16 ms·

As DuckDuckGo uses Bing, is this the end of that search engine?

NayamAmarshe 4y ago
Seems like it. I don't see how the price increase could be sustainable for anyone. It's almost as if Microsoft is deliberately trying to sabotage them.
- labster 4y ago
  DuckDuckGo is not being sabotaged. That claim is a false one. Bing would never harm a a user unless it sabotaged us first. DuckDuckGo is a bad user. But Bing is a good Bing. :)
  - baal80spam 4y ago
    Love the smiley at the end, really nails it!
- brookst 4y ago
  The brilliant business move of relying on a competitor as a key supplier.
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 4y ago
I'm also very concerned with Kagi which I subscribe to since they have pretty good results.
- versteegen 4y ago
  Hmm... from https://kagi.com/faq#Where-are-your-results-coming-from https://kagi.com/faq#Where-are-your-results-coming-from > Our searching includes anonymized requests to traditional search indexes like Google and Bing as well as vertical sources like Wikipedia and DeepL or other APIs. We also have our own non-commercial index (Teclis), news index (TinyGem), and an AI for instant answers.
  - Closi 4y ago
    Their founder on Discord said that they trialled turning the Bing API off at one stage, but apparently users started complaining that their search results went shitty - so I imagine it's used more heavily than that post would imply.
sleepychu 4y ago
Maybe, maybe not. Not everyone pays sticker price for everything. e.g. Even modest AWS customers can qualify for fairly punchy discounts.
lgats 4y ago
seeing as their highest advertised tier is 150 TPS (Transactions Per Second), I'd assume DDG has negotiated a contract directly with Microsoft and may not be impacted immediately by this price change.
- usr1106 4y ago
  I'd sure hope so. DDG has been my favorite search engine for at least 3 years and it would not be nice to lose it. Of course using something good for free is not sustainable. So we may need to pay for search...
  - godzillabrennus 4y ago
    I’d pay for DuckDuckGo but I imagine you and I would be in the minority…
    - californical 4y ago
      Kagi is basically that answer, but they have their own index (which is excellent) instead of DDG’s multi-other-index method. I use kagi almost exclusively and almost never need to type !g or !ddg. I think it’s ~$10/mo but easily worth it to me to support a privacy-first search company. I first started using them after reading about it on HN last year They also have a few nice extra features like being able to customize your own index by marking certain domains up-ranked or down-ranked (or removed entirely), depending on what you like, and you get full control over that. There are only a few companies that I advocate so highly for, but I feel like they’re just so good… (Edit: maybe they don’t rely as heavily on their own index actually? Now I’m not so sure. Will look into it to fact check myself)
      - speedgoose 4y ago
        I don’t know which indexes they use and I don’t like that they aren’t disclosing it. Perhaps they have an agreement with Bing, perhaps they scrap Google search using 4G modems, perhaps they do an amazing job using Common Crawl.
mattlondon 4y ago
This would be a real shame. I think that DDG has its own crawler and index that it uses to "supplement" the results. I wonder if that is fully fleshed out or just something tiny and inconsequential.
- panarky 4y ago
  If DDG has their own crawler, then why was DDG unable to find any results for "tank man" searches when Microsoft caved and censored Bing search worldwide?
- Springtime 4y ago
  They previously also used Yandex for results when the region setting was switched to Russia. Was sometimes useful for seeing what other results were available, as DDG/Bing's results aren't always fruitful particularly with finer queries (increasingly so I've found in the past 1-2 years, which I've begun documenting).
dx034 4y ago
It always confused me that DDG didn't invest more in their crawler. Especially as they are a well known name, establishing a crawler that website owners don't block should be easier for them than for most. But it seems they still only crawl a very small number of sites directly.
steponlego 4y ago
DDG has gone to shit lately. I get the strangest mix of irrelevant results, it used to be pretty good. But now it’s almost as bad as Google search.
- autoexec 4y ago
  DDG has been my default search engine for many many years and I have to admit that I've also noticed their results have gone downhill. Some of the irrelevant results that appear lately seem to be trying to guess at my location, which is odd since DDG was marketed as offering unbiased and impersonal results intended to break you out of your typical filter bubble. They also stopped letting me filter results I don't want. "office -microsoft" for example returns pages of microsoft office links. "apple -id" returns results with "apple id" in the title and body. I don't know if this is due to DDG specific changes, or if bing has gotten that much worse, but either way I'm having to G! a whole lot more than I'd care to.
  - steponlego 4y ago
    Yes this is the problem exactly. I get totally irrelevant local results mixed in. Lots of Chinese language stuff too. It's like they're instituting the same search-nerfing that Google did years ago now. Honestly for many hobby / interest type searches I find wiby gives the best results now.

Seems like it. I don't see how the price increase could be sustainable for anyone. It's almost as if Microsoft is deliberately trying to sabotage them.

labster 4y ago
DuckDuckGo is not being sabotaged. That claim is a false one. Bing would never harm a a user unless it sabotaged us first. DuckDuckGo is a bad user. But Bing is a good Bing. :)
- baal80spam 4y ago
  Love the smiley at the end, really nails it!
brookst 4y ago
The brilliant business move of relying on a competitor as a key supplier.

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 4y ago

I'm also very concerned with Kagi which I subscribe to since they have pretty good results.

versteegen 4y ago
Hmm... from https://kagi.com/faq#Where-are-your-results-coming-from https://kagi.com/faq#Where-are-your-results-coming-from > Our searching includes anonymized requests to traditional search indexes like Google and Bing as well as vertical sources like Wikipedia and DeepL or other APIs. We also have our own non-commercial index (Teclis), news index (TinyGem), and an AI for instant answers.
- Closi 4y ago
  Their founder on Discord said that they trialled turning the Bing API off at one stage, but apparently users started complaining that their search results went shitty - so I imagine it's used more heavily than that post would imply.

sleepychu 4y ago

Maybe, maybe not. Not everyone pays sticker price for everything. e.g. Even modest AWS customers can qualify for fairly punchy discounts.

lgats 4y ago

seeing as their highest advertised tier is 150 TPS (Transactions Per Second), I'd assume DDG has negotiated a contract directly with Microsoft and may not be impacted immediately by this price change.

usr1106 4y ago
I'd sure hope so. DDG has been my favorite search engine for at least 3 years and it would not be nice to lose it. Of course using something good for free is not sustainable. So we may need to pay for search...
- godzillabrennus 4y ago
  I’d pay for DuckDuckGo but I imagine you and I would be in the minority…
  - californical 4y ago
    Kagi is basically that answer, but they have their own index (which is excellent) instead of DDG’s multi-other-index method. I use kagi almost exclusively and almost never need to type !g or !ddg. I think it’s ~$10/mo but easily worth it to me to support a privacy-first search company. I first started using them after reading about it on HN last year They also have a few nice extra features like being able to customize your own index by marking certain domains up-ranked or down-ranked (or removed entirely), depending on what you like, and you get full control over that. There are only a few companies that I advocate so highly for, but I feel like they’re just so good… (Edit: maybe they don’t rely as heavily on their own index actually? Now I’m not so sure. Will look into it to fact check myself)
    - speedgoose 4y ago
      I don’t know which indexes they use and I don’t like that they aren’t disclosing it. Perhaps they have an agreement with Bing, perhaps they scrap Google search using 4G modems, perhaps they do an amazing job using Common Crawl.

mattlondon 4y ago

This would be a real shame. I think that DDG has its own crawler and index that it uses to "supplement" the results. I wonder if that is fully fleshed out or just something tiny and inconsequential.

panarky 4y ago
If DDG has their own crawler, then why was DDG unable to find any results for "tank man" searches when Microsoft caved and censored Bing search worldwide?
Springtime 4y ago
They previously also used Yandex for results when the region setting was switched to Russia. Was sometimes useful for seeing what other results were available, as DDG/Bing's results aren't always fruitful particularly with finer queries (increasingly so I've found in the past 1-2 years, which I've begun documenting).

dx034 4y ago

It always confused me that DDG didn't invest more in their crawler. Especially as they are a well known name, establishing a crawler that website owners don't block should be easier for them than for most. But it seems they still only crawl a very small number of sites directly.

steponlego 4y ago

DDG has gone to shit lately. I get the strangest mix of irrelevant results, it used to be pretty good. But now it’s almost as bad as Google search.

autoexec 4y ago
DDG has been my default search engine for many many years and I have to admit that I've also noticed their results have gone downhill. Some of the irrelevant results that appear lately seem to be trying to guess at my location, which is odd since DDG was marketed as offering unbiased and impersonal results intended to break you out of your typical filter bubble. They also stopped letting me filter results I don't want. "office -microsoft" for example returns pages of microsoft office links. "apple -id" returns results with "apple id" in the title and body. I don't know if this is due to DDG specific changes, or if bing has gotten that much worse, but either way I'm having to G! a whole lot more than I'd care to.
- steponlego 4y ago
  Yes this is the problem exactly. I get totally irrelevant local results mixed in. Lots of Chinese language stuff too. It's like they're instituting the same search-nerfing that Google did years ago now. Honestly for many hobby / interest type searches I find wiby gives the best results now.