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DuckDuckGo on CNBC: We’ve grown 600% since NSA surveillance news broke

636 points by wnm 11y ago

VMG 11y ago
As a governmental spy organization, why wouldn't you just put surveillance on the search engine that is used by people that have "something to hide" (in their mind) and also put a gag order on the operators of that service?
- meesterdude 11y ago
  shhh! But you're right. AFAIK, that's still well within the governments legal bounds.
- robotkilla 11y ago
  have been wondering the same about US based VPNs
  - stordoff 11y ago
    I've been wondering the same about ANY VPN - it doesn't that unreasonable that a Government agency would be able to manage servers overseas.
  - dmix 11y ago
    How many of those 'privacy' VPNs ever conduct proper security analysis of their servers for modern malware, for ex. conducting memory forensics? Most have servers in data centers in 10+ different countries, so I doubt they are all closely monitored nor capable of keeping their keys closely guarded. Most VPNs like to advertise the 'military grade encryption' or 'no logs' nonsense, I'd rather see them post results of security audits, ideally conducted by outside firms.
    - zorked 11y ago
      VPN are a scam business run by offshore companies in budget datacenters with the cheapest possible employees. It probably doesn't matter because 99.999% only want to access Netflix in another country. Out of the remaining 0.001%, most are just people from repressive countries dodging their country's porn filters.
      - sesutton 11y ago
        >It probably doesn't matter because 99.999% only want to access Netflix in another country. If they are giving people the service they want then how is it a scam?
        zorked 11y ago
        They are not providing the security they promise.
      - revanx_ 11y ago
        It sounds like you have something against VPN providers... There are loads of trash VPN providers, but there are a lot of genuine ones that really care about privacy activism and provide an honest service.
  - tiatia 11y ago
    Anyone using Astrill? I would really be interested in an app-armor profile for their app.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- sugarfactory 11y ago
  That's why we need a truly decentralized search engine so that there's no one to trust and to have power therefore no way to pressure someone.
  - tiatia 11y ago
    http://yacy.net/ http://yacy.net/?
    - bobajeff 11y ago
      How about one that can do multi-term queries at a decent speed while at a large scale while still giving good results?
      - tiatia 11y ago
        I assume this should increase with the number of users? no?
        jerf 11y ago
        Beware the delta between promises and reality. I started out thinking "theory and reality", but, even in theory, adding a ton of very slow, latent, and unreliable data sources to your query doesn't produce a fast result.
        bobajeff 11y ago
        No. I don't believe Yacy will reach exceptable performance as it scales. I encourage people interested to look at "Peer-to-Peer Information Retrieval: An Overview" in order to get a better understanding on what technical challenges distributed search engines like Yacy have yet to overcome and the paths researchers are taking to overcome them.
- asdfaoeu 11y ago
  Except they aren't dropping cookies on your machine so it'd be harder for them to track users and that's something that can be verified externally.
  - falcolas 11y ago
    Browser fingerprinting is unique enough that they can likely track you without sending a single persistent byte to your machine.
    - logn 11y ago
      Yes, but you can also use DDG without CSS or JS, https://duckduckgo.com/html/ https://duckduckgo.com/html/
      - sangnoir 11y ago
        You can still be fingerprinted by HTTP request headers alone. You can test the number of identifying bits your browser generates at EFF's Panopticlick[1]. It's scary. https://panopticlick.eff.org/index.php?action=log&js=no https://panopticlick.eff.org/index.php?action=log&js=no
        geomark 11y ago
        That's pretty cool (from a technical point of view, not cool from a privacy point of view). It says my particular configuration of browser plugins is unique among 1,827,392 browsers tested. Taken together with all the other unique things means I'm unique among 5,482,178 browsers tested. Shouldn't there be a way to hide most of that so you would be far less unique?
        sangnoir 11y ago
        You could manually set your user-agent string to a more polular one (IE on Windows 7?). There are several browser extensions that allow you to set UA string manually for Chrome and Firefox. However, an adversary can also fingerprint your OS/patch level based on packet structure[1][2] - which can't be easily changed. This will add more identifying bits. 1.http://nmap.org/book/osdetect-fingerprint-format.html http://nmap.org/book/osdetect-fingerprint-format.html 2.http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles-tutorials/intrusion_detection/Operating-System-Fingerprinting-Packets-Part1.html http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles-tutorials/intrusion_d...
- mark_l_watson 11y ago
  I care deeply about privacy and security (in two months I am starting a series of classes at my local library on these topics) but in all honesty the only way we are going to have privacy from government agencies is through a political solution. Using encryption certainly helps but not enough people use it, and I am not hopeful that they will. On the other hand, there is a lot we can do to protect our privacy from corporations. I do simple things like using duckduckgo, using a private email service that I trust, only using chrome for social media access, and setting Firefox to be as secure as possible and drop all cookies every time I close it.
  - AtmaScout 11y ago
    > I do simple things like using duckduckgo, using a private email service that I trust, only using chrome for social media access, and setting Firefox to be as secure as possible and drop all cookies every time I close it. I read the comment prior to the username and thought your description of browser use sounded familiar, then checked the name and wasn't surprised that it was your blog where I saw this recommendation. Do you still use Ghostery with Firefox and Fastmail for email? I really enjoy your blog btw.
    - mark_l_watson 11y ago
      Thanks! I still use Fastmail. I am looking at alternatives to Ghostery.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  They've still got nothing to hide. That they have something to hide is in your mind, not in theirs.
akhatri_aus 11y ago
What is HN's opinion on the quality of the search results?
- mksaunders 11y ago
  Pretty mixed. A search for my project (MikeOS) brings up a highlighted Wikipedia page at the top, even though that page was deleted over a year ago...
- ninjin 11y ago
  I switched to using DDG as a default a long time ago and have experienced improved results over the last few years. I would say that ~97.5% of my searches now go over DDG, if the search fail I add "!g" to the query to see if Google can do better. About 40% of my searches are research related, 40% software development related, and 20% "others". Searches that tend to fail are usually for local news in my country of origin or very exotic configuration/library errors. For the former, Google still does better than DDG, for the latter, it is about 50/50 if Google will fail to deliver as well.
- S4M 11y ago
  For things in English, I would say it's acceptable but relevance is still below google and I find myself switching to google for about 10% of my searches, being unhappy with what DDG got me. For things not in English, it's quite bad.
  - realusername 11y ago
    I would say the same, for English it works quite well (the quality is maybe a bit below Google but not much). But for other languages, it just does not work at all.
- zorked 11y ago
  On average worse than Google but not without its pleasures. Much worse on "long tail" searches and non-English terms. I went back to Google. To be fair what really made me move away was that their page load times were much slower. Now that I live in a country that is closer to DDG's servers I may give them another go.
aidos 11y ago
As always, you can see the actual ddg traffic numbers on their website https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html
- ilanco 11y ago
  I wonder why the API queries are decreasing while direct queries are increasing.
  - platinum1 11y ago
    Given the many "not as good as Google but good enough" type comments, perhaps people are switching away from it being the default from a search bar, but instead of using it for everything, they use it for what they consider sensitive queries.
factorialboy 11y ago
IMHO 600% is meaningless number. What's the estimate market share of DuckDuckGo today, that's the real question. Do they dominate a niche? I think they have significant market share among HackerNews users.
- Drakim 11y ago
  Yeah. If they went from 1 to 6 users it wouldn't be impressive at all, so "600%" is meaningless by itself.
  - monk_e_boy 11y ago
    I think it's pretty meaningful for the exact reasons you state. If they had gone up millions then they would have used real numbers. Therefore the actual numbers are still pretty low.
    - vidarh 11y ago
      Here are the actual numbers: https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html
    - sp332 11y ago
      You're wrong. It went up by 5.5 million.
- louhike 11y ago
  On the Internetlivestats website, they are talking of 3.5 billions searches per day for Google(1). On the duckduckgo website, they are saying they serve 7 millions queries per day(2). So DuckDuckGo does 0.2% of the amount of Google. Please correct me is my logic is flawed. (1)http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/ http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/ (2)https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
jister 11y ago
The rest of the world doesn't care about NSA surveillance so 600% doesn't really mean anything and is meaningless. Hell, a lot of people don't even know what Bing is!
- jjar 11y ago
  Excuse me, I live in England and I use DuckDuckGo - Surveillance and tracking is just as prevalent over here as it is in the US, ever heard of GCHQ?
  - themartorana 11y ago
    Likely even more so. The U.S. is at least making symbolic (if not substantial) changes to laws like letting provisions of the PATRIOT ACT expire, while the UK is secretly making domestic spying legal through secret laws. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/18/gchq-hacking-legal-secret-change-in-law http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/18/gchq-hacking-...
  - vixsomnis 11y ago
    It's not just the UK: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
  - chippy 11y ago
    I also am British and use DDG, but the comment was about the vast majority of web users around the world, who still type google into google to get to google.com
- Aoyagi 11y ago
  The rest of the world is what NSA surveillance is about, I believe. Spying on Americans is just collateral damage.
- unfunco 11y ago
  We absolutely care; DDG user from Liverpool here. Not just because of NSA surveillance but because of privacy concerns in general, and especially concerns regarding Google.
rurban 11y ago
They do log the queries, as google does. You can only trust a search engine when they do stop logging. Any NSL can order them to hand over the logs in certain regimes (bulk or per IP? We know what happened), but they cannot force them to write logs in the first hand. Without logging it will also be ~10% faster.
- gitaarik 11y ago
  They keep global stats, but they don't track you personally. See: https://duckduckgo.com/privacy https://duckduckgo.com/privacy
- SeanDav 11y ago
  DDG does not log queries in the same way Google does, they are far more generalized, even so, even if a company say they don't log use, or limit logging, it still does not mean they can be completely trusted. If you are doing something electronically, more than likely, you can be tracked.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    > If you are doing something electronically, more than likely, you can be tracked. That doesn't really encapsulate the range, sure if I'm logging into facebook from my home connection off a stock linux desktop then that's way more trackable than Tails off a memory stick in a laptop with no hard drive using the wifi of the McDonalds across the street from Starbucks. The issue is that the bar for anonymity online gets pushed higher and higher.
mrweasel 11y ago
>"If you're not collection user information, how are you going to make money? How are you going to become a big brand that people can trust long term? I know that the interviewer has to ask at least the first part to get the interview going, but it also highlight everything that wrong in the thinking of online ads/marketing. If you need to collect user information to make money, them perhaps your product isn't that great to begin with (unless you're an ad company like Google, but the we get into the argument who the user is). Also collection information, so you can grow to become a big brand, I would argue that you've thrown trust out the window a long time ago.
vixsomnis 11y ago
Yes, the search results aren't that good, but they're good enough. A single search almost always gets what I'm looking for on the front page or the entries immediately visible, which is impressive considering how little DDG knows about me. Add in the !bang feature for searching most websites (classics like !w - Wikipedia, !g - Google, and stuff like !gh - GitHub, !aur - Arch User Repository) and my favorite "define X" keyword that links straight to Wordnik, and my search experience is better than Google. The !bangs also function as bookmarks, so if I ever want to go to GitHub, I can just search !gh and it'll take me there. It's like having a set of search engines stored universally, accessible from any device with web access. And of course if I need Google, say for word etymologies, it's just a !g away.
- benihana 11y ago
  I'm kinda confused about the bang syntax. Chrome offers something similar to that, that I use similarly. Their search engine shortcuts allow me to do very similar stuff. I alias wikipedia to wp and simple hit command/control+l then type wp and it searches wikipedia. Does DDG just route you to the site?
  - simias 11y ago
    yeah, it's mostly the same thing except you still bounce on ddg's servers which sounds pretty silly but in practice it means that it'll work on any browser anywhere as long as you use duckduckgo unlike custom aliases.
  - dublinben 11y ago
    DDG has thousands of premade !bang shortcuts though. You don't have to spend any time creating unique search aliases for every one of your browsers. You (and anyone else) can directly search wikipedia with a quick !w from at DDG from any browser anywhere.
    - anthony_romeo 11y ago
      It also helps that even if you don't know the shorthand that, say, !py3 does a search of the python3 documentation, almost always you can type out the full name to do the search, e.g. !python3.
bane 11y ago
The privacy aspects are not that important to me, I just want to get out of Google's increasingly irrelevant search results. I tried switching to DDG a couple years ago and it was a pretty meh experience, so I went back to Google. But, I tried again just a couple months ago (I went whole hog and changed the search engine in chrome to ddg) and have been very impressed with it. It's been continuously worked on enough that it now serves about 90-95% of my daily search needs without any fuss and I actually prefer the way it presents images, semantic search and videos in search results over google's. It does a much better job at returning results for what I'm actually searching for and that's awesome. For example in Google, if I search for "Mad Max" I get showtimes for "Mad Max: Fury Road" at the top and and imdb-like bit of information for "Mad Max: Fury Road" on the right (neither of which I searched for) and then a list of search results which these days are increasingly just links to Wikipedia's take on whatever I'm searching for (this time for "Mad Max" and "Mad Max (franchise)") followed by news on "Fury Road" the "Fury Road" video game, IMDB links to "Mad Max (1979)" and "Mad Max:Fury Road (2015)", etc. then trailers on youtube for both movies and links to the movie sites etc. It's okay, I suppose, but Google first assumes I'm looking for "Mad Max:Fury Road" and fills the results for that, then I get links to WP and IMDB on the same topic (I could have just gone to those), except for WP it's not for Fury Road. And why no love for Thunderdome? Guess what happens when I search ddg? I get a list of possible meanings, the first of which is "Mad Max" not Fury Road (that's #2), then a list of other possible meaning (which include Fury Road, the videogame, the Franchise, etc.). This is awesome, it's not assuming which meaning I want, and thereby getting it wrong like Google and the list of possible meanings is better ordered. Then the search results are better too, of course the prerequisite IMDB and WP links are there, but the top 4 results are for "Mad Max" (or the franchise) and not for "Fury Road"...I'm actually getting results for what I searched for, not for what it thinks I searched for. The mix of results after that is also "better" to my eyes, it includes a large fan site, which Google doesn't ever seem to get around to, Amazon, ebay, games, non-WP fan wikis, reviews, and so on. Google seems intent on shoving the latest thing that the film studio marketing departments are currently pushing, while DDG provide links to information on what I actually searched for. I've found this to be true for most of my searches. DDG is actually finding what I want instead of what Google wants. About the only times I'm finding I'm using Google any more is in two cases: * I've exhausted DDG's results and want to see if Google's bigger index has something else. * Google's more sophisticated time constraints on searches. DDG just lets me order results, but Google let's me slice out results between time ranges, which I often find more useful for research purposes. Bonus: Privacy, again not my main interest, but it's nice that it's there. !Bang syntax. I don't use many of them, but I find them useful (it's also how I execute google searches, just put a !g before my search in ddg). Wishes: time-slice for search, someway to make it my default in mobile chrome on my android devices
tiatia 11y ago
It has gotten faster. I somehow like DDG but finally got stuck with www.startpage.com
whoisthemachine 11y ago
Once I learned about the !bangs, I switched immediately. Usually the results are "good enough", and when not, I try a !bang.
- Nadya 11y ago
  Right click the search bar on Youtube in Chrome/Firefox and "add as search" or "add as keyword" Now you can search Youtube using your browser as a (prefixed) bang.
  - BuckRogers 11y ago
    DDG bangs can be used anywhere in the string. I use them at the end so if I want to try another source I can just update "searchingthis !mq" with "searchingthis !gm". No need to go to the front of the query and update the keyword there. Also, you don't have to configure anything. DDG bangs are intuitive. I find myself searching sites I wouldn't have otherwise.
    - Nadya 11y ago
      As far as intuitive goes - see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9733726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9733726 If I want to update the beginning of a string I ctrl+l -> home -> ctrl+shift+right arrow. If it is at the end of the string I ctrl+l -> ctrl+shift+left arrow. I don't mind having to press the home key on occasion that I'd try a different source (which is almost never).
      - BuckRogers 11y ago
        You'd have to change the source if you were really searching hard though. That whole process sounds clunkier than just using DDG and a browser with a dedicated search bar. I don't think I'll be switching to your method, but it sounds like something I could see some people doing prior to DDG's existence.
        11y ago
antris 11y ago
DDG is based in the US, therefore it is entirely possible that they have been ordered to keep logs and track everything the users do on that site with a gag order. Being based in the US is a dealbreaker for privacy.
- _yosefk 11y ago
  I'm not sure I got the grammar right, but - being based where isn't a deal breaker for privacy? Any government might compel a business to do stuff and to keep quiet about it. The fact that the US actually did it kinda suggests that, I dunno, Russia or China are certainly doing it. Note as well that the US or another powerful state can compel a smaller state to do things to businesses based there, and keep quiet about it. So even if you trust some state more than you trust the US when it comes to secretly doing things that you don't like, you'd need to also count on it to be able to say "no" to the US as well as other powerful states... good luck with that. If you want your searches to not be used for targeted advertising, DDG sounds like a sensible option, actually. If you don't want governments to know what you're searching for, that sounds really hard to strongly guarantee. (I'd think they're logging your communication way before it reaches the server, in particular.)
  - sid6376 11y ago
    It is certainly more difficult for US and other powerful countries to enforce its diktat on certain countries (like those in Europe). They are more powerful in a geo-political sense and also have a deep-seated fear of government surveillance.
    - mhurron 11y ago
      You're simply trading one governments surveillance for another. The US isn't the only government conducting advanced surveillance. Being based in the US is a dealbreaker because of US Surveillance. Being based in the Canada is a dealbreaker because of Canadian/US/UK/Austrailain/New Zealand Surveillance. Being based in the France is a dealbreaker because of French Surveillance. Being based in the Germany is a dealbreaker because of German Surveillance. Being based in the Japan is a dealbreaker because of Japanese Surveillance. Being based in the Austrailia is a dealbreaker because of Canadian/US/UK/Austrailain/New Zealand Surveillance. Being based in the Spain is a dealbreaker because of Spanish Surveillance. The question is again, where exactly is government survailence not a deal breaker? Every country that is capable of it is doing it, and every country that is not capable has agreements with those that do.
simias 11y ago
I've been using ddg as my main search engine for close to a year I think. It's definitely not as good as google but it's good enough most of the time. My main concern is that it's still a free service and I really don't see how it'll be sustainable in the long term without compromising privacy in their current model. If you're not the customer you're the product etc... I'd gladly pay $10 a month for a "premium" search engine with strong privacy garantees. I'm definitely not going to enable ads in ddg and I can't imagine that the average duckduckgo user thinks differently.
- rplnt 11y ago
  Don't you think their current model can sustain more users? Or do you consider that to be a privacy issue?
  - simias 11y ago
    I honestly don't know enough to judge the financial sustainability of the company. To me it's more about incentives. Right now it seems they're still growing really fast. What if tomorrow it's not the case anymore? What if their userbase reaches a plateau? Will they really still be morally strong enough to commit to user privacy or will they slowly start to give in more and more in order to increase their revenue? Does "do no evil" ring a bell? On the other hand if they get money from the users themselves then the incentives are different, they might try to get more money by offering new services and they probably won't risk doing that that'll piss off their paying users. Maybe I'm too cynical but in my mind even if ddg's intentions are pure now eventually they'll get bought or something and someone, some day will want to cash in. And for a free service cashing in means selling the userbase to the highest bidder. But maybe I'm a bit naive, I guess that would still be possible even with paying users but I think the risk would be greater for them.
    - gohrt 11y ago
      What data do you think DDG has on you now, that they could sell? Or is your concern that DDG could cell out on the promise of users, and that users would fail to notice a change in privacy-respecting behavior?
nvk 11y ago
DDG's search results have substantially improved since a few months ago. I now use it as my primary search engine.
callum85 11y ago
The NSA news broke a long time ago and 600% over that period doesn't sound like outlandish growth for a startup. Or maybe it is, I don't know. It would be good to see this figure over time on a chart, then we could see if there is any change in growth rate.
- veddox 11y ago
  Watch the video - they show the chart. And yes, it is a noticeable difference in growth rate.
  - callum85 11y ago
    My bad, I skipped through and missed the chart. (It's at 1:05)
josefresco 11y ago
One feature that would allow me to eventually move to DDG would be a "toggle" of sorts within my browser that would allow me to switch to DDG results (from Google). Deciding before my query to use DDG is a hard habit/practice to employ. However, when shown results from Google, if DDG results were just a click away (maybe already rendered in another "tab") it would make A/B testing easier and seemless - which would be essential to eventually moving away and changing my "default" search engine. Just my $0.02
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- stinos 11y ago
  it would make A/B testing easier and seemless It sure would, but you'd also lose quite some time doing A/B testing. I know because I tried, and eventually decided it's not worth spending any time on. So I just put DDG as default, and now - when the results aren't satisfactory - google is just one !g away. That is imo a much better and easier way of getting to know DDG.
  - josefresco 11y ago
    A/B testing is just a bridge or crutch to help convince me I'm not "missing something" by ditching Google. How does !g work? I use Firefox+auto complete for most queries. Changing the search engine takes an additional step that doesn't fit into my learned workflow.
    - stinos 11y ago
      I see why you want A/B testing but look at it this way: if you find the answer to your question on the first results page you didn't miss anything. Hence: no explicit A/B needed :] If you do not find the result than !g might be a way out. Not sure how it works exactly, you just prepend or append it to the search. As other comments point out: in FF I usually do Ctrl-K (focus search), End (to unselect text), type !g, Enter
T3RMINATED 11y ago
i really want to use DuckDuck but google still gives me better search results when looking for technical/programming errors and questions.
k2enemy 11y ago
Does anyone happen to know how to make it so that the preview of a DDG search result is not a link to the result? I often want to copy and paste something from the preview, but having it as a link makes that difficult.
finnjohnsen2 11y ago
I should use DuckDuckGo, but when I need to search I'm too much in some mindset and context I can't allow it to get broken by the poor search results DDG gives me. So my life has come to the point where I'm aware that I give all my search data to someone I know spies on me. 24/7/365.
- heimatau 11y ago
  Just search more specifically, this should resolve 80% or more of the 'poor search results'. Every once in a while, I'll go to Google but that's for maybe 2 searches a month! You'll be surprised at how decent the results for DDG are.
  - finnjohnsen2 11y ago
    I tried a few days of DDG fully aware that DDG can't read my mind. So I did my best giving it context but I gave up in anoyance over how much time I wasted trying to give it the correct context, while a !g just hit spot on. I should probably have tried more but I guess I'm too pragmatic for my own good.
  - Someone1234 11y ago
    That works when you know what it is you're looking for. Google still wins when you don't know the word/term/name etc for something and are describing it. The reason for that is mostly that every time someone searches on Google, they help make Google smarter. Effectively every time you search, the results are largely based on what someone searched for historically and what they clicked (or even subsequent searches and clicks). e.g. "movie about kidnapped daughter" (I'm looking for the 2008 movie Taken, but have "forgotten" the name). Google: 3rd result. Bing: 8th result. DDG: 7th result. Why is Google 3rd and DDG/Bing 7th and 8th respectively? They likely have all indexed the Wikipedia and IMDB pages for the movie Taken. However Google likely ranks those links closer to the top because historically that's what users want when they searched for that phase.
    - dceddia 11y ago
      Serious question though, why can't DDG do the same thing without compromising privacy? It would seem like it'd be possible to keep a log of things like "A user searched for 'movie about kidnapped daughter' and clicked on 'Taken'. Maybe weight that one higher next time" -- without keeping user details at all.
castell 11y ago
Does DuckDuckGo still use Yahoo BOSS search API? (based on Bing) $1.80 / 1000 queries: https://developer.yahoo.com/boss/search/#pricing https://developer.yahoo.com/boss/search/#pricing
- pki 11y ago
  yandex
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    Yandex and BOSS are just two of many sources: https://duck.co/help/results/sources https://duck.co/help/results/sources
    - castell 11y ago
      Beside PR talk, technically it's this way: Bing through Yahoo BOSS API (which isn't free anymore) is the main source (and Yandex is used instead of Bing for certain countries in Europe&Asia). All other sources are smaller sources that augment the main search results. DDG is at the moment a meta search engine. There was a recent search engine startup with its own large scale crawler, Blekko. Though, recently IBM bought it for their Watson AI, as a knowledge base.
      - yellowapple 11y ago
        From what I understand, DDG also has its own crawler, but yes, it's mostly a meta search engine at the moment.
zawaideh 11y ago
The only thing stopping me from using DDG is the inability to limit search results by date. I want search results from a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. I know they have sort by date, but this just sorts by date without taking into account how relevant the result is.
- glitchdout 11y ago
  Yeah, I hate that DDG is missing that feature. I always use Google in those cases...
adwordsjedi 11y ago
So are they up to like 600 or 1200 users now?
click170 11y ago
I switched my default search to DDG and haven't thought twice about it. It's maybe once every couple days that I have to use "!g" to get google results, for everything else DDG works excellently. Even the times when I have to use "!g", it's often a hint that I'm searching for an unpopular phrase, and find that if I rephrase my search results I get much better results out of both search engines. I remember there was a story on HN once a few months back where a kind soul from DDG posted an email address that one could submit notes to wrt highlighting poor search results so that they could address them, I don't recall the email and haven't been able to find it. If this is still available with DDG could someone please re-post that email here? I would very much like to help improve the quality of DDG to make it better for everyone but I can't find anywhere to suggest improvements on their website. Edit: I was able to find their Feedback page, but I much prefer email personally: https://duckduckgo.com/feedback https://duckduckgo.com/feedback
- jseliger 11y ago
  I switched my default search to DDG and haven't thought twice about it. I have—it's about 80 – 90% accurate for me, which is pretty good but not always perfect. The search-within-site feature (i.e. "search string site:jakeseliger.com" is definitely not as good as Google, though I'm not sure why. Searching within Reddit or HN, for example, is not nearly as good. That being said the !g button is great: if DDG doesn't work, the move to Google is fast and painless. I've definitely evangelized DDG some to friends.
  - piyush_soni 11y ago
    The problem with 80-90% accurate results is that I'm never sure whether the results I'm seeing right now would have been better if I had opened Google for it - as a lot of times the answers are not in black and white to even claim they're "accurate". You are never sure without checking both results which one was more relevant. That uncertainty is stressful for me, so for now, sticking with Google.
    - morenoh149 11y ago
      wut? if you find what you're looking for then the results are fine. the google results seem to be deeper into forums but that comes from context. Google knows I'm a programmer so I get more tech related results on average. Again, if ddg doesn't give me what I want I use !g to try google.
newscracker 11y ago
DDG is my default on some browsers and machines, but it still lacks a lot in relevant results. I find myself using startpage.com or even Google (the latter for better image searches) very often. The lack of a date based search is a huge disadvantage since I use that very often in other engines. Lately, DDG has also been quite slow for me and doesn't load at all for several seconds. Overall, I love the privacy part, but it's not as useful as a search engine ought to be for my usage. So I'm unable to quit the other alternatives, even though I badly want to.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
shmerl 11y ago
I use DDG, and it works very well most of the time, but for some obscure and very targeted searches Google still beats it by a big margin (especially since Google has time filtering and etc.). So in such cases I just add a !g :)
ljk 11y ago
what's hn's opinion on this screenshot from 4chan that suggests to not use DDG? http://a.1339.cf/xaikik.png http://a.1339.cf/xaikik.png been using DDG since almost the beginning so i'm kind of conflicted...
luckydude 11y ago
This is just a me too comment, but one of my guys told me two days ago that duckduckgo is good enough. So I switched to it and so far I'm liking the results. And is it just me or is it actually faster when you click on one of the results? Whenever I do that with google it seems like there is a delay while google does some analytics or something.
- ljk 11y ago
  interesting, on mobile google is faster than ddg for me
SalesHelp 11y ago
Way to go Gabriel! A unicorn who is a really nice, genuine guy who wants to help start-ups.
nfoz 11y ago
People should not have to change their behaviours like this in order to avoid the intrusion of their own government.
vonsydov 11y ago
read 6 times
pwenzel 11y ago
As a Minnesotan, I'm not going to use this service until is named a more suitable Duck Duck Grey Duck.
FrankenPC 11y ago
I love what DDG represents and I try it first just to show my support. But, if I can't find what I'm looking for I activate VPN, open an incognito window and search with Google. Civilian OPSEC is painful. But I refuse to give up my freedom. I wish there was an application/URL level VPN option. That would solve a lot of problems.
chjohasbrouck 11y ago
I choose Google because cntrl+t g o <enter> flows better than cntrl+t d u <enter>. Every time I've tried to switch to DuckDuckGo, this has been the primary stumbling point.
- m_myers 11y ago
  What browser are you using that doesn't have a search box?
brianzelip 11y ago
Where is DDG located? I can't watch the video, about which the text reads "The news anchor just can’t resist a little jab about DuckDuckGo’s location choice".
- __john 11y ago
  A google search turns up Paoli, Pennsylvania =) https://duck.co/help/company/hiring https://duck.co/help/company/hiring
dude_abides 11y ago
I wish the headline was s/600%/from 1.5M to 7M in 2 years/ No less impressive, and so much more informative!
blerud 11y ago
Is it possible to append all regular ddg searches with !g? I'd like to use Google for my searches but still be able to use the ddg bangs.
joelrunyon 11y ago
This might be a random point, but I'm curious if DDG will have to change their branding to be accepted beyond the tech space into mainstream searching. I feel like "duck duck go" is too long for the avg american to grasp or use in an ongoing convo when compared to "google", "bing" or "yahoo." I can't see people saying "just duck duck go it." Maybe something like DDG or "duckduck"instead? Maybe that's just me...
- anonova 11y ago
  Well, there is http://ddg.gg http://ddg.gg, which is "four characters shorter than google.com!" [1] The transitive verb "to google" has been generalized to searching the web, just as "to photoshop" being diluted to digitally editing a photo. [1]: https://duck.co/help/company/short-domain https://duck.co/help/company/short-domain
  - joelrunyon 11y ago
    I get that - I think my bigger point was that they need a verb to reference "duck it" "duckduck it" or "ddg it"
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
BuckRogers 11y ago
I like having my default search being anonymous DDG. 99% of my searches I never even bother with getting another engine's results. For Google results, in the very rare case that I need to see what they have, I use "searchthis !sp" to get anonymous Google results from Startpage. I used SP fulltime previously but they've had reliability issues and an odd issue with the back button. Most !bangs that I use are for !w, !a and !gm. Firefox's dedicated search bar helps a lot with editing a long search string with another bang. Doubtful I'll be moving off DDG due to that feature.
nagaiah 11y ago
We have started indexing 100 trillion web addresses in http://www.nagaiah.com/home.php http://www.nagaiah.com/home.php
bigtunacan 11y ago
I've used DuckDuckGo a few times wanting to make the switch, but I just end up going right back to Google. It's just so ingrained in me at this point. I really like the idea of DuckDuckGo and should just force myself to switch. Something this got me thinking though; what about other less popular search engines such as Lycos, do they ALL track usage? Or are there other search engines that are anonymized in a similar fashion to DuckDuckGo?
rodionos 11y ago
They'll break 10M daily direct query threshold on June 22, according to Holt-Winters. http://axibase.com/chartlab/e8635882/5/ http://axibase.com/chartlab/e8635882/5/
- rodionos 11y ago
  Nice... June 22 was in fact the day when duckduckgo.com broke 10M daily direct query count, as predicted by non-parametric, fully-automated forecasting. Congrats team duckduckgo!
known 11y ago
When the NSA Shows Up At Your Internet Company http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/07/21/1853212/when-the-nsa-shows-up-at-your-internet-company http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/07/21/1853212/when-the-nsa-...

636 points by wnm 11y ago

VMG 11y ago

As a governmental spy organization, why wouldn't you just put surveillance on the search engine that is used by people that have "something to hide" (in their mind) and also put a gag order on the operators of that service?

meesterdude 11y ago
shhh! But you're right. AFAIK, that's still well within the governments legal bounds.
robotkilla 11y ago
have been wondering the same about US based VPNs
- stordoff 11y ago
  I've been wondering the same about ANY VPN - it doesn't that unreasonable that a Government agency would be able to manage servers overseas.
- dmix 11y ago
  How many of those 'privacy' VPNs ever conduct proper security analysis of their servers for modern malware, for ex. conducting memory forensics? Most have servers in data centers in 10+ different countries, so I doubt they are all closely monitored nor capable of keeping their keys closely guarded. Most VPNs like to advertise the 'military grade encryption' or 'no logs' nonsense, I'd rather see them post results of security audits, ideally conducted by outside firms.
  - zorked 11y ago
    VPN are a scam business run by offshore companies in budget datacenters with the cheapest possible employees. It probably doesn't matter because 99.999% only want to access Netflix in another country. Out of the remaining 0.001%, most are just people from repressive countries dodging their country's porn filters.
    - sesutton 11y ago
      >It probably doesn't matter because 99.999% only want to access Netflix in another country. If they are giving people the service they want then how is it a scam?
      - zorked 11y ago
        They are not providing the security they promise.
    - revanx_ 11y ago
      It sounds like you have something against VPN providers... There are loads of trash VPN providers, but there are a lot of genuine ones that really care about privacy activism and provide an honest service.
- tiatia 11y ago
  Anyone using Astrill? I would really be interested in an app-armor profile for their app.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
sugarfactory 11y ago
That's why we need a truly decentralized search engine so that there's no one to trust and to have power therefore no way to pressure someone.
- tiatia 11y ago
  http://yacy.net/ http://yacy.net/?
  - bobajeff 11y ago
    How about one that can do multi-term queries at a decent speed while at a large scale while still giving good results?
    - tiatia 11y ago
      I assume this should increase with the number of users? no?
      - jerf 11y ago
        Beware the delta between promises and reality. I started out thinking "theory and reality", but, even in theory, adding a ton of very slow, latent, and unreliable data sources to your query doesn't produce a fast result.
      - bobajeff 11y ago
        No. I don't believe Yacy will reach exceptable performance as it scales. I encourage people interested to look at "Peer-to-Peer Information Retrieval: An Overview" in order to get a better understanding on what technical challenges distributed search engines like Yacy have yet to overcome and the paths researchers are taking to overcome them.
asdfaoeu 11y ago
Except they aren't dropping cookies on your machine so it'd be harder for them to track users and that's something that can be verified externally.
- falcolas 11y ago
  Browser fingerprinting is unique enough that they can likely track you without sending a single persistent byte to your machine.
  - logn 11y ago
    Yes, but you can also use DDG without CSS or JS, https://duckduckgo.com/html/ https://duckduckgo.com/html/
    - sangnoir 11y ago
      You can still be fingerprinted by HTTP request headers alone. You can test the number of identifying bits your browser generates at EFF's Panopticlick[1]. It's scary. https://panopticlick.eff.org/index.php?action=log&js=no https://panopticlick.eff.org/index.php?action=log&js=no
      - geomark 11y ago
        That's pretty cool (from a technical point of view, not cool from a privacy point of view). It says my particular configuration of browser plugins is unique among 1,827,392 browsers tested. Taken together with all the other unique things means I'm unique among 5,482,178 browsers tested. Shouldn't there be a way to hide most of that so you would be far less unique?
        sangnoir 11y ago
        You could manually set your user-agent string to a more polular one (IE on Windows 7?). There are several browser extensions that allow you to set UA string manually for Chrome and Firefox. However, an adversary can also fingerprint your OS/patch level based on packet structure[1][2] - which can't be easily changed. This will add more identifying bits. 1.http://nmap.org/book/osdetect-fingerprint-format.html http://nmap.org/book/osdetect-fingerprint-format.html 2.http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles-tutorials/intrusion_detection/Operating-System-Fingerprinting-Packets-Part1.html http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles-tutorials/intrusion_d...
mark_l_watson 11y ago
I care deeply about privacy and security (in two months I am starting a series of classes at my local library on these topics) but in all honesty the only way we are going to have privacy from government agencies is through a political solution. Using encryption certainly helps but not enough people use it, and I am not hopeful that they will. On the other hand, there is a lot we can do to protect our privacy from corporations. I do simple things like using duckduckgo, using a private email service that I trust, only using chrome for social media access, and setting Firefox to be as secure as possible and drop all cookies every time I close it.
- AtmaScout 11y ago
  > I do simple things like using duckduckgo, using a private email service that I trust, only using chrome for social media access, and setting Firefox to be as secure as possible and drop all cookies every time I close it. I read the comment prior to the username and thought your description of browser use sounded familiar, then checked the name and wasn't surprised that it was your blog where I saw this recommendation. Do you still use Ghostery with Firefox and Fastmail for email? I really enjoy your blog btw.
  - mark_l_watson 11y ago
    Thanks! I still use Fastmail. I am looking at alternatives to Ghostery.
jacquesm 11y ago
They've still got nothing to hide. That they have something to hide is in your mind, not in theirs.

akhatri_aus 11y ago

What is HN's opinion on the quality of the search results?

mksaunders 11y ago
Pretty mixed. A search for my project (MikeOS) brings up a highlighted Wikipedia page at the top, even though that page was deleted over a year ago...
ninjin 11y ago
I switched to using DDG as a default a long time ago and have experienced improved results over the last few years. I would say that ~97.5% of my searches now go over DDG, if the search fail I add "!g" to the query to see if Google can do better. About 40% of my searches are research related, 40% software development related, and 20% "others". Searches that tend to fail are usually for local news in my country of origin or very exotic configuration/library errors. For the former, Google still does better than DDG, for the latter, it is about 50/50 if Google will fail to deliver as well.
S4M 11y ago
For things in English, I would say it's acceptable but relevance is still below google and I find myself switching to google for about 10% of my searches, being unhappy with what DDG got me. For things not in English, it's quite bad.
- realusername 11y ago
  I would say the same, for English it works quite well (the quality is maybe a bit below Google but not much). But for other languages, it just does not work at all.
zorked 11y ago
On average worse than Google but not without its pleasures. Much worse on "long tail" searches and non-English terms. I went back to Google. To be fair what really made me move away was that their page load times were much slower. Now that I live in a country that is closer to DDG's servers I may give them another go.

aidos 11y ago

As always, you can see the actual ddg traffic numbers on their website https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html

ilanco 11y ago
I wonder why the API queries are decreasing while direct queries are increasing.
- platinum1 11y ago
  Given the many "not as good as Google but good enough" type comments, perhaps people are switching away from it being the default from a search bar, but instead of using it for everything, they use it for what they consider sensitive queries.

factorialboy 11y ago

IMHO 600% is meaningless number. What's the estimate market share of DuckDuckGo today, that's the real question. Do they dominate a niche? I think they have significant market share among HackerNews users.

Drakim 11y ago
Yeah. If they went from 1 to 6 users it wouldn't be impressive at all, so "600%" is meaningless by itself.
- monk_e_boy 11y ago
  I think it's pretty meaningful for the exact reasons you state. If they had gone up millions then they would have used real numbers. Therefore the actual numbers are still pretty low.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    Here are the actual numbers: https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html
  - sp332 11y ago
    You're wrong. It went up by 5.5 million.
louhike 11y ago
On the Internetlivestats website, they are talking of 3.5 billions searches per day for Google(1). On the duckduckgo website, they are saying they serve 7 millions queries per day(2). So DuckDuckGo does 0.2% of the amount of Google. Please correct me is my logic is flawed. (1)http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/ http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/ (2)https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

jister 11y ago

The rest of the world doesn't care about NSA surveillance so 600% doesn't really mean anything and is meaningless. Hell, a lot of people don't even know what Bing is!

jjar 11y ago
Excuse me, I live in England and I use DuckDuckGo - Surveillance and tracking is just as prevalent over here as it is in the US, ever heard of GCHQ?
- themartorana 11y ago
  Likely even more so. The U.S. is at least making symbolic (if not substantial) changes to laws like letting provisions of the PATRIOT ACT expire, while the UK is secretly making domestic spying legal through secret laws. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/18/gchq-hacking-legal-secret-change-in-law http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/18/gchq-hacking-...
- vixsomnis 11y ago
  It's not just the UK: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
- chippy 11y ago
  I also am British and use DDG, but the comment was about the vast majority of web users around the world, who still type google into google to get to google.com
Aoyagi 11y ago
The rest of the world is what NSA surveillance is about, I believe. Spying on Americans is just collateral damage.
unfunco 11y ago
We absolutely care; DDG user from Liverpool here. Not just because of NSA surveillance but because of privacy concerns in general, and especially concerns regarding Google.

rurban 11y ago

They do log the queries, as google does. You can only trust a search engine when they do stop logging. Any NSL can order them to hand over the logs in certain regimes (bulk or per IP? We know what happened), but they cannot force them to write logs in the first hand. Without logging it will also be ~10% faster.

gitaarik 11y ago
They keep global stats, but they don't track you personally. See: https://duckduckgo.com/privacy https://duckduckgo.com/privacy
SeanDav 11y ago
DDG does not log queries in the same way Google does, they are far more generalized, even so, even if a company say they don't log use, or limit logging, it still does not mean they can be completely trusted. If you are doing something electronically, more than likely, you can be tracked.
- noir_lord 11y ago
  > If you are doing something electronically, more than likely, you can be tracked. That doesn't really encapsulate the range, sure if I'm logging into facebook from my home connection off a stock linux desktop then that's way more trackable than Tails off a memory stick in a laptop with no hard drive using the wifi of the McDonalds across the street from Starbucks. The issue is that the bar for anonymity online gets pushed higher and higher.

mrweasel 11y ago

>"If you're not collection user information, how are you going to make money? How are you going to become a big brand that people can trust long term? I know that the interviewer has to ask at least the first part to get the interview going, but it also highlight everything that wrong in the thinking of online ads/marketing. If you need to collect user information to make money, them perhaps your product isn't that great to begin with (unless you're an ad company like Google, but the we get into the argument who the user is). Also collection information, so you can grow to become a big brand, I would argue that you've thrown trust out the window a long time ago.

vixsomnis 11y ago

Yes, the search results aren't that good, but they're good enough. A single search almost always gets what I'm looking for on the front page or the entries immediately visible, which is impressive considering how little DDG knows about me. Add in the !bang feature for searching most websites (classics like !w - Wikipedia, !g - Google, and stuff like !gh - GitHub, !aur - Arch User Repository) and my favorite "define X" keyword that links straight to Wordnik, and my search experience is better than Google. The !bangs also function as bookmarks, so if I ever want to go to GitHub, I can just search !gh and it'll take me there. It's like having a set of search engines stored universally, accessible from any device with web access. And of course if I need Google, say for word etymologies, it's just a !g away.

benihana 11y ago
I'm kinda confused about the bang syntax. Chrome offers something similar to that, that I use similarly. Their search engine shortcuts allow me to do very similar stuff. I alias wikipedia to wp and simple hit command/control+l then type wp and it searches wikipedia. Does DDG just route you to the site?
- simias 11y ago
  yeah, it's mostly the same thing except you still bounce on ddg's servers which sounds pretty silly but in practice it means that it'll work on any browser anywhere as long as you use duckduckgo unlike custom aliases.
- dublinben 11y ago
  DDG has thousands of premade !bang shortcuts though. You don't have to spend any time creating unique search aliases for every one of your browsers. You (and anyone else) can directly search wikipedia with a quick !w from at DDG from any browser anywhere.
  - anthony_romeo 11y ago
    It also helps that even if you don't know the shorthand that, say, !py3 does a search of the python3 documentation, almost always you can type out the full name to do the search, e.g. !python3.

bane 11y ago

The privacy aspects are not that important to me, I just want to get out of Google's increasingly irrelevant search results. I tried switching to DDG a couple years ago and it was a pretty meh experience, so I went back to Google. But, I tried again just a couple months ago (I went whole hog and changed the search engine in chrome to ddg) and have been very impressed with it. It's been continuously worked on enough that it now serves about 90-95% of my daily search needs without any fuss and I actually prefer the way it presents images, semantic search and videos in search results over google's. It does a much better job at returning results for what I'm actually searching for and that's awesome. For example in Google, if I search for "Mad Max" I get showtimes for "Mad Max: Fury Road" at the top and and imdb-like bit of information for "Mad Max: Fury Road" on the right (neither of which I searched for) and then a list of search results which these days are increasingly just links to Wikipedia's take on whatever I'm searching for (this time for "Mad Max" and "Mad Max (franchise)") followed by news on "Fury Road" the "Fury Road" video game, IMDB links to "Mad Max (1979)" and "Mad Max:Fury Road (2015)", etc. then trailers on youtube for both movies and links to the movie sites etc. It's okay, I suppose, but Google first assumes I'm looking for "Mad Max:Fury Road" and fills the results for that, then I get links to WP and IMDB on the same topic (I could have just gone to those), except for WP it's not for Fury Road. And why no love for Thunderdome? Guess what happens when I search ddg? I get a list of possible meanings, the first of which is "Mad Max" not Fury Road (that's #2), then a list of other possible meaning (which include Fury Road, the videogame, the Franchise, etc.). This is awesome, it's not assuming which meaning I want, and thereby getting it wrong like Google and the list of possible meanings is better ordered. Then the search results are better too, of course the prerequisite IMDB and WP links are there, but the top 4 results are for "Mad Max" (or the franchise) and not for "Fury Road"...I'm actually getting results for what I searched for, not for what it thinks I searched for. The mix of results after that is also "better" to my eyes, it includes a large fan site, which Google doesn't ever seem to get around to, Amazon, ebay, games, non-WP fan wikis, reviews, and so on. Google seems intent on shoving the latest thing that the film studio marketing departments are currently pushing, while DDG provide links to information on what I actually searched for. I've found this to be true for most of my searches. DDG is actually finding what I want instead of what Google wants. About the only times I'm finding I'm using Google any more is in two cases: * I've exhausted DDG's results and want to see if Google's bigger index has something else. * Google's more sophisticated time constraints on searches. DDG just lets me order results, but Google let's me slice out results between time ranges, which I often find more useful for research purposes. Bonus: Privacy, again not my main interest, but it's nice that it's there. !Bang syntax. I don't use many of them, but I find them useful (it's also how I execute google searches, just put a !g before my search in ddg). Wishes: time-slice for search, someway to make it my default in mobile chrome on my android devices

tiatia 11y ago

It has gotten faster. I somehow like DDG but finally got stuck with www.startpage.com

whoisthemachine 11y ago

Once I learned about the !bangs, I switched immediately. Usually the results are "good enough", and when not, I try a !bang.

Nadya 11y ago
Right click the search bar on Youtube in Chrome/Firefox and "add as search" or "add as keyword" Now you can search Youtube using your browser as a (prefixed) bang.
- BuckRogers 11y ago
  DDG bangs can be used anywhere in the string. I use them at the end so if I want to try another source I can just update "searchingthis !mq" with "searchingthis !gm". No need to go to the front of the query and update the keyword there. Also, you don't have to configure anything. DDG bangs are intuitive. I find myself searching sites I wouldn't have otherwise.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    As far as intuitive goes - see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9733726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9733726 If I want to update the beginning of a string I ctrl+l -> home -> ctrl+shift+right arrow. If it is at the end of the string I ctrl+l -> ctrl+shift+left arrow. I don't mind having to press the home key on occasion that I'd try a different source (which is almost never).
    - BuckRogers 11y ago
      You'd have to change the source if you were really searching hard though. That whole process sounds clunkier than just using DDG and a browser with a dedicated search bar. I don't think I'll be switching to your method, but it sounds like something I could see some people doing prior to DDG's existence.
      - 11y ago

antris 11y ago

DDG is based in the US, therefore it is entirely possible that they have been ordered to keep logs and track everything the users do on that site with a gag order. Being based in the US is a dealbreaker for privacy.

_yosefk 11y ago
I'm not sure I got the grammar right, but - being based where isn't a deal breaker for privacy? Any government might compel a business to do stuff and to keep quiet about it. The fact that the US actually did it kinda suggests that, I dunno, Russia or China are certainly doing it. Note as well that the US or another powerful state can compel a smaller state to do things to businesses based there, and keep quiet about it. So even if you trust some state more than you trust the US when it comes to secretly doing things that you don't like, you'd need to also count on it to be able to say "no" to the US as well as other powerful states... good luck with that. If you want your searches to not be used for targeted advertising, DDG sounds like a sensible option, actually. If you don't want governments to know what you're searching for, that sounds really hard to strongly guarantee. (I'd think they're logging your communication way before it reaches the server, in particular.)
- sid6376 11y ago
  It is certainly more difficult for US and other powerful countries to enforce its diktat on certain countries (like those in Europe). They are more powerful in a geo-political sense and also have a deep-seated fear of government surveillance.
  - mhurron 11y ago
    You're simply trading one governments surveillance for another. The US isn't the only government conducting advanced surveillance. Being based in the US is a dealbreaker because of US Surveillance. Being based in the Canada is a dealbreaker because of Canadian/US/UK/Austrailain/New Zealand Surveillance. Being based in the France is a dealbreaker because of French Surveillance. Being based in the Germany is a dealbreaker because of German Surveillance. Being based in the Japan is a dealbreaker because of Japanese Surveillance. Being based in the Austrailia is a dealbreaker because of Canadian/US/UK/Austrailain/New Zealand Surveillance. Being based in the Spain is a dealbreaker because of Spanish Surveillance. The question is again, where exactly is government survailence not a deal breaker? Every country that is capable of it is doing it, and every country that is not capable has agreements with those that do.

simias 11y ago

I've been using ddg as my main search engine for close to a year I think. It's definitely not as good as google but it's good enough most of the time. My main concern is that it's still a free service and I really don't see how it'll be sustainable in the long term without compromising privacy in their current model. If you're not the customer you're the product etc... I'd gladly pay $10 a month for a "premium" search engine with strong privacy garantees. I'm definitely not going to enable ads in ddg and I can't imagine that the average duckduckgo user thinks differently.

rplnt 11y ago
Don't you think their current model can sustain more users? Or do you consider that to be a privacy issue?
- simias 11y ago
  I honestly don't know enough to judge the financial sustainability of the company. To me it's more about incentives. Right now it seems they're still growing really fast. What if tomorrow it's not the case anymore? What if their userbase reaches a plateau? Will they really still be morally strong enough to commit to user privacy or will they slowly start to give in more and more in order to increase their revenue? Does "do no evil" ring a bell? On the other hand if they get money from the users themselves then the incentives are different, they might try to get more money by offering new services and they probably won't risk doing that that'll piss off their paying users. Maybe I'm too cynical but in my mind even if ddg's intentions are pure now eventually they'll get bought or something and someone, some day will want to cash in. And for a free service cashing in means selling the userbase to the highest bidder. But maybe I'm a bit naive, I guess that would still be possible even with paying users but I think the risk would be greater for them.
  - gohrt 11y ago
    What data do you think DDG has on you now, that they could sell? Or is your concern that DDG could cell out on the promise of users, and that users would fail to notice a change in privacy-respecting behavior?

nvk 11y ago

DDG's search results have substantially improved since a few months ago. I now use it as my primary search engine.

callum85 11y ago

The NSA news broke a long time ago and 600% over that period doesn't sound like outlandish growth for a startup. Or maybe it is, I don't know. It would be good to see this figure over time on a chart, then we could see if there is any change in growth rate.

veddox 11y ago
Watch the video - they show the chart. And yes, it is a noticeable difference in growth rate.
- callum85 11y ago
  My bad, I skipped through and missed the chart. (It's at 1:05)

josefresco 11y ago

One feature that would allow me to eventually move to DDG would be a "toggle" of sorts within my browser that would allow me to switch to DDG results (from Google). Deciding before my query to use DDG is a hard habit/practice to employ. However, when shown results from Google, if DDG results were just a click away (maybe already rendered in another "tab") it would make A/B testing easier and seemless - which would be essential to eventually moving away and changing my "default" search engine. Just my $0.02

deleted 11y ago
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stinos 11y ago
it would make A/B testing easier and seemless It sure would, but you'd also lose quite some time doing A/B testing. I know because I tried, and eventually decided it's not worth spending any time on. So I just put DDG as default, and now - when the results aren't satisfactory - google is just one !g away. That is imo a much better and easier way of getting to know DDG.
- josefresco 11y ago
  A/B testing is just a bridge or crutch to help convince me I'm not "missing something" by ditching Google. How does !g work? I use Firefox+auto complete for most queries. Changing the search engine takes an additional step that doesn't fit into my learned workflow.
  - stinos 11y ago
    I see why you want A/B testing but look at it this way: if you find the answer to your question on the first results page you didn't miss anything. Hence: no explicit A/B needed :] If you do not find the result than !g might be a way out. Not sure how it works exactly, you just prepend or append it to the search. As other comments point out: in FF I usually do Ctrl-K (focus search), End (to unselect text), type !g, Enter

T3RMINATED 11y ago

i really want to use DuckDuck but google still gives me better search results when looking for technical/programming errors and questions.

k2enemy 11y ago

Does anyone happen to know how to make it so that the preview of a DDG search result is not a link to the result? I often want to copy and paste something from the preview, but having it as a link makes that difficult.

finnjohnsen2 11y ago

I should use DuckDuckGo, but when I need to search I'm too much in some mindset and context I can't allow it to get broken by the poor search results DDG gives me. So my life has come to the point where I'm aware that I give all my search data to someone I know spies on me. 24/7/365.

heimatau 11y ago
Just search more specifically, this should resolve 80% or more of the 'poor search results'. Every once in a while, I'll go to Google but that's for maybe 2 searches a month! You'll be surprised at how decent the results for DDG are.
- finnjohnsen2 11y ago
  I tried a few days of DDG fully aware that DDG can't read my mind. So I did my best giving it context but I gave up in anoyance over how much time I wasted trying to give it the correct context, while a !g just hit spot on. I should probably have tried more but I guess I'm too pragmatic for my own good.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  That works when you know what it is you're looking for. Google still wins when you don't know the word/term/name etc for something and are describing it. The reason for that is mostly that every time someone searches on Google, they help make Google smarter. Effectively every time you search, the results are largely based on what someone searched for historically and what they clicked (or even subsequent searches and clicks). e.g. "movie about kidnapped daughter" (I'm looking for the 2008 movie Taken, but have "forgotten" the name). Google: 3rd result. Bing: 8th result. DDG: 7th result. Why is Google 3rd and DDG/Bing 7th and 8th respectively? They likely have all indexed the Wikipedia and IMDB pages for the movie Taken. However Google likely ranks those links closer to the top because historically that's what users want when they searched for that phase.
  - dceddia 11y ago
    Serious question though, why can't DDG do the same thing without compromising privacy? It would seem like it'd be possible to keep a log of things like "A user searched for 'movie about kidnapped daughter' and clicked on 'Taken'. Maybe weight that one higher next time" -- without keeping user details at all.

castell 11y ago

Does DuckDuckGo still use Yahoo BOSS search API? (based on Bing) $1.80 / 1000 queries: https://developer.yahoo.com/boss/search/#pricing https://developer.yahoo.com/boss/search/#pricing

pki 11y ago
yandex
- yellowapple 11y ago
  Yandex and BOSS are just two of many sources: https://duck.co/help/results/sources https://duck.co/help/results/sources
  - castell 11y ago
    Beside PR talk, technically it's this way: Bing through Yahoo BOSS API (which isn't free anymore) is the main source (and Yandex is used instead of Bing for certain countries in Europe&Asia). All other sources are smaller sources that augment the main search results. DDG is at the moment a meta search engine. There was a recent search engine startup with its own large scale crawler, Blekko. Though, recently IBM bought it for their Watson AI, as a knowledge base.
    - yellowapple 11y ago
      From what I understand, DDG also has its own crawler, but yes, it's mostly a meta search engine at the moment.

zawaideh 11y ago

The only thing stopping me from using DDG is the inability to limit search results by date. I want search results from a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. I know they have sort by date, but this just sorts by date without taking into account how relevant the result is.

glitchdout 11y ago
Yeah, I hate that DDG is missing that feature. I always use Google in those cases...

adwordsjedi 11y ago

So are they up to like 600 or 1200 users now?

click170 11y ago

I switched my default search to DDG and haven't thought twice about it. It's maybe once every couple days that I have to use "!g" to get google results, for everything else DDG works excellently. Even the times when I have to use "!g", it's often a hint that I'm searching for an unpopular phrase, and find that if I rephrase my search results I get much better results out of both search engines. I remember there was a story on HN once a few months back where a kind soul from DDG posted an email address that one could submit notes to wrt highlighting poor search results so that they could address them, I don't recall the email and haven't been able to find it. If this is still available with DDG could someone please re-post that email here? I would very much like to help improve the quality of DDG to make it better for everyone but I can't find anywhere to suggest improvements on their website. Edit: I was able to find their Feedback page, but I much prefer email personally: https://duckduckgo.com/feedback https://duckduckgo.com/feedback

jseliger 11y ago
I switched my default search to DDG and haven't thought twice about it. I have—it's about 80 – 90% accurate for me, which is pretty good but not always perfect. The search-within-site feature (i.e. "search string site:jakeseliger.com" is definitely not as good as Google, though I'm not sure why. Searching within Reddit or HN, for example, is not nearly as good. That being said the !g button is great: if DDG doesn't work, the move to Google is fast and painless. I've definitely evangelized DDG some to friends.
- piyush_soni 11y ago
  The problem with 80-90% accurate results is that I'm never sure whether the results I'm seeing right now would have been better if I had opened Google for it - as a lot of times the answers are not in black and white to even claim they're "accurate". You are never sure without checking both results which one was more relevant. That uncertainty is stressful for me, so for now, sticking with Google.
  - morenoh149 11y ago
    wut? if you find what you're looking for then the results are fine. the google results seem to be deeper into forums but that comes from context. Google knows I'm a programmer so I get more tech related results on average. Again, if ddg doesn't give me what I want I use !g to try google.

newscracker 11y ago

DDG is my default on some browsers and machines, but it still lacks a lot in relevant results. I find myself using startpage.com or even Google (the latter for better image searches) very often. The lack of a date based search is a huge disadvantage since I use that very often in other engines. Lately, DDG has also been quite slow for me and doesn't load at all for several seconds. Overall, I love the privacy part, but it's not as useful as a search engine ought to be for my usage. So I'm unable to quit the other alternatives, even though I badly want to.

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shmerl 11y ago

I use DDG, and it works very well most of the time, but for some obscure and very targeted searches Google still beats it by a big margin (especially since Google has time filtering and etc.). So in such cases I just add a !g :)

ljk 11y ago

what's hn's opinion on this screenshot from 4chan that suggests to not use DDG? http://a.1339.cf/xaikik.png http://a.1339.cf/xaikik.png been using DDG since almost the beginning so i'm kind of conflicted...

luckydude 11y ago

This is just a me too comment, but one of my guys told me two days ago that duckduckgo is good enough. So I switched to it and so far I'm liking the results. And is it just me or is it actually faster when you click on one of the results? Whenever I do that with google it seems like there is a delay while google does some analytics or something.

ljk 11y ago
interesting, on mobile google is faster than ddg for me

SalesHelp 11y ago

Way to go Gabriel! A unicorn who is a really nice, genuine guy who wants to help start-ups.

nfoz 11y ago

People should not have to change their behaviours like this in order to avoid the intrusion of their own government.

vonsydov 11y ago

read 6 times

pwenzel 11y ago

As a Minnesotan, I'm not going to use this service until is named a more suitable Duck Duck Grey Duck.

FrankenPC 11y ago

I love what DDG represents and I try it first just to show my support. But, if I can't find what I'm looking for I activate VPN, open an incognito window and search with Google. Civilian OPSEC is painful. But I refuse to give up my freedom. I wish there was an application/URL level VPN option. That would solve a lot of problems.

chjohasbrouck 11y ago

I choose Google because cntrl+t g o <enter> flows better than cntrl+t d u <enter>. Every time I've tried to switch to DuckDuckGo, this has been the primary stumbling point.

m_myers 11y ago
What browser are you using that doesn't have a search box?

brianzelip 11y ago

Where is DDG located? I can't watch the video, about which the text reads "The news anchor just can’t resist a little jab about DuckDuckGo’s location choice".

__john 11y ago
A google search turns up Paoli, Pennsylvania =) https://duck.co/help/company/hiring https://duck.co/help/company/hiring

dude_abides 11y ago

I wish the headline was s/600%/from 1.5M to 7M in 2 years/ No less impressive, and so much more informative!

blerud 11y ago

Is it possible to append all regular ddg searches with !g? I'd like to use Google for my searches but still be able to use the ddg bangs.

joelrunyon 11y ago

This might be a random point, but I'm curious if DDG will have to change their branding to be accepted beyond the tech space into mainstream searching. I feel like "duck duck go" is too long for the avg american to grasp or use in an ongoing convo when compared to "google", "bing" or "yahoo." I can't see people saying "just duck duck go it." Maybe something like DDG or "duckduck"instead? Maybe that's just me...

anonova 11y ago
Well, there is http://ddg.gg http://ddg.gg, which is "four characters shorter than google.com!" [1] The transitive verb "to google" has been generalized to searching the web, just as "to photoshop" being diluted to digitally editing a photo. [1]: https://duck.co/help/company/short-domain https://duck.co/help/company/short-domain
- joelrunyon 11y ago
  I get that - I think my bigger point was that they need a verb to reference "duck it" "duckduck it" or "ddg it"
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

BuckRogers 11y ago

I like having my default search being anonymous DDG. 99% of my searches I never even bother with getting another engine's results. For Google results, in the very rare case that I need to see what they have, I use "searchthis !sp" to get anonymous Google results from Startpage. I used SP fulltime previously but they've had reliability issues and an odd issue with the back button. Most !bangs that I use are for !w, !a and !gm. Firefox's dedicated search bar helps a lot with editing a long search string with another bang. Doubtful I'll be moving off DDG due to that feature.

nagaiah 11y ago

We have started indexing 100 trillion web addresses in http://www.nagaiah.com/home.php http://www.nagaiah.com/home.php

bigtunacan 11y ago

I've used DuckDuckGo a few times wanting to make the switch, but I just end up going right back to Google. It's just so ingrained in me at this point. I really like the idea of DuckDuckGo and should just force myself to switch. Something this got me thinking though; what about other less popular search engines such as Lycos, do they ALL track usage? Or are there other search engines that are anonymized in a similar fashion to DuckDuckGo?

rodionos 11y ago

They'll break 10M daily direct query threshold on June 22, according to Holt-Winters. http://axibase.com/chartlab/e8635882/5/ http://axibase.com/chartlab/e8635882/5/

rodionos 11y ago
Nice... June 22 was in fact the day when duckduckgo.com broke 10M daily direct query count, as predicted by non-parametric, fully-automated forecasting. Congrats team duckduckgo!

known 11y ago

When the NSA Shows Up At Your Internet Company http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/07/21/1853212/when-the-nsa-shows-up-at-your-internet-company http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/07/21/1853212/when-the-nsa-...