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I went to DDG to get away from all the Google AI stuff being shoved down my throat. While it seems DDG is on the same path of AI / chat centric search UX, at l

by verdverm 11mo ago

I went to DDG to get away from all the Google AI stuff being shoved down my throat. While it seems DDG is on the same path of AI / chat centric search UX, at least they allow me to turn off all that stuff. But... search has gotten so bad in general, DDG is having the same results issue I had on Google. I don't see DDG as a player in the Ai space so I think my usage will only decrease as search result quality continues to decrease. I am hopeful in the long run that search index / results will become better as the core UX for most people becomes chat, search result pages become low human traffic (meaning ads are worthless), and search becomes one of many research tools for to the agents

coffeefirst 11mo ago
You might like Kagi. The ability to upvote/downvote/block domains completely transforms the product.
- verdverm 11mo ago
  It looks like just another search engine trening towards Ai UX. Do they have an API? I'm now looking for APIs to integrate with my custom / personal agent setup. I'm done outsourcing my UX to Big Ai/Tech. I don't think we should repeat the same mistakes of outsource a core human/digital UX to Big Ai/Tech. We (HNers) complain so much about all the bad stuff the prior iterations (social media, saas out the wazoo), are we going to repeat it again by defaulting to whatever they give us, misaligned incentives and all?
  - zipping1549 11mo ago
    They have an API but they're pretty costly(search is actually pretty costly).
  - coffeefirst 11mo ago
    That’s cool. I’m going another route, where I’m trying to pay for independent apps that give a shit about quality. I want nice things, but I also want to back the people who give a shit about craft and don’t have the time to DIY my own universe anyway. If you’ve got screenshots or details on your personal masterpieces I’m interested to see it.
    - verdverm 11mo ago
      I pay for things that I care about the quality for. Seeing another search company trending towards Ai centric means, to me, they are not focused on search quality any more. They have bills to pay and everyone is chasing that Ai revenue now, to the detriment of their primary product before the hype cycle started. The neutral reviews of Kagi I have seen don't lead me to believe there is some superior quality awaiting me if I just give them the money > If you’ve got screenshots or details on your personal masterpieces I’m interested to see it. Saying something like this, in this way, is not constructive and not how to bring people towards your way of seeing things. You, specifically with this comment, make me even less likely to use Kagi, and pay less attention to things you may say in reply or otherwise in the future
      - coffeefirst 11mo ago
        Huh? You may have misread the thread. I'm saying your note that "I'm done outsourcing my UX"—the very thing that makes both DDG and Kagi unsuitable for you—sounds like you're building something novel, even if it's exclusively to scratch your own itch. If its ever in a place where you'd be open to sharing, that's the sort of thing I come to HN for.
        verdverm 11mo ago
        I share my work on GitHub, if you want details, go read there. I'm not going to copy and paste for you
zeech 11mo ago
If you don't like all the fluff on the results page, DDG provides two alternative interfaces [0] [1] with much simpler layouts. [0] https://html.duckduckgo.com/html https://html.duckduckgo.com/html [1] https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite
- verdverm 11mo ago
  cool, but they block curl requests with an iframe and such I would pay DDG if they gave me an API for search, ideally pay-per-request. I'm not paying them for Ai, I can get that much better elsewhere
  - zeech 11mo ago
    IIRC the reason they don't (can't?) provide a search API directly is because they're pulling from other search sources, e.g. Bing, and can't provide an API without licence violations. Agreed that a DDG API would be pretty great, though.
    - Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
      IF they wish for an API, I think brave search supports API because they are an independent search index.
      - verdverm 11mo ago
        There are lots of options outside of the companies that make browsers and search input boxes on websites SERP, EXA, Tavily... they are becoming a dime-a-dozen with the Ai hype b/c (1) making the process of fetch/scraping easier (2) being the primary end user of search API (3) making the creating of such an API easier I haven't dug in enough to any of them to get a sense of result quality or consistency
- Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
  This is my first seeing https://html.duckduckgo.com/html https://html.duckduckgo.com/html and surprisingly I am enjoying it I would prefer if there was a way to have dark mode or similar things in it tho. It was really really fast.

coffeefirst 11mo ago

You might like Kagi. The ability to upvote/downvote/block domains completely transforms the product.

verdverm 11mo ago
It looks like just another search engine trening towards Ai UX. Do they have an API? I'm now looking for APIs to integrate with my custom / personal agent setup. I'm done outsourcing my UX to Big Ai/Tech. I don't think we should repeat the same mistakes of outsource a core human/digital UX to Big Ai/Tech. We (HNers) complain so much about all the bad stuff the prior iterations (social media, saas out the wazoo), are we going to repeat it again by defaulting to whatever they give us, misaligned incentives and all?
- zipping1549 11mo ago
  They have an API but they're pretty costly(search is actually pretty costly).
- coffeefirst 11mo ago
  That’s cool. I’m going another route, where I’m trying to pay for independent apps that give a shit about quality. I want nice things, but I also want to back the people who give a shit about craft and don’t have the time to DIY my own universe anyway. If you’ve got screenshots or details on your personal masterpieces I’m interested to see it.
  - verdverm 11mo ago
    I pay for things that I care about the quality for. Seeing another search company trending towards Ai centric means, to me, they are not focused on search quality any more. They have bills to pay and everyone is chasing that Ai revenue now, to the detriment of their primary product before the hype cycle started. The neutral reviews of Kagi I have seen don't lead me to believe there is some superior quality awaiting me if I just give them the money > If you’ve got screenshots or details on your personal masterpieces I’m interested to see it. Saying something like this, in this way, is not constructive and not how to bring people towards your way of seeing things. You, specifically with this comment, make me even less likely to use Kagi, and pay less attention to things you may say in reply or otherwise in the future
    - coffeefirst 11mo ago
      Huh? You may have misread the thread. I'm saying your note that "I'm done outsourcing my UX"—the very thing that makes both DDG and Kagi unsuitable for you—sounds like you're building something novel, even if it's exclusively to scratch your own itch. If its ever in a place where you'd be open to sharing, that's the sort of thing I come to HN for.
      - verdverm 11mo ago
        I share my work on GitHub, if you want details, go read there. I'm not going to copy and paste for you

zeech 11mo ago

If you don't like all the fluff on the results page, DDG provides two alternative interfaces [0] [1] with much simpler layouts. [0] https://html.duckduckgo.com/html https://html.duckduckgo.com/html [1] https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite

verdverm 11mo ago
cool, but they block curl requests with an iframe and such I would pay DDG if they gave me an API for search, ideally pay-per-request. I'm not paying them for Ai, I can get that much better elsewhere
- zeech 11mo ago
  IIRC the reason they don't (can't?) provide a search API directly is because they're pulling from other search sources, e.g. Bing, and can't provide an API without licence violations. Agreed that a DDG API would be pretty great, though.
  - Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
    IF they wish for an API, I think brave search supports API because they are an independent search index.
    - verdverm 11mo ago
      There are lots of options outside of the companies that make browsers and search input boxes on websites SERP, EXA, Tavily... they are becoming a dime-a-dozen with the Ai hype b/c (1) making the process of fetch/scraping easier (2) being the primary end user of search API (3) making the creating of such an API easier I haven't dug in enough to any of them to get a sense of result quality or consistency
Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
This is my first seeing https://html.duckduckgo.com/html https://html.duckduckgo.com/html and surprisingly I am enjoying it I would prefer if there was a way to have dark mode or similar things in it tho. It was really really fast.