The gesture is noteworthy not because of market share but because of who the user base is. It's exciting to see folks in the technology field (often the same on

The gesture is noteworthy not because of market share but because of who the user base is. It's exciting to see folks in the technology field (often the same ones who were educating others about Google in the early days) promoting DDG now. A browser that ships with DDG as its default, adds immediate cred to its brand image, IMO. Sometimes we need to be the ones willing to sacrifice a little bit of "convenience" to stand up for products and services that are at least attempting to travel a better road for users. Maybe I'm being a bit naive, but I believe that lines are being drawn and those products on the side of users, have a renewed opportunity to shine. DDG is right there - in a great position. I get the results I want from DuckDuckGo without bloat and "personalized" crud. If I really want to massage the DDG query results, I can add !sp and get a "Google" perspective with privacy. The !bang syntax just makes DDG more powerful. All in all, I think that Gnome's decision is more than just a gesture. It's the beginning of a shift and the big players can either read the message that's being sent or ignore it to their data loss.