8 ms·

Thank you all! (I'm the founder.) In response to a lot of the comments here, please know that two major things we're working on are better programming queries

Thank you all! (I'm the founder.) In response to a lot of the comments here, please know that two major things we're working on are better programming queries (https://duckduckgo.com/tech.html https://duckduckgo.com/tech.html -- one of my new favorites https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+picasa https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+picasa) and speed. For speed, just this week we upgraded our whole caching system, which should significantly speed up a lot of queries. I'd be interested to know if anyone has noticed any difference over the past day or so. This change should equalize a lot of the location differences, which is the main issue. In some parts of the world we were way slower. Also, for anyone wanting to get involved we've been open sourcing more and more (https://github.com/duckduckgo https://github.com/duckduckgo). We're working on better entry points, but one could start here now: https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo/wiki https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo/wiki. For programming documentation in particular, this is the repo: https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-fathead https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-fathead. That will answer queries like https://duckduckgo.com/?q=perl+split https://duckduckgo.com/?q=perl+split On the back-end we could also use some sysadmin help :). Here's our hiring info: http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216387 http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216387 Of course, we're also always looking for feedback, the more detailed/specific the better: https://duckduckgo.com/feedback.html https://duckduckgo.com/feedback.html

white_devil 15y ago
Now that you have investors, they'll expect you to multiply DDG's worth. So how do you make money with it?
- marshray 15y ago
  Screw that! Just keep giving me the service I love for free! Sorry, I know you need to make a living. :-) Just don't try to do it by leveraging my identity or trying my patience, please?
- aidos 15y ago
  There are sponsored links - like on Google.
  - mike-cardwell 15y ago
    Also, he uses affiliate programs. So if a link in the search results goes to Amazon for example, he'll add his affiliate code to the link.
    - lusr 15y ago
      Any idea why Google doesn't do that? I'm guessing it's against the terms and conditions? In which case I have to wonder why DDG can do it.
      - mike-cardwell 15y ago
        I'm guessing it's not against the T&C's, otherwise Amazon would have closed his affiliate account by now. They're quite good at that. Google probably doesn't see the point. I'm sure there's something in the T&C's that would allow Amazon to close an affiliate account for any reason they want to. If they still get the same amount of traffic from Google either way, they'd close it.
- webwright 15y ago
  Making money with a search engine is a solved problem. Making a search engine worth switching to is not-- that's what they are (and should be) focused on. I'd wager their investors are telling them the same thing.
  - dfc 15y ago
    This was news to me. What is the solution to making money as a privacy preserving search engine?
    - ef4 15y ago
      You can still make money off of targeted ads. The difference is you can only target the current query. I also think DuckDuckGo hands out affiliate links to places like Amazon.
deleted 15y ago
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julien_p 15y ago
I've certainly noticed a speed difference recently. DDG feels pretty snappy to me now, whereas before it was annoyingly slow, easily taking a second or so to load. I'm located in Luxembourg.
- hcmeier 15y ago
  Same here (Switzerland/Germany). GGD is still not as fast as Google (noticeable delay between the zero-click info and the search results) but definitely a big improvement.
jordhy 15y ago
I wish to thank you for DDG. I left Google 1 year ago and have never looked back. DDG is better in every way for me. You provide a great service and a big peace of mind for all the hackers of the planet. Now we can compete with the empire without worrying for the empire to copy our ideas. Your courage in competing with this giant is an example we should all copy!
memset 15y ago
Way cool. Going to try using this as my default search engine for a while. I really really like the "alternative to" feature. What could I do to help you get better at alternatives which are not as popular? (eg, "alternative to cheetahmail" or "alternative to grubhub" or "alternative to xkcd"?) Also, what kind of feedback would you need to help improve the tech-related searches? Like "ebcdic table" or "1010 in hex"?
- rpicard 15y ago
  The alternatives are pulled from http://alternativeto.net http://alternativeto.net so adding to their site will add to the zero-click info. You can contribute to tech-related searches by contributing to the open source zero-click info (see this tutorial https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo/wiki/Open-Source-Plugin-Tutorial https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo/wiki/Open-Source-Pl...). You can also send in ideas here: https://duckduckgo.uservoice.com/forums/5168-plugins https://duckduckgo.uservoice.com/forums/5168-plugins.
  - TeMPOraL 15y ago
    Obligatory meta-comment: http://alternativeto.net/software/alternativeto/ http://alternativeto.net/software/alternativeto/
- perlgeek 15y ago
  there's already a goodie for base conversions (though currently base conversions are done via Wolfram Alpha, not sure why). Ideas for more goodies are on https://duckduckgo.uservoice.com/ https://duckduckgo.uservoice.com/
  - crazedpsyc 15y ago
    Not sure what uservoice is, but there is also an official trello board: https://trello.com/board/duckduckgo-open-source-plugins/4f08e96d947729b526070890 https://trello.com/board/duckduckgo-open-source-plugins/4f08...
- mironathetin 15y ago
reasonattlm 15y ago
I redirect to Google for my site search at Fight Aging! at the moment because it returns far better results than DDG, and with my ~8000 posts and countless topics doing a great job with my own custom search just doesn't make economic sense. If DDG could do as well as Google for the archives I'd switch in an instant; I prefer the idea of sending users somewhere other than Google for queries that may involve medical conditions. But results are the trump card; they have to be good. I tend to cover any given topic in a brace of interlinked posts across years, and all topics are complex. e.g.: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+gut%20bacteria https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+gut+bacteria https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+gut+bacteria DDG misses the AGE connection in the results, which is important in this topic. Many searches are upon specific factors or markers or genes, and for these DDG falls down badly e.g.: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+IL-1 https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+IL-1 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+IL-1 https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+p27 https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+p27 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+p27
- tansey 15y ago
  At least you get indexed by DDG. Curvio has been live for 2 months now, Google has indexed over 2000 of our pages, and we're the #1 result for over 100 different Google queries. Meanwhile, DDG still thinks you're searching for "Cuervo" [1] and has not even indexed our homepage, which has hundreds of backlinks at this point. [1] http://duckduckgo.com/?q=curvio http://duckduckgo.com/?q=curvio
  - sjs382 15y ago
    Yeah, getting indexed seems like a problem with DDG sometimes. Is there a way to submit a sitemap.xml or something similar?
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
umjames 15y ago
Congrats! Go Philly-based startups!!!!
didip 15y ago
Wow, the visual refresh really did you good. Congrats! And I didn't know that DDG is written in Perl, good looking Perl too.
- berntb 15y ago
  The first thing I saw in the code was that it used one of my favorite modules, Moo, which is a neat subset of "Moose". http://search.cpan.org/~ribasushi/Moo-0.009013/lib/Moo.pm http://search.cpan.org/~ribasushi/Moo-0.009013/lib/Moo.pm Even I can (almost) write good looking code with Moo(se). :-)
thecombjelly 15y ago
I've certainly noticed a difference in speed. I've been using DDG solid for around a couple years now and the only thing I ever really lament is the speed, so I'm very glad you guys are working on it. And it is definitely getting better. And, as always, I can't live without the disambiguation feature, it saves me so much time.
thwest 15y ago
Thanks for having people answer feedback with real emails. My feedback has been mostly about the existence of malware-wrapped download links for popular tools like FileZilla, PuTTY, vlc, etc. I've gotten good support responses that have removed particular links, but how do I bubble this up into a feature with the goal of never showing a user a non-official download?
iusable 15y ago
I LOVE your work. So happy to get simple, clean & shareable results again! Any chance of integrated media galleries? I think Bing & Google are really effin this up.
- epi0Bauqu 15y ago
  Can you be more specific as to what you mean/want in this area?
  - iusable 15y ago
    Right now when I search for something like 'reddit logo png' I only get links no inline embedded images in a gallery like format. Would be awesome to Not leave DDG and preview the image (jpg/png/gif) results in a gallery.
  - iusable 15y ago
    Hope that made more sense now :)
mcmonkey 15y ago
Hi, nice work =) I started using ddg when it appeared on the udacity "how to build a search engine" course. Thought it was an awesome name and had to check it out, and since I was already considering switching from google it was good timing. keep up the good work =)
cpeterso 15y ago
There are alternatives to DuckDuckGo, but not Google?? :) https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+duckduckgo https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+duckduckgo https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+google https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+google
- elvisds 15y ago
  alternativeTo seems to call it googlecom https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+googlecom https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+googlecom http://alternativeto.net/software/googlecom/ http://alternativeto.net/software/googlecom/
mike_ivanov 15y ago
Thank you. You're awesome.
dredmorbius 15y ago
I am a fan. I'll also note that what you serve in day ... is about what Google serves in a minute. http://www.quora.com/How-many-search-queries-does-Google-serve-worldwide-every-day http://www.quora.com/How-many-search-queries-does-Google-ser...
ntkidding 15y ago
I just switched homepage to https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/, my search engine/search box to HTTPS/SSL duckduckgo, and in about:config in FF, I changed keyword.URL (to allow search via url bar to use DDG) to: https://duckduckgo.com/?q= https://duckduckgo.com/?q= So far, I'm happy with it. I'll keep using it for a month and see whether it interferes with anything. I'll have to add a bookmark for Gmail now, I guess, and I'll miss the links to the images and shopping searches, but I won't miss G+ or any of the other Google crap links. I've been against DDG before on HN and I apologize for that, but I really respect that you've taken our criticism and acted upon it. I want you all to succeed. Google scares the shit out of me, personally. The have my email already and that is more than enough. I just hope that DDG really stays independent. It is so tough these days.
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seanp2k2 15y ago
You guys/girls are positively KILLING IT! DDG is already incredible and I use it as my default Firefox searchbar service now. With Google+, core search is getting worse and worse. I can barely stand to use default Google these days. DDG is leading innovation in web search, and it's about damn time for some disruption in that space. Bravo! I'll be checking out that sysadmin opportunity too. I only wish you were downtown in SF. Stay amazing.
ronnix 15y ago
Definitely feels faster here in Paris, France.
abc_lisper 15y ago
Thanks dude. Thanks for giving us some hope for privacy.
baturinsky 15y ago
One thing I miss from google is auto-fixing keyboard language layout.
gsvolt7 15y ago
Since 3/2/2012 I started using Trisquel linux (Was feeling guilty having used non-free linux distros so wanted to pay homage to R. Stallman). DDG comes as default in Trisquel with web browser, Midori. I usually keep Javascript disabled. Actually DDG's javascript less search result is in my opinion the best thing I appreciate about DDG. Thanks for your hard work. I'll see if I can contribute to the project in any way I can.
jsz0 15y ago
Can you guys talk Apple into adding it as a preset search-bar option in Safari? It's kind of a pain to add it yourself or get out of the habit of using the search-bar
- drcongo 15y ago
  If you're a GlimmerBlocker user there's a filter you can install which redirects safari searches to DDG... http://glimmerblocker.org/wiki/Filters http://glimmerblocker.org/wiki/Filters
- pirateking 15y ago
  I use SafariOmnibar[1] to add DDG as my default search provider. Since an omnibar will be shipped by default with Safari in Mountain Lion, I am also hoping that Apple will consider providing DDG as an option for search engine preference (especially on iOS as well). [1] http://hackemist.com/SafariOmnibar/ http://hackemist.com/SafariOmnibar/
freddot 15y ago
I've been using DDG at home and at work for at least a year and boy as there been improvements! First of all, I'm swedish and queries in swedish have improved immensly! I can't remember DDG ever being notably slow, so I don't know for the speed-up (I don't care much for speed). But answers in english have improved in quality by magnitude of 10s. When I started using DDG I'd have to check back with google about 1/3 of my queries, but now it's around 1/50, and I can't say the way I do my searches has had any radical changes either. Thanks for this

white_devil 15y ago

Now that you have investors, they'll expect you to multiply DDG's worth. So how do you make money with it?

marshray 15y ago
Screw that! Just keep giving me the service I love for free! Sorry, I know you need to make a living. :-) Just don't try to do it by leveraging my identity or trying my patience, please?
aidos 15y ago
There are sponsored links - like on Google.
- mike-cardwell 15y ago
  Also, he uses affiliate programs. So if a link in the search results goes to Amazon for example, he'll add his affiliate code to the link.
  - lusr 15y ago
    Any idea why Google doesn't do that? I'm guessing it's against the terms and conditions? In which case I have to wonder why DDG can do it.
    - mike-cardwell 15y ago
      I'm guessing it's not against the T&C's, otherwise Amazon would have closed his affiliate account by now. They're quite good at that. Google probably doesn't see the point. I'm sure there's something in the T&C's that would allow Amazon to close an affiliate account for any reason they want to. If they still get the same amount of traffic from Google either way, they'd close it.
webwright 15y ago
Making money with a search engine is a solved problem. Making a search engine worth switching to is not-- that's what they are (and should be) focused on. I'd wager their investors are telling them the same thing.
- dfc 15y ago
  This was news to me. What is the solution to making money as a privacy preserving search engine?
  - ef4 15y ago
    You can still make money off of targeted ads. The difference is you can only target the current query. I also think DuckDuckGo hands out affiliate links to places like Amazon.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

julien_p 15y ago

I've certainly noticed a speed difference recently. DDG feels pretty snappy to me now, whereas before it was annoyingly slow, easily taking a second or so to load. I'm located in Luxembourg.

hcmeier 15y ago
Same here (Switzerland/Germany). GGD is still not as fast as Google (noticeable delay between the zero-click info and the search results) but definitely a big improvement.

jordhy 15y ago

I wish to thank you for DDG. I left Google 1 year ago and have never looked back. DDG is better in every way for me. You provide a great service and a big peace of mind for all the hackers of the planet. Now we can compete with the empire without worrying for the empire to copy our ideas. Your courage in competing with this giant is an example we should all copy!

memset 15y ago

Way cool. Going to try using this as my default search engine for a while. I really really like the "alternative to" feature. What could I do to help you get better at alternatives which are not as popular? (eg, "alternative to cheetahmail" or "alternative to grubhub" or "alternative to xkcd"?) Also, what kind of feedback would you need to help improve the tech-related searches? Like "ebcdic table" or "1010 in hex"?

rpicard 15y ago
The alternatives are pulled from http://alternativeto.net http://alternativeto.net so adding to their site will add to the zero-click info. You can contribute to tech-related searches by contributing to the open source zero-click info (see this tutorial https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo/wiki/Open-Source-Plugin-Tutorial https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo/wiki/Open-Source-Pl...). You can also send in ideas here: https://duckduckgo.uservoice.com/forums/5168-plugins https://duckduckgo.uservoice.com/forums/5168-plugins.
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  Obligatory meta-comment: http://alternativeto.net/software/alternativeto/ http://alternativeto.net/software/alternativeto/
perlgeek 15y ago
there's already a goodie for base conversions (though currently base conversions are done via Wolfram Alpha, not sure why). Ideas for more goodies are on https://duckduckgo.uservoice.com/ https://duckduckgo.uservoice.com/
- crazedpsyc 15y ago
  Not sure what uservoice is, but there is also an official trello board: https://trello.com/board/duckduckgo-open-source-plugins/4f08e96d947729b526070890 https://trello.com/board/duckduckgo-open-source-plugins/4f08...
mironathetin 15y ago

reasonattlm 15y ago

I redirect to Google for my site search at Fight Aging! at the moment because it returns far better results than DDG, and with my ~8000 posts and countless topics doing a great job with my own custom search just doesn't make economic sense. If DDG could do as well as Google for the archives I'd switch in an instant; I prefer the idea of sending users somewhere other than Google for queries that may involve medical conditions. But results are the trump card; they have to be good. I tend to cover any given topic in a brace of interlinked posts across years, and all topics are complex. e.g.: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+gut%20bacteria https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+gut+bacteria https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+gut+bacteria DDG misses the AGE connection in the results, which is important in this topic. Many searches are upon specific factors or markers or genes, and for these DDG falls down badly e.g.: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+IL-1 https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+IL-1 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+IL-1 https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+p27 https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+p27 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Afightaging.org+p27

tansey 15y ago
At least you get indexed by DDG. Curvio has been live for 2 months now, Google has indexed over 2000 of our pages, and we're the #1 result for over 100 different Google queries. Meanwhile, DDG still thinks you're searching for "Cuervo" [1] and has not even indexed our homepage, which has hundreds of backlinks at this point. [1] http://duckduckgo.com/?q=curvio http://duckduckgo.com/?q=curvio
- sjs382 15y ago
  Yeah, getting indexed seems like a problem with DDG sometimes. Is there a way to submit a sitemap.xml or something similar?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]

umjames 15y ago

Congrats! Go Philly-based startups!!!!

didip 15y ago

Wow, the visual refresh really did you good. Congrats! And I didn't know that DDG is written in Perl, good looking Perl too.

berntb 15y ago
The first thing I saw in the code was that it used one of my favorite modules, Moo, which is a neat subset of "Moose". http://search.cpan.org/~ribasushi/Moo-0.009013/lib/Moo.pm http://search.cpan.org/~ribasushi/Moo-0.009013/lib/Moo.pm Even I can (almost) write good looking code with Moo(se). :-)

thecombjelly 15y ago

I've certainly noticed a difference in speed. I've been using DDG solid for around a couple years now and the only thing I ever really lament is the speed, so I'm very glad you guys are working on it. And it is definitely getting better. And, as always, I can't live without the disambiguation feature, it saves me so much time.

thwest 15y ago

Thanks for having people answer feedback with real emails. My feedback has been mostly about the existence of malware-wrapped download links for popular tools like FileZilla, PuTTY, vlc, etc. I've gotten good support responses that have removed particular links, but how do I bubble this up into a feature with the goal of never showing a user a non-official download?

iusable 15y ago

I LOVE your work. So happy to get simple, clean & shareable results again! Any chance of integrated media galleries? I think Bing & Google are really effin this up.

epi0Bauqu 15y ago
Can you be more specific as to what you mean/want in this area?
- iusable 15y ago
  Right now when I search for something like 'reddit logo png' I only get links no inline embedded images in a gallery like format. Would be awesome to Not leave DDG and preview the image (jpg/png/gif) results in a gallery.
- iusable 15y ago
  Hope that made more sense now :)

mcmonkey 15y ago

Hi, nice work =) I started using ddg when it appeared on the udacity "how to build a search engine" course. Thought it was an awesome name and had to check it out, and since I was already considering switching from google it was good timing. keep up the good work =)

cpeterso 15y ago

There are alternatives to DuckDuckGo, but not Google?? :) https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+duckduckgo https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+duckduckgo https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+google https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+google

elvisds 15y ago
alternativeTo seems to call it googlecom https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+googlecom https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alternative+to+googlecom http://alternativeto.net/software/googlecom/ http://alternativeto.net/software/googlecom/

mike_ivanov 15y ago

Thank you. You're awesome.

dredmorbius 15y ago

I am a fan. I'll also note that what you serve in day ... is about what Google serves in a minute. http://www.quora.com/How-many-search-queries-does-Google-serve-worldwide-every-day http://www.quora.com/How-many-search-queries-does-Google-ser...

ntkidding 15y ago

I just switched homepage to https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/, my search engine/search box to HTTPS/SSL duckduckgo, and in about:config in FF, I changed keyword.URL (to allow search via url bar to use DDG) to: https://duckduckgo.com/?q= https://duckduckgo.com/?q= So far, I'm happy with it. I'll keep using it for a month and see whether it interferes with anything. I'll have to add a bookmark for Gmail now, I guess, and I'll miss the links to the images and shopping searches, but I won't miss G+ or any of the other Google crap links. I've been against DDG before on HN and I apologize for that, but I really respect that you've taken our criticism and acted upon it. I want you all to succeed. Google scares the shit out of me, personally. The have my email already and that is more than enough. I just hope that DDG really stays independent. It is so tough these days.

deleted 15y ago

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deleted 15y ago

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seanp2k2 15y ago

You guys/girls are positively KILLING IT! DDG is already incredible and I use it as my default Firefox searchbar service now. With Google+, core search is getting worse and worse. I can barely stand to use default Google these days. DDG is leading innovation in web search, and it's about damn time for some disruption in that space. Bravo! I'll be checking out that sysadmin opportunity too. I only wish you were downtown in SF. Stay amazing.

ronnix 15y ago

Definitely feels faster here in Paris, France.

abc_lisper 15y ago

Thanks dude. Thanks for giving us some hope for privacy.

baturinsky 15y ago

One thing I miss from google is auto-fixing keyboard language layout.

gsvolt7 15y ago

Since 3/2/2012 I started using Trisquel linux (Was feeling guilty having used non-free linux distros so wanted to pay homage to R. Stallman). DDG comes as default in Trisquel with web browser, Midori. I usually keep Javascript disabled. Actually DDG's javascript less search result is in my opinion the best thing I appreciate about DDG. Thanks for your hard work. I'll see if I can contribute to the project in any way I can.

jsz0 15y ago

Can you guys talk Apple into adding it as a preset search-bar option in Safari? It's kind of a pain to add it yourself or get out of the habit of using the search-bar

drcongo 15y ago
If you're a GlimmerBlocker user there's a filter you can install which redirects safari searches to DDG... http://glimmerblocker.org/wiki/Filters http://glimmerblocker.org/wiki/Filters
pirateking 15y ago
I use SafariOmnibar[1] to add DDG as my default search provider. Since an omnibar will be shipped by default with Safari in Mountain Lion, I am also hoping that Apple will consider providing DDG as an option for search engine preference (especially on iOS as well). [1] http://hackemist.com/SafariOmnibar/ http://hackemist.com/SafariOmnibar/

freddot 15y ago

I've been using DDG at home and at work for at least a year and boy as there been improvements! First of all, I'm swedish and queries in swedish have improved immensly! I can't remember DDG ever being notably slow, so I don't know for the speed-up (I don't care much for speed). But answers in english have improved in quality by magnitude of 10s. When I started using DDG I'd have to check back with google about 1/3 of my queries, but now it's around 1/50, and I can't say the way I do my searches has had any radical changes either. Thanks for this