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Part of the reason Google has seemingly perfect search results is because of the bubble, and because it knows us so well. It's quite the dilemma of whether the

Part of the reason Google has seemingly perfect search results is because of the bubble, and because it knows us so well. It's quite the dilemma of whether the loss in privacy is worth the better search results. For example when I search 'Egypt' on Google all of the search results (except for Wikipedia) are on the competing political factions, something I've read extensively out of interest. The same search on DuckDuckGo results in a mix of travel, encyclopaedia, a dictionary.com definition of the word Egypt, linkbait, and a couple of relevant news articles. The trade-off here is I would have to start being much more specific with my search queries to get what I want out of DDG, and often times I can't put into words what I want so being specific is not an option, Google knows what I want to see. It will be interesting to see how long this lasts after the next big media fad comes and everyone forgets about the NSA.

graue 13y ago
Interesting. My experience is different; I never use Google Search signed in (except once in a blue moon by accident) and clear their cookies every time I restart my browser (daily, at a minimum). Consequently, they don't know that much about me. I still find their results better than DDG's, unfortunately, and reverted my default search from DDG to Google after I found I was prefixing almost every search with !g. But unlike you, I rarely search for anything as general as "Egypt". I wouldn't even think to. For general info about a whole country I would go to Wikipedia or Wikivoyage or similar instead. I hit Google when searching for something more specific, like info on a particular protest in Egypt, or monad libraries for JavaScript.
- haldujai 13y ago
  I find the main usefulness of general queries like 'Egypt' or 'Syria' is in current events. I don't know what's happening in a country or about a specific subject/object (i.e. 'Xbox') and a general query gives me a wide variety of information about that subject, after which I can be more specific. Google has become my gateway into current events. I don't read news or blog sites often so I'm not sure of what's going on, by querying a general topic I am instantly presented with a multitude of topics from a variety of sources that I can then follow up on with specific results. Google's cookies and data about me help it select subtopics I'd be interested in. I.e. I don't care that Kuwait has offered Egypt an aid package (found on DDG) but I do care about the new protests.
lostlogin 13y ago
I wouldn't describe Googles as a perfect search at any stretch. The spammy sites that have scraped a terrible version of some old data that is vaguely related to my search terms a a constant irritation, and scrolling past several adverts its very annoying. NSA and creepy tracking aside.

graue 13y ago

Interesting. My experience is different; I never use Google Search signed in (except once in a blue moon by accident) and clear their cookies every time I restart my browser (daily, at a minimum). Consequently, they don't know that much about me. I still find their results better than DDG's, unfortunately, and reverted my default search from DDG to Google after I found I was prefixing almost every search with !g. But unlike you, I rarely search for anything as general as "Egypt". I wouldn't even think to. For general info about a whole country I would go to Wikipedia or Wikivoyage or similar instead. I hit Google when searching for something more specific, like info on a particular protest in Egypt, or monad libraries for JavaScript.

haldujai 13y ago
I find the main usefulness of general queries like 'Egypt' or 'Syria' is in current events. I don't know what's happening in a country or about a specific subject/object (i.e. 'Xbox') and a general query gives me a wide variety of information about that subject, after which I can be more specific. Google has become my gateway into current events. I don't read news or blog sites often so I'm not sure of what's going on, by querying a general topic I am instantly presented with a multitude of topics from a variety of sources that I can then follow up on with specific results. Google's cookies and data about me help it select subtopics I'd be interested in. I.e. I don't care that Kuwait has offered Egypt an aid package (found on DDG) but I do care about the new protests.

lostlogin 13y ago

I wouldn't describe Googles as a perfect search at any stretch. The spammy sites that have scraped a terrible version of some old data that is vaguely related to my search terms a a constant irritation, and scrolling past several adverts its very annoying. NSA and creepy tracking aside.