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(Submitted title was "DuckDuckGo owns the #2 position in mobile market share in the US".)
If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Titles are by far the biggest influence on discussion, so this is an important rule.
It tends to pick stuff up fairly quickly (in most cases).
But in the last 6 months or so, Google's results have gotten so bad and DDG has continued to improve to the point where I no longer bother with !g.
When I do use Google I often find myself in the strange position of not actually being able to find what I'm looking for. It's a very unsettling feeling, and not one I've experienced in a long time, possibly not since the pre-Google days of Yahoo, Lycos and AltaVista. Amazing that Google have let their core value proposition of 'we are much better at finding what you're looking for than everyone else' rot quite so much.
One place that still consistently gives me trouble is Stack Overflow. More often than not, I DDG my search, get two SO links, one irrelevant and the other bad, repeat the search with "!g" and get a half-dozen SO links, 3-4 of which are relevant, and 1-2 of which are good.
[EDIT] Another poster mentioned searches for "X reddit" seeming to have a very-small cap on the number of results from Reddit that it'll display, and that might be part of my problem with SO results, too: maybe their algo prefers to avoid having too many results from one source, which is bad if you expect or want most results to be from one source. That would explain why Google sometimes finds me results with the exact language of my search, that were absent from DDG's listings—maybe it found them, but they got filtered out by a max-from-one-source preference.
For other searches I usually try DDG first and only fall back on !g when the results are bad, and often the Google results are also bad in those cases.
Just a few weeks ago, I was on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Looking for a weed shop. The only ones it would show me were miles away, and I knew there were multiple near me within walking distance. It literally gave me 2 weed shops on the map across the entire city. None anywhere near by.
Their map search has started to really suck balls too.
Remember Goto [1]? The search engine that at the time was much maligned for letting people ... buy sponsored results and arguing it made their results better...
Goto became Overture...
Overture was bought by Yahoo.
But where Yahoo faded away, Google has largely become Goto 2.0.
There are narrow niches where that model works for users. When you're specifically searching for a shop for example, it's often ok.
But for everything else it's absolutely awful.
[1] https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/goto-forgotten-search-engine/
But more to answer the OP, we've been making a lot of investments to improve our results (along with other things) -- high-level updates posted quarterly at https://duckduckgo.com/updates
This would be very useful because "x reddit" is probably my most common search
EDIT: There's also a !bang that does the same thing: !ddgr
See here for details:
https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/fortran-lang-no-longe...
Bing decided to remove it for some reason and DDG now also removes it from search results, presumably because it uses Bing underneath. For Google it's #1 page when you search "fortran".
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=uefi+hack https://www.bing.com/search?q=uefi+hack
And the exclusion filters fail identically, on "uefi hack -bootkit": https://duckduckgo.com/?q=uefi+hack+-bootkit https://www.bing.com/search?q=uefi+hack+-bootkit
And partially succeed identically: 'uefi hack "absolute computrace"': https://duckduckgo.com/?q=uefi+hack+%22absolute+computrace%2... https://www.bing.com/search?q=uefi+hack+%22absolute+computra...
The only differences seem to be the suggestions, infoboxes and similar "value adds."
However, it seems that businesses have figured out how the system works, and since there is big money in being the #1 result, people are constantly cramming every technique they can get into their sites to get to that #1 result location, even if it means that humans can no longer find what they are looking for.
Google needs to rework their search algo or they need to die.
I want a search engine, more than a curated guide.
[1] https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/google-takes-covid-19-va...
edit: I think the core problem is that "misinformation" was applied too broadly, and sometimes incorrectly.
A search engine by definition takes an editorial stance on things. They take in all of the internet and decide what to present to users. For a search engine to take no editorial position is to yield the floor to whoever can best game the system, and a propaganda machine like Russia's is absolutely capable of exploiting a search engine that doesn't proactively take measures to avoid being exploited.
That DDG wanted to avoid spreading Russian propaganda that argues against the very existence of the Ukrainian people isn't DDG meddling in politics, it's them steering clear of enabling genocide.
But when my naive sister-in-law hears something about how Ukraine isn't a real country, I don't want the first page of results for "history of Ukraine" to turn up Russian propaganda.
I live in a red state, and there are astonishing numbers of people here who already buy Putin's story. I'm fully behind DDG deciding they didn't want to play a role in spreading his message even further.
Yeah, same goes for your naïve sister-in-law. So why don’t they add the “propaganda” tag, so that your relatives could clearly see it and I could search for it (for whatever reason)? They could even add some links to some better sources, as an option. And use some disclaimer when you click on these results, like “Hey, this is a propaganda resource, be careful. Here’s the links where you can read up on the topic if you need unbiased information”. That would probably have at least some educational value, unlike removing and/or downranking the results.
An article about a Nigerian prince who needs money is likely to be a scam. An article about how Ukraine is really just a rebellious Russian province is likely to be state-sponsored propaganda.
This seems to be the case being argued here
>explicitly illegal content
Illegal according to who?
>fraudulent content
Fraudulent according to who?
These things you name are an editorial decision and are not unbiased
That editorial stance should be "show the user what they are looking for and want to see". The customer is always right, otherwise the real customer is someone else.
> For a search engine to take no editorial position is to yield the floor to whoever can best game the system
I am not against search engines having heuristics against state-sponsored propaganda, but there is no need for those heuristics to single out a particular state. Russian state-sponsored content shouldn't be treated differently than American, Chinese, Ukrainian, or any other state's propaganda.
Sometimes a company takes an ethical stance for the sake of being ethical. Shocking, I know, but it occasionally happens.
If they want to add a side link to more authoritative sources (like what Spotify does for podcasts discussing Covid), then fine, but don't censor me if I'm actively looking for "disinformation."
https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898?lang=en
Also, as you can see in the replies, a lot of people called BS at the time, but who were they to question the official WHO line? Yes, the WHO later came around and came up with 6 feet instead of 1 meter, but those who called BS on the WHO's statement may have saved their lives.
Examples:
- https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-reverses-agai...
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7
- https://archive.is/wPD2D (Tweet from WHO)
Note that "airborne" has a specific meaning in medical literature. Everyone agreed COVID could be transmitted in the air by respiratory droplets. But to be truly "airborne" means the virus could be aerosolized and float freely, without being attached to a larger droplet.
Both droplet-based and aerosolized/"airborne" spread allows viruses to be transmitted in the air. But a truly "airborne" virus can travel much farther.
It's the difference between needing 6 feet and 20 feet of distance to prevent spread.
(To put it bluntly, it's the difference between avoiding spittle, or avoiding the equivalent of cigarette smoke. Two very different threat models.)
Ex: "US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams not only wants people to stop buying facemasks to prevent the novel coronavirus, but warns that you actually might increase your risk of infection if facemasks are not worn properly. [...] On Sunday, Adams posted on Twitter that people should stop buying masks. Rather, he tweeted that to keep yourself and those around you healthy, wash your hands often, avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands and disinfect surfaces."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/health/surgeon-general-corona...
Here's an article going over the issue and what convinced them to change their mind: https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...
It turned out they were wrong not just about COVID, but a whole host of other diseases, based on erroneous criteria about what sized droplets could float in the air. Ironically, doctors from centuries ago with their theories of "miasma" / bad air would have been closer to the truth.
This is how many people realized that COVID is airborne and that only N95 and better respirators provide real protection. People now discuss air cleaning, the impacts of Long COVID, etc. The vaccines were seized upon by the political parties as a wedge issue to force the economy open. They help with medical system capacity, but do not block transmission and Long COVID.
You can find an ongoing science based pandemic response policy at https://pandemicjustice.icu
Their was no vaccine at this point so no one against it yet.
The critical thinking can be found in the independent minds of those who made the choice to wear a mask. Listening to an expert didn't play out well.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-phrase-no-evidence...
"controversial": Others called it controversial. I did/would not.
"against the grain": Others thought that there was a grain. I did/would not.
"real time": Not literal.
Maybe this is a regional/age thing?
edit: actually, asking ChatGPT why they're in quotes gives the similar answers as mine, so I guess it's not too odd. New session prompt with 4.0: "Why are some of these words in quotes?"
Fluff removed, same order as my answers:
> ... In this case, "controversial" could imply that the speaker doesn't personally find the topics controversial, but acknowledges that others may perceive them as such.
> ... indicating that it's being used in its typical idiomatic sense.
> ... Here, the quotation marks might be used to stress that the term isn't being used in its strictest sense.
(I'm the CEO & Founder of DuckDuckGo.)
It is simply not true that we have censored anything or made ourselves "the arbiters of truth." I realized I previously explained how our news rankings work very poorly on Twitter but I subsequently put out a clarification in this help page with a much clearer (and detailed) explanation of how our news rankings actually work: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/ne...
From that page: "When we apply our own ranking signals we do so in a strictly non-political manner, meaning we don’t evaluate or otherwise take into account any potential political bias or leanings of websites in our search result rankings."
This is far too vague. Last year Bazbaz told Recode that sites like RT and Sputnik were "extreme" cases (https://www.vox.com/recode/22981115/duckduckgo-free-speech-p...). While I tend to agree, which other sites are extreme cases? This isn't published. Despite the claim that none of this is done for political reasons, I find it hard to trust that these "non-governmental and non-political organizations" act and are chosen without any bias. Your method isn't published or explained. I really think these organisations should, at minimum, be listed. So too should all the sites DDG considers to be "extreme" cases. Then we could decide if we think DDG is being politically neutral.
My confidence in DDG is shaken, and I don't think I'm alone. We live in a world where so many major software brands we love have made overt moves towards censorship on political grounds. If DDG could prove they reject this authoritarianism I think it would serve as a major USP.
One problem with this narrow focus is that many people mistakenly carry this statement over to an assumption that DDG doesn't censor their search results. I suspect that DDG both knows and counts on this as an aspect of an undeserved reputation.
DDG's search results aren't acceptable for anything even mildly controversial. I'll use them for image searches, but there are better search engines for internet access and that give equivalent or better privacy.
Also in my opinion, DDG's penchant for censorship harms the credibility of their assertion that they do not track.
https://developers.google.com/identity/gsi/web/guides/offeri...
Also, you can kinda-disable this per browser
https://myaccount.google.com/security -> "Signing in to other sites"
accounts.google.com$domain=~google.*|~youtube.com|~gmail.comDDG is limited to Bing now that Yandex was cancelled. All the censorship comes from Microsoft not DDG.
It is simply not true that we have censored anything or made ourselves "the arbiters of truth." I realized I previously explained how our news rankings work very poorly on Twitter but I subsequently put out a clarification in this help page with a much clearer (and detailed) explanation of how our news rankings actually work: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/ne...
From that page: "When we apply our own ranking signals we do so in a strictly non-political manner, meaning we don’t evaluate or otherwise take into account any potential political bias or leanings of websites in our search result rankings."
> When we apply our own ranking signals we do so in a strictly non-political manner, meaning we don’t evaluate or otherwise take into account any potential political bias or leanings of websites in our search result rankings.
Yeah? What about that?
https://www.reddit.com/r/PrivacyGuides/comments/tb6cj8/duckd...
Better link - DDG is in #2 with a behemoth 1.8% market share, closely followed by yahoo and and bing at 1.6% and 1.3%.
I find myself using the "!g" shortcut (which takes me to Google) more often than I'd have liked to.
Thankfully, Apple offers this as one of their search engine options (despite being paid "tres comas" every year from Google to be the default search engine).
One thing has really bothered me with the state of the web in general though, which has directly affected the quality of results for all search engines:
Tons of communications have moved into undiscoverable forms/walled gardens. What used to happen in public, crawled, textual mailing list discussions, particularly in the FOSS/IT space, is now happening in Discord/Slack/video meetings. Even upstream systemd devs have been using Telegram of all things for discussing development topics as opposed to systemd-devel. It's an absolute disaster.
I sorely miss the days of https://google.com/linux where I'd find pages and pages of relevant, high-quality mailing list discussions for everything I searched for.
DDG is the default in a lot of privacy-oriented browsers and forks, but it gives users a really bad first impression when their first search just doesn't work.
But I suppose that the average mobile search engine user these days doesn't use most search modifiers or operators so maybe they aren't the things to prioritize.
Duck used to be great for only searching for what you asked for. But in the last few months, it's fallen into the Google trap of showing me things it thinks I want, and not what I asked for. And no method of punctuation seems to get around that.
At this point, the only reason I still use Duck is because the other option is Google.
So they still get the benefit of the doubt (as you say, the other choices are just Google) but the real test will be in how they communicate about this going forward and whether they fix it.
Previously, DDG used to have a page [0] with usage stats, but it was deactivated somewhere around this time last year. Instead of a very clear data that was clearly showing the state of things (which had a rather concerning slowing of growth), we now have vague statents about #2 position in mobile market in the US.
Looks like number of searches was down from the previous year.
When I use DDG if I do a search, click on a link to open it in the same tab, then click back to the search results I notice the results are in a different order. This drives me crazy.
Their web browsers are great however and I've been using them on android for years and on desktop for months! I wish I could use them with a better search engine, though (Typing !g in all queries is now a reflex for me).
I was pretty happy with DDG for years (switched to Kagi last year), and I think they are great for general usage (I often read about issues with local search, their search for Germany (!ddgde) was always topnotch).
To make it short (my humble conclusion): Google is using too much UI space to fill with ads and too many websites hacked the SEO algorithm, creating bad quality information pages getting in the top results.
Love that it can do groupings, especially when you're searching for something that will also turn up seo garbage, like products for your home. So you can see the cluster of "review sites" and then actual product companies
The problem is that you can't remove the Google equivalent on a Pixel phone, so it's really wasted screen space and feel like anti-competitive. Until someone in the EU commission notices it and regulates it I guess...
I recommend Neo Launcher, which is free and open source: https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher
I have been wondering if thisnis due to some changes with Bing (which is the underlying engine as far as I know).
The website is unavailable anymore (wonder why?), but before switching to Brave search (way better than DDG imo) it was noticable, that the number of queries had stalled.
If you don't care about privacy, you use Google because it is the best.
If you care about privacy, you use DDG because it is the best that offers improved privacy.
I feel like DuckDuckGo has had enough controversy in the trust department that it's entirely worthless as a company and as a service. Anything I do need to actually search these days, I just use Google, as I don't care about Google knowing I needed help with a Golang compiler error. It's not a worthwhile tradeoff for me.
The problem is when you need to research or learn about something that is verboten.
Even something as simple as "x worker strike" or "x protest" won't necessarily break any laws but will be of interest to certain automations, agencies and systems that may then endeavor to make your life hard without necessarily stepping over the legal line.
Not for being an undesirable to a ruling authority, but for looking up information related to them. And of course, this will evolve in more dystopic ways when it is all inevitably factored in to (financial|social) credit scores, insurance, access to services, etc. in the future. Either directly or laundered through AI or other systems.
That is less an argument in favor of DDG and more of a statement of why search engine privacy will become more and more important in the mid term.
I mean, I get it, it's a public-facing service, some guard-rails should be present. But political censorship on a search-engine that poses itself as a "good guy" privacy focused search engine? On a search engine that is used by default in a Tor browser? That is just an unacceptable abuse and misrepresentation.
And judging by their press releases, DDG seems to be quite proud of themselves fighting "misinformation". I mean, even if it came from the good intentions, it had essentially broken the core search functionality to the point it where works far worse than google or any other search engine. And if that's the case, what is even the point?
If you are researching some political topic, don't ever use DDG, they will 1984 your search results and act like they did good. It's like their target userbase aren't even educated engineers, but silly gullible grans who need curated experience.
P.S. If you search "duckduckgo censorship" in different search engines, DDG's first result labels anyone complaining as "far right", ironic. Seems like every other search engine is "far right" these days, judging by sheer brokennes of DDG compared to others.