Not sure if it's a lot to ask, but I'll consider it a killer app if DDG can let user opt which map source to choose from? e.g. Some may prefer Google, and some may prefer openstreetmap?
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/settings
[2] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/features/m...
> (e) No Use With Non-Google Maps. Customer will not use the Google Maps Core Services in a Customer Application that contains a non-Google map. For example, Customer will not (i) display Places listings on a non-Google map, or (ii) display Street View imagery and non-Google maps in the same Customer Application.
-- https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/terms/
As far as OSM goes, Apple Maps is based heavily on OSM data. (I've submitted corrections to OSM and seen the changes propagate to Apple Maps.) So I don't see much point in supporting two different services which are that closely related.
Apple does make some contributions back to OSM though for submitted corrections in areas that use OSM as a fallback, IIRC. Apple Maps unfortunately doesn't do a great job of mixing those results though and only uses them as "fallbacks". It's why some areas have poorer quality even compared to OSM (such as Germany mentioned in another comment) because they're strictly using their own data instead of using OSM, et al. to fill in the gaps.
From a purely privacy standpoint this isn't much different.
There are a ton of other bang options here:
Remember, though, because your search is actually taking place on that other site, you are subject to that site’s policies, including its data collection practices.
It's possible the strip some information in the transfer but not everything?
The bang shortcuts just take you to the other websites.. sure, you gain a few things, like Google not knowing what you typed to arrive at the final search, typing speed, etc. but DDG can’t really do anything to protect your privacy once you’ve ended up at google.com.
So `!g hello world` just redirects to `https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hello%20world`
I'm can't see how that could possibly be more anonymized then just going to google.com yourself.
I guess because it makes zero sense the way it is. What's the point? Might as well have gone to Google directly. And what DDG user would ever want to be redirected to Google? They're using DDG for a reason (and for 99%, it isn't the search engine quality). It just makes no sense.
> I'm [sic] can't see how that could possibly be more anonymized then [sic] just going to google.com yourself.
DDG could proxy the traffic the way startpage does.
There are over 10.000 different bang shortcuts. They’re very valuable for several reasons, especially if you make DDG your default search engine. “Denmark !w” will take you to Denmark’s Wikipedia page, saving you the time and bandwidth it would take to click on the link through the DDG/Google result. Similarly, you can search “hello !gtda”; and sure, for short translation queries then you could also just type “hello danish” in Google, but try doing that with an entire paragraph. You could also search “duckduckgo !gandi” to see available duckduckgo domains on Gandi (or whichever domain registrar you prefer).
> And what DDG user would ever want to be redirected to Google? They're using DDG for a reason (and for 99%, it isn't the search engine quality). It just makes no sense.
DDG users aren’t (or at least they shouldn’t) append !g to all their searches.. it should only be used as a last resort (and even then they should still be using !s instead of !g). DDG’s primary selling point is privacy, but even if they were just as evil as Google (and there were no other privacy-friendly alternative available) then I’d still be using DDG as my default search engine thanks to the bang shortcuts.
> DDG could proxy the traffic the way startpage does.
That would defeat the purpose of the bang shortcuts, which is to take you to the search results on other sites. Besides, they already offer this through !s.
Use !s for Startpage instead; it proxies google's results.
Users know this and are cautioned, explicitly against using it for that very reason.
Now if you don't care that google knows your information, then yeah, just use google maps. But a user must be at DDG for some reason right? And that reason is as likely to be privacy as it is not. So if you're at DDG for privacy, why ask for all google information?
A better alternative would be !s which redirects your search through Startpage.
I don't know which language you use, but at least the German translation is kinda wrong since it is called 'Kartensystem' which you could translate as 'Karten = Maps' and 'System = System' and it certainly is not the general map system you select, but just the one being used for calculating routes/directions. Sadly :-/