9 ms·

Searching for “notepad” on DuckDuckGo yields zero results

78 points by massinstall 3y ago

snerc 3y ago
What causes this?
- massinstall 3y ago
  I have no idea, but equally curious.
- superhumanuser 3y ago
  They used to have this thing where developers could build Instant Answers through a program called DuckDuckHack. It would load a carousel at the top with results for like jobs, recipes, etc. It used regex to match the search query. Looks like they have a bad one.
sys32768 3y ago
For that query, the Chrome developer tools console spits an error like so: >d.7527c434450544045365.js:1 Uncaught (in promise) SyntaxError: Invalid regular expression: /^(https?://)?([\w\.-_]*\.)?notepad++\./: Nothing to repeat (at
- Svip 3y ago
  Was someone trying to be funny, to change a "notepad" search for "notepad++", forgetting that + has a specific meaning in regex? Same error occurs with a search for "notepad++", though, but not "notepad+", funnily enough.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    wouldn't this be worse for not having the user provided search query sanitized for special characters?
    - Svip 3y ago
      My assumption is wrong. As others have noted, it's clearly parsing the title of the first result wrong. Edit: It's the parsing of the title of the infobox.
- _8j50 3y ago
  Looks like a regex to detect notepad++ in a url that didn't escape the +'s? Weird, maybe a sponsorship thing
  - jzig 3y ago
    Yep they need to escape every character in the string not just the plus signs
- jzig 3y ago
  If you set a breakpoint there, the value it is trying to replace is "Notepad++" rather than "notepad", gotten from the Heading of "http://www.notepad-plus-plus.org http://www.notepad-plus-plus.org" further up in the logic chain. Looks like the plus signs are incorrectly being added to the RegEx
letmevoteplease 3y ago
Seems to happen with any query containing "otepad".
- devonnull 3y ago
  Unless you type in something like Windows Notepad or paper notepad, which does return results. Strange, very strange.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  As does "tepad" though "epad" does return results.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
Using POST, HTTP/1.0 and lite.duckduckgo.com, with no Javascript of course, I got results. Not suggesting any of those are requirements. I'm just reporting that the no results experience is not universal. Here is the first page of results: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ https://onlinenotepad.org/notepad https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/9MSMLRH6LZF3?hl=en-us&gl=US https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.5/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/notepadplusplus.mirror/ https://notepad.js.org/ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.1.9.3/ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.1/ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help-in-notepad-4d68c388-2ff2-0e7f-b706-35fb2ab88a8c https://www.techspot.com/downloads/2010-notepad.html https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus https://www.onlinenotepad.io/ https://anotepad.com/ https://www.howtogeek.com/902619/open-notepad-in-windows/ https://notepad.plus/ https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/ https://www.digitalcitizen.life/start-notepad-windows/ https://notepad.uptodown.com/windows https://www.dictionary.com/browse/notepad http://www.my-notepad.net/ https://notepad.id.uptodown.com/windows https://notepad-classic-windows-10.en.softonic.com/ Below is a quick script for DuckDuckGo searching, if only want first page of results. yy025 makes HTTP from URLs. yy046 URL-encodes input, e.g., "+" to %2B. The address 127.22.10.55 is a TLS forward proxy. usage: echo query string|1.sh > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm links -no-connect ./1.htm #!/bin/sh h=duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad.onion h=lite.duckduckgo.com read x; x=q=$(echo "$x"|yy046); export httpMethod=POST; export Content_Type=application/x-www-form-urlencoded; export Content_Length=${#x}; export httpVersion=1.0; export Connection=close; echo https://$h/lite/|yy025|if sed w/dev/stderr;then echo $x;echo $x >&2;fi \ |socat stdio,ignoreeof tcp:127.22.10.55:80
jampa 3y ago
It seems that anything that returns "++" (EDIT: in the "About" box), in this case "Notepad++", breaks their internal regex because it seems not to be sanitized properly The breaking code using chrome dev tools seems to be: n = new RegExp("^(https?://)?([\\w\\.-_]\\.)?" + o.toLowerCase().replace(/[-\s]/g, "") + "\\."); In this case "o" is "Notepad++" which might be the first result. The browser returns this error: Invalid regular expression: /^(https?://)?([\w\.-_]\.)?notepad++\./: Nothing to repeat Also happens with C++ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=c%2B%2B&t=ffab&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=c%2B%2B&t=ffab&ia=web
- Svip 3y ago
  Curious that the error does not occur when searching for "Notepad+": https://duckduckgo.com/?q=notepad%2B&t=ffab&atb=v101-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=notepad%2B&t=ffab&atb=v101-1&ia=we...
  - jampa 3y ago
    In this scenario all the "o" instances are "Notepad+". The error seems to be coming from the right sidebar which displays "Notepad+" as a title as well. It seems to be getting the "Heading" from the wikipedia page Here is the object where it extracts the heading from, it seems in this scenario it is not extracting "Notepad++" in the about but "Notepad+" which is another application. ``` Abstract: "Notepad+ is a freeware text editor for Windows operating systems and is intended as a replacement for the Notepad editor installed by default on Windows. It has more formatting features but, like Notepad, works only with plain text. It can open text files of any size, and a single instance of the program can have multiple files open simultaneously. It supports dragging and dropping text within a file and between files, and supports multiple fonts and colours. Notepad+ is available from the company RogSoft. It was developed by Dutch programmer Rogier Meurs. It was first released in 1996. Originally, it had the advantage of being able to open files of any size, because until 2000 Notepad could not open files larger than 64 KB." AbstractSource: "Wikipedia" AbstractURL: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad%2B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad%2B" Heading: "Notepad+" ```
  - cypherpunks01 3y ago
jepler 3y ago
so does "cplusplus" It seems to have to do with some kind of metadata is fetched and then used as a regular expression (to change markup in some other part of the page?); it's assumed that the text can be used as a regular expression without quotation but in the case of the doubled "+" character it becomes a non-valid RE.
yegg 3y ago
Hi all (CEO & Founder, DuckDuckGo here). Looks like something may have broken in a release that went out today -- it is triggering a JS error. We're looking into it now and should have it resolved soon. UPDATE: this should be fixed now.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  Fixed for me (UK), would be interesting to hear what the error was. I did so love the time when you were developing DDG and posting to HN about your progress and getting suggestions from the community and whatnot. So glad it worked out for you.
  - yegg 3y ago
    Thanks! It was a regex error.
    - throwitaway156 3y ago
      Similarly to DNS, its always regex.
- daqhris 3y ago
  Thanks for acknowledging it and sharing helpful info. It seemed bizarre for a short moment.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  I feel like the crowd of e-rubberneckers that gathered here made it seem like a bigger bug than it was...
- Gerard0 3y ago
  Hello! Why has DDG gotten so worse lately? I thought it was just me but I keep reading the same experience on HN. There is no way you don't know about this? Asking as a long time user and at a time even DDG evangelist. Cheers!
  - 3y ago
notorandit 3y ago
"Windows os" instead yields just nonsense
toastercat 3y ago
Unrelated to this issue, but I get peeved when HN commenters rave how DuckDuckGo results are far superior to Google's, and yet the other day I entered "DuckDNS" on DDG, and it was nowhere to be scene in the top 3 pages. Meanwhile on Google and Brave Search, it is the first result.
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  If DDG was actually good people would be using it. "It's not Google" doesn't cut it.
nipperkinfeet 3y ago
I feel like Google has the same issue. Nowadays, searching for anything on Google yields between 3 and 17 results. Few years ago, I received millions of results for the same searches.
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  Notepad++ search yield: About 26.000.000 results (0,33 seconds)

78 points by massinstall 3y ago

snerc 3y ago

What causes this?

massinstall 3y ago
I have no idea, but equally curious.
superhumanuser 3y ago
They used to have this thing where developers could build Instant Answers through a program called DuckDuckHack. It would load a carousel at the top with results for like jobs, recipes, etc. It used regex to match the search query. Looks like they have a bad one.

sys32768 3y ago

For that query, the Chrome developer tools console spits an error like so: >d.7527c434450544045365.js:1 Uncaught (in promise) SyntaxError: Invalid regular expression: /^(https?://)?([\w\.-_]*\.)?notepad++\./: Nothing to repeat (at

Svip 3y ago
Was someone trying to be funny, to change a "notepad" search for "notepad++", forgetting that + has a specific meaning in regex? Same error occurs with a search for "notepad++", though, but not "notepad+", funnily enough.
- dylan604 3y ago
  wouldn't this be worse for not having the user provided search query sanitized for special characters?
  - Svip 3y ago
    My assumption is wrong. As others have noted, it's clearly parsing the title of the first result wrong. Edit: It's the parsing of the title of the infobox.
_8j50 3y ago
Looks like a regex to detect notepad++ in a url that didn't escape the +'s? Weird, maybe a sponsorship thing
- jzig 3y ago
  Yep they need to escape every character in the string not just the plus signs
jzig 3y ago
If you set a breakpoint there, the value it is trying to replace is "Notepad++" rather than "notepad", gotten from the Heading of "http://www.notepad-plus-plus.org http://www.notepad-plus-plus.org" further up in the logic chain. Looks like the plus signs are incorrectly being added to the RegEx

letmevoteplease 3y ago

Seems to happen with any query containing "otepad".

devonnull 3y ago
Unless you type in something like Windows Notepad or paper notepad, which does return results. Strange, very strange.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
As does "tepad" though "epad" does return results.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

Using POST, HTTP/1.0 and lite.duckduckgo.com, with no Javascript of course, I got results. Not suggesting any of those are requirements. I'm just reporting that the no results experience is not universal. Here is the first page of results: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ https://onlinenotepad.org/notepad https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/9MSMLRH6LZF3?hl=en-us&gl=US https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.5/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/notepadplusplus.mirror/ https://notepad.js.org/ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.1.9.3/ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.1/ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help-in-notepad-4d68c388-2ff2-0e7f-b706-35fb2ab88a8c https://www.techspot.com/downloads/2010-notepad.html https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus https://www.onlinenotepad.io/ https://anotepad.com/ https://www.howtogeek.com/902619/open-notepad-in-windows/ https://notepad.plus/ https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/ https://www.digitalcitizen.life/start-notepad-windows/ https://notepad.uptodown.com/windows https://www.dictionary.com/browse/notepad http://www.my-notepad.net/ https://notepad.id.uptodown.com/windows https://notepad-classic-windows-10.en.softonic.com/ Below is a quick script for DuckDuckGo searching, if only want first page of results. yy025 makes HTTP from URLs. yy046 URL-encodes input, e.g., "+" to %2B. The address 127.22.10.55 is a TLS forward proxy. usage: echo query string|1.sh > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm links -no-connect ./1.htm #!/bin/sh h=duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad.onion h=lite.duckduckgo.com read x; x=q=$(echo "$x"|yy046); export httpMethod=POST; export Content_Type=application/x-www-form-urlencoded; export Content_Length=${#x}; export httpVersion=1.0; export Connection=close; echo https://$h/lite/|yy025|if sed w/dev/stderr;then echo $x;echo $x >&2;fi \ |socat stdio,ignoreeof tcp:127.22.10.55:80

jampa 3y ago

It seems that anything that returns "++" (EDIT: in the "About" box), in this case "Notepad++", breaks their internal regex because it seems not to be sanitized properly The breaking code using chrome dev tools seems to be: n = new RegExp("^(https?://)?([\\w\\.-_]\\.)?" + o.toLowerCase().replace(/[-\s]/g, "") + "\\."); In this case "o" is "Notepad++" which might be the first result. The browser returns this error: Invalid regular expression: /^(https?://)?([\w\.-_]\.)?notepad++\./: Nothing to repeat Also happens with C++ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=c%2B%2B&t=ffab&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=c%2B%2B&t=ffab&ia=web

Svip 3y ago
Curious that the error does not occur when searching for "Notepad+": https://duckduckgo.com/?q=notepad%2B&t=ffab&atb=v101-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=notepad%2B&t=ffab&atb=v101-1&ia=we...
- jampa 3y ago
  In this scenario all the "o" instances are "Notepad+". The error seems to be coming from the right sidebar which displays "Notepad+" as a title as well. It seems to be getting the "Heading" from the wikipedia page Here is the object where it extracts the heading from, it seems in this scenario it is not extracting "Notepad++" in the about but "Notepad+" which is another application. ``` Abstract: "Notepad+ is a freeware text editor for Windows operating systems and is intended as a replacement for the Notepad editor installed by default on Windows. It has more formatting features but, like Notepad, works only with plain text. It can open text files of any size, and a single instance of the program can have multiple files open simultaneously. It supports dragging and dropping text within a file and between files, and supports multiple fonts and colours. Notepad+ is available from the company RogSoft. It was developed by Dutch programmer Rogier Meurs. It was first released in 1996. Originally, it had the advantage of being able to open files of any size, because until 2000 Notepad could not open files larger than 64 KB." AbstractSource: "Wikipedia" AbstractURL: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad%2B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad%2B" Heading: "Notepad+" ```
- cypherpunks01 3y ago

jepler 3y ago

so does "cplusplus" It seems to have to do with some kind of metadata is fetched and then used as a regular expression (to change markup in some other part of the page?); it's assumed that the text can be used as a regular expression without quotation but in the case of the doubled "+" character it becomes a non-valid RE.

yegg 3y ago

Hi all (CEO & Founder, DuckDuckGo here). Looks like something may have broken in a release that went out today -- it is triggering a JS error. We're looking into it now and should have it resolved soon. UPDATE: this should be fixed now.

pbhjpbhj 3y ago
Fixed for me (UK), would be interesting to hear what the error was. I did so love the time when you were developing DDG and posting to HN about your progress and getting suggestions from the community and whatnot. So glad it worked out for you.
- yegg 3y ago
  Thanks! It was a regex error.
  - throwitaway156 3y ago
    Similarly to DNS, its always regex.
daqhris 3y ago
Thanks for acknowledging it and sharing helpful info. It seemed bizarre for a short moment.
marginalia_nu 3y ago
I feel like the crowd of e-rubberneckers that gathered here made it seem like a bigger bug than it was...
Gerard0 3y ago
Hello! Why has DDG gotten so worse lately? I thought it was just me but I keep reading the same experience on HN. There is no way you don't know about this? Asking as a long time user and at a time even DDG evangelist. Cheers!
- 3y ago

notorandit 3y ago

"Windows os" instead yields just nonsense

toastercat 3y ago

Unrelated to this issue, but I get peeved when HN commenters rave how DuckDuckGo results are far superior to Google's, and yet the other day I entered "DuckDNS" on DDG, and it was nowhere to be scene in the top 3 pages. Meanwhile on Google and Brave Search, it is the first result.

WeylandYutani 3y ago
If DDG was actually good people would be using it. "It's not Google" doesn't cut it.

nipperkinfeet 3y ago

I feel like Google has the same issue. Nowadays, searching for anything on Google yields between 3 and 17 results. Few years ago, I received millions of results for the same searches.

WeylandYutani 3y ago
Notepad++ search yield: About 26.000.000 results (0,33 seconds)