7y ago
  As your parent comment wrote: "Keep in mind that not sending your data to Google is not a real option, there are several government services, heath care providers and utility companies using reCAPTCHA, you personal data either gets harvested by Google, or you're barred from accessing essential online services."
  - ddtaylor 7y ago
    Thanks I missed that part
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  It's impossible, they track and bother you even if you selectively ignore them. It's sick that we tolerate it, you wouldn't tolerate peeping Tom's either if they promised to anonymity their data. Hey your daughter is anonymous and face blurred, there is no harm done. You can ignore all the public beaches, just opt out like that.

notus 7y ago

Side note: For those who tried DDG in the past and were unimpressed I suggest giving it a whirl again. I kind of wrote it off a few years ago and then tried it recently and its pretty good. You may have to modify some search habits. If you enable location tracking they do anonymous localized results (can read about it here: https://help.duckduckgo.com/privacy/anonymous-localized-results/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/privacy/anonymous-localized-resu...) Usually good if you're used to typing in food choices and getting local results

tarsinge 7y ago
Same here, switched my default search engine to DDG a few months and it took only a few days to get used to it. So much that I was very surprised to discover that I know dislike Google results UI (something I never imagined could happen). I still fallback to Google for advanced search (usually technical subjects) with !g but in the majority of common searches the DDG default results are what I expect. Seriously to all people thinking there is no alternative give it a try, I switched my family and they don’t see a difference.
- behnamoh 7y ago
  DDG should seriously drop the infinite scrolling on their results page. It's so annoying, even Google tried it once and gave up on it.
  - tcpekin 7y ago
    This looks to be a setting you can change in their "Other Settings" page.
  - Zetaphor 7y ago
    You can easily disable that here, among other handy settings: https://duckduckgo.com/settings https://duckduckgo.com/settings
- dorgo 7y ago
  >I know dislike Google results UI I use DDG as a default search engine for a while, but fell back to google search often, because I felt that Google results are better. At some point i enabled a stylesheet which made DDG results look like google's. And the search results improved significantly. I stopped using Google search for anything other than Google maps.

CivBase 7y ago

DDG is a pretty easy switch once you learn how to use bang searches. DDG usually finds what I'm looking for, but in the rare occasion it doesn't I just add !g to the search and it takes me to google.

Grimm665 7y ago
This gets even more powerful when you have DDG as the default browser search. I use !w in the address bar to jump to a wikipedia page when I know what I'm searching for will have one. An even better one, something like "30GB at 20Mbit/s !wa" brings you to wolfram alpha and starts the calculation automatically.

slim 7y ago

duck duck go has also a great lite version. Try it with lynx

jjtheblunt 7y ago

Why Duck Duck Go and not Bing?

fionnafire 7y ago

I really don't understand why everyone is hating on amp, it helps me save data and load pages faster I also don't really understand what's wrong with data harvesting, if anyone wants to enlighten me, please do

f1refly 7y ago
I hate on amp because it locks pages into very heavy libraries that should really be kilobytes of html/css. It also nags me that google can do whatever they want with the content that way, completely taking control away from the publishing site. > I also don't really understand what's wrong with data harvesting If you don't understand why people get pissed when they're forced to get every detail of their lifes put on permanent record by google without a choice to opt out, I can't help you with that. You should probably move to china, I recon you'll like it there.