My quick review after more than a year of DDG as my default:<p>- Technical searches are usually on par with Google, or even better. What made me switch originally was that I got fed up with Google just straight up ignoring half my query, and I've had none of that frustration with DDG.<p>- I like the dark theme (although I think Google's experimenting with that now)<p>- DDG is absolutely worthless when it comes to local searches like shops or even just nearby places (I live in Belgium). I always use '!g' for those. I also still use Google Maps.
I’ve used ddg for about 5 years. I find it works about as well as Google. I think Google works worse than it did about 10-15 years ago and that this is just a reflection of the internet itself becoming crappier.
This article doesn't really cover anything that the hacker news audience won't already be familiar with. What <i>is</i> notable, however, is that Duckduckgo has seen a pretty strong surge in usage recently [0], moreso than similar surges in the past.<p>[0] <a href="https://ddg.gg/traffic" rel="nofollow">https://ddg.gg/traffic</a>
I’ve always wondered how the economics of DDG work out, considering they’re basically a proxy for Bing with a bunch of other scraped/API-based data sources they layer on top. Are they paying Bing per query? How can that net out positively?<p>I suppose at their volume they’ve negotiated great API rates, but their own ads can’t possibly bring in enough revenue to cover the expenses of the API calls…
> Should Apple buy DuckDuckGo? I’ve seen this comment floated around the tech community for years, and while it’s an excellent idea, I don’t think it’s needed.<p>As a non-Apple user I can only say: what?
I use DDG daily but there's one thing that grinds my gears, and undermines their privacy by default statement.<p>They leak the searches in the URL like this <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=this+is+not+private+at+all&ia=web" rel="nofollow">https://duckduckgo.com/?q=this+is+not+private+at+all&ia=web</a>
I've always wondered why DDG doesn't go fully open source? Their mobile apps and browser extensions are already open source, why not open source the search engine? Is it just because they don't want to deal with the extra work (they already shutdown duckduckhack), or is there something else that I am missing?
I've tried DDG a few times over the past 3-4 years and reverted back to Google each time until now because, actually, the results are good enough and it's refreshing to see just a page full of search results without all the Google guff.
I switched my phone's default search engine to DDG but still use Google on the desktop. I find the mobile experience for Google search to be much more annoying with the heavy emphasis on AMP.
I gave DuckDuckGo an honest shot for a few months a couple of years ago.<p>I had to give it up, sadly. The results were just not good enough. I'd love to get away from google, but having less than perfect search had a surprisingly large impact on my day-to-day work.<p>Just one instance of "I couldn't find anything about x . . . " where a manager responds "I found it in 10 seconds on Google" is probably enough to send just about anyone running back to Google for work-related searches.
I use DuckDuckGo as my default, and have for a couple of years. My workflow is to the run all searches the DDG, then, if I don't see what I'm looking for, I run the same search using the "g!" keyword. If I were more concerned about privacy I'd use the "sp!" keyword. I find that I wind up routing searches to Google a little less than half the time.
What I like most about DDG is that they show more text preview of a site. I find easier to know if a site will be useful or not (google shows very little, and you end clicking).<p>But as all agree some queries are not really usefull on DDG so I have a bookmarklet to toggle between google<->DDG with the click of a button:<p><pre><code> javascript:void(window.location.href = "https://" + (window.location.host == 'duckduckgo.com' ? "www.google.com/search" : "duckduckgo.com/") + "?" + window.location.href.match('q=[^&]*')[0])</code></pre>
I avoid google (even as a backup) because they've replaced displayed URLs with bizarre breadcrumb things. I can't fathom why even a single person at google thought that was a good idea, but no doubt I'm wrong.<p>I'm sure it was a fun project team to be on though. The "Replace Slashes with Angle Brackets Initiative"
If you want freedom and more privacy, stop using so much proprietary software. How much Apple lover out there talking about privacy or freedom. They are blind.
Duck Duck Go uses "more results", instead of proper pagination.<p>I won't use any website that has such poor judgement in website design.
Do a search for any politically hot topic, in Google, DuckDuckGo, Swisscows, etc.<p>Compare the results.<p>Contemplate the dystopian implications of an ideologically correct search engine.