4 ms·

Ugh, I only noticed the favicons today. It's such a clear attempt to blur the lines between the regular results (now with favicons) and the ads (now with someth

Ugh, I only noticed the favicons today. It's such a clear attempt to blur the lines between the regular results (now with favicons) and the ads (now with something that looks very like a favicon, particularly when scrolling). I've also noticed recently that the first search result page is absolutely filled with nonsense: "People also ask" "Refined by Brand" Map results, Sponsered banner etc. I did a search recently where there were only 3 actual results on the first page, the rest were peripheral items. It's such a mess. Unfortunately no matter how many times I try to switch to DDG, the results just don't hold up. Particularly for localised results.

x2f10 7y ago
Don't forget the ugliness that is AMP. I understand the pursuit of answers rather than links, but for a variety of reasons, it's not working. DDG is nice, but the results are often lackluster (especially local results, as you say). The sad reality is, I am having trouble discovering new content online even if I have a fairly specific search query. I am fed a list of the same websites ad nauseam. I can't find much in regards to in-depth discussions, interesting blogs, or thought-provoking material. The worst part is, for communities that do provide this content, secrecy is a feature not a bug.
danShumway 7y ago
Startpage recently got acquired, and is now (at least partially) owned by an advertising company. As a privacy advocate, I don't trust them. I use DuckDuckGo, I don't use Startpage. However, you have to think of privacy and consumer hostile behavior as a continuum. Even though I don't trust Startpage as a private search engine, I also don't trust Google as a private search engine. The question is, "is Startpage still better than Google?" I think it is. I think if you're in the position of saying, "I can't use DDG, I get the privacy issues, I get the monopoly issues, but I just don't like their results", then Startpage is still going to be a pretty big step up in privacy over Google search. Startpage is still going to be a good way to fragment your data so one company doesn't know everything about you. It's still going to be a good way of getting around the worst user-hostile UI changes to blend ads into search results. If you disable Javascript and run a Google search, every single link you click on gets wrapped in a Google URL to record that click -- there is no way around that without some kind of browser extension. If you disable Javascript and run a Startpage search, you get direct links to the website. So I heavily encourage people in your position to use Startpage if the alternative is continuing to use Google Search directly.
- freediver 7y ago
  > Startpage recently got acquired, and is now (at least partially) owned by an advertising company. As a privacy advocate, I don't trust them. I use DuckDuckGo, I don't use Startpage. Not following the logic there. How is DuckDuckGo not an (entirely) advertising company? Do they make money off anything else other than ads and injecting affiliate links?
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Yeah, I should have clarified more. DuckDuckGo and Startpage always made money with advertising. The problem with Startpage's acquisition is the introduction of System1/Privacy One, which is not just focused on advertising, but on advertising based on consumer intent/interested, calculated by large-scale collection of consumer data.[0] > “In our business,” Blend adds, “if we can gather as much data as possible, give it off to our engineers and data scientists, and then manage the two effectively, the business can quickly scale.” Again, even though I don't trust System 1/Privacy One as much as I trust DuckDuckGo, I do still trust them more than Google. [0]: https://csq.com/2018/01/system-1-silicon-beach-sleeping-giant/ https://csq.com/2018/01/system-1-silicon-beach-sleeping-gian...
    - freediver 7y ago
      That makes sense. I would still argue that Google back in the day when it only had 30M queries/day (like DDG has today) was no worse than DDG today, and that is the only fair comparison. Increased popularity together with influx of advertising money caused it to adopt product features and policies that allowed those advertisers to convert better, and make more money. So basically what you are saying is "I trust that Weinberg & co are immune to that kind of pressure" or that their primary motives are altruistic in nature and will always stay such. For me personally that is a hard sell. The elephant in the room is advertising based business models for search engines, and any company adopting it will be tempted to follow the path of Google if such opportunity is presented to it.
      - danShumway 7y ago

x2f10 7y ago

Don't forget the ugliness that is AMP. I understand the pursuit of answers rather than links, but for a variety of reasons, it's not working. DDG is nice, but the results are often lackluster (especially local results, as you say). The sad reality is, I am having trouble discovering new content online even if I have a fairly specific search query. I am fed a list of the same websites ad nauseam. I can't find much in regards to in-depth discussions, interesting blogs, or thought-provoking material. The worst part is, for communities that do provide this content, secrecy is a feature not a bug.

danShumway 7y ago

Startpage recently got acquired, and is now (at least partially) owned by an advertising company. As a privacy advocate, I don't trust them. I use DuckDuckGo, I don't use Startpage. However, you have to think of privacy and consumer hostile behavior as a continuum. Even though I don't trust Startpage as a private search engine, I also don't trust Google as a private search engine. The question is, "is Startpage still better than Google?" I think it is. I think if you're in the position of saying, "I can't use DDG, I get the privacy issues, I get the monopoly issues, but I just don't like their results", then Startpage is still going to be a pretty big step up in privacy over Google search. Startpage is still going to be a good way to fragment your data so one company doesn't know everything about you. It's still going to be a good way of getting around the worst user-hostile UI changes to blend ads into search results. If you disable Javascript and run a Google search, every single link you click on gets wrapped in a Google URL to record that click -- there is no way around that without some kind of browser extension. If you disable Javascript and run a Startpage search, you get direct links to the website. So I heavily encourage people in your position to use Startpage if the alternative is continuing to use Google Search directly.

freediver 7y ago
> Startpage recently got acquired, and is now (at least partially) owned by an advertising company. As a privacy advocate, I don't trust them. I use DuckDuckGo, I don't use Startpage. Not following the logic there. How is DuckDuckGo not an (entirely) advertising company? Do they make money off anything else other than ads and injecting affiliate links?
- danShumway 7y ago
  Yeah, I should have clarified more. DuckDuckGo and Startpage always made money with advertising. The problem with Startpage's acquisition is the introduction of System1/Privacy One, which is not just focused on advertising, but on advertising based on consumer intent/interested, calculated by large-scale collection of consumer data.[0] > “In our business,” Blend adds, “if we can gather as much data as possible, give it off to our engineers and data scientists, and then manage the two effectively, the business can quickly scale.” Again, even though I don't trust System 1/Privacy One as much as I trust DuckDuckGo, I do still trust them more than Google. [0]: https://csq.com/2018/01/system-1-silicon-beach-sleeping-giant/ https://csq.com/2018/01/system-1-silicon-beach-sleeping-gian...
  - freediver 7y ago
    That makes sense. I would still argue that Google back in the day when it only had 30M queries/day (like DDG has today) was no worse than DDG today, and that is the only fair comparison. Increased popularity together with influx of advertising money caused it to adopt product features and policies that allowed those advertisers to convert better, and make more money. So basically what you are saying is "I trust that Weinberg & co are immune to that kind of pressure" or that their primary motives are altruistic in nature and will always stay such. For me personally that is a hard sell. The elephant in the room is advertising based business models for search engines, and any company adopting it will be tempted to follow the path of Google if such opportunity is presented to it.
    - danShumway 7y ago