
DuckDuckGo on CNBC: We’ve grown 600% since NSA surveillance news broke - wnm
http://technical.ly/philly/2015/06/16/duckduckgo-cnbc/
======
vixsomnis
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
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?

~~~
dublinben
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.

~~~
tgb
Chrome automatically _creates_ these for me, though. Start typing imdb.com,
once it starts autocompleting, hit tab, then type whatever I want to search. I
only have to go search there once. I've been using firefox and DDG lately and
I really miss this.

Down side to that feature is when you search a random blog once and then two
years later it's suggesting you search there again.

~~~
hansrodtang
Firefox supports something similar, if you for example visit IMDb you can add
their search via the Firefox search box and then add a keyword of your choice
to use the search in the address bar.

Both Firefox and Chrome use OpenSearch
([http://www.opensearch.org/Home](http://www.opensearch.org/Home)) to achieve
this.

------
click170
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
_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
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.

~~~
sosborn
>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

One could easily replace the word "Google" with "DuckDuckGo" and be facing the
same quandary. In fact, having just realized that (I was in the same boat as
you earlier today) I'm going to give DDG a shot and see how it holds up.

~~~
piyush_soni
Sure, the same uncertainty could be applied to Google had it been a new player
in the market and we hadn't developed a little 'trust' in its search results
over all these years (not saying no else can beat them to it). I'm always
looking out for new search engines, and may be one day DDG's search results
will be better than Google's, just not at present for me.

------
simias
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
Don't you think their current model can sustain more users? Or do you consider
that to be a privacy issue?

~~~
simias
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
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?

~~~
simias
Precisely, yes. As with all internet services we can't really audit what's
being collected as simple users, we have to trust them to "do no evil". If
tomorrow ddg started logging my browsing history in order to better target ads
for instance I probably wouldn't notice a thing.

------
VMG
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?

~~~
robotkilla
have been wondering the same about US based VPNs

~~~
dmix
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
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
>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
They are not providing the security they promise.

------
finnjohnsen2
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
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.

~~~
Someone1234
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
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.

~~~
teraflop
As an example: One really useful data source that I'm sure Google uses heavily
is _query reformulations_. If a user does a search for Q, and then later does
different queries Q' and Q'', and finally clicks on a search result, that's
evidence that the result was actually relevant to the original query Q -- the
search engine just wasn't smart enough to return it the first time around.

By itself, one data point like that is extremely _weak_ evidence; the later
queries might actually have been completely unrelated. But that's a source of
error that tends to disappear when averaged across a large number of different
users. In the aggregate, the data can be extremely valuable. But doing that
kind of analysis requires correlating multiple searches from the same user,
and storing the resulting profile for a long enough period of time to do
useful aggregation.

~~~
MarkMc
Can't DDG use session-only cookies to link Q, Q' and Q"? Or would that be
considered a breach of their privacy rules?

~~~
teraflop
You can't count on a browser session to be particularly short-lived. Even if
you don't tie query logs directly to a username, the mere act of correlating
different queries from a user _inherently_ compromises privacy, as
demonstrated by the AOL leak.

------
aidos
As always, you can see the actual ddg traffic numbers on their website

[https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html](https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html)

~~~
ilanco
I wonder why the API queries are decreasing while direct queries are
increasing.

~~~
platinum1
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.

------
mrweasel
>"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.

------
antris
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
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
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
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.

~~~
dragonwriter
US surveillance isn't limited to the US; the NSA spies on everything, its just
that it's spying within the US is controversial given that it's legal mission
is foreign signals intelligence, and the US has statutory and Constitutional
limits on domestic government surveillance which are arguably violated by the
NSA's domestic surveillance. NSA engaging in universal and total _foreign_
surveillance is far less controversial in the US, but it would be a mistake to
conflate the lack of controversy with a lack of NSA activity.

------
zawaideh
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
Yeah, I hate that DDG is missing that feature. I always use Google in those
cases...

------
factorialboy
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.

~~~
louhike
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)

------
joelrunyon
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
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
I get that - I think my bigger point was that they need a verb to reference
"duck it" "duckduck it" or "ddg it"

------
castell
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
yandex

~~~
yellowapple
Yandex and BOSS are just two of many sources:
[https://duck.co/help/results/sources](https://duck.co/help/results/sources)

~~~
castell
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
From what I understand, DDG also has its own crawler, but yes, it's mostly a
meta search engine at the moment.

------
brianzelip
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
A google search turns up Paoli, Pennsylvania =)

[https://duck.co/help/company/hiring](https://duck.co/help/company/hiring)

------
josefresco
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

~~~
stinos
_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
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
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

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

~~~
thirdsun
I try DDG every once in a while for a couple of weeks since I'd like to
switch. Yet even today, the results just aren't good enough. Particularly when
debugging and searching development related error message I had to use the
"!g" bang almost constantly.

For easy queries, DDG is great, but so is Google. When we reach just mildly
confusing queries, the differences are very noticeable. One example from the
top of my head: Searching for "devise", a popular ruby gem, yields several
unrelated results before the actual Gem on DDG, while Google has the Github
page as first result. Due to the popularity of devise I wouldn't rate this as
a difficult query, yet problems already emerge on DDG. Multiply that by the
number of queries you input daily and it becomes annoying.

~~~
galaktor
I have noticed the same, and find myself using the !g feature in DDG a lot for
searches... I suspect this could be related to Google knowing that you tend to
search for code (i.e. Ruby) a lot, thus bumping related results to the top.
Since DDG avoids storing context for users (from what I gather), I wonder if
they'll ever be able to deliver the same quality of results as Google do.

~~~
dhimes
Maybe he could add a 'context' flag on the search. Instead of the engine
trying to discern what you are looking for from your history, maybe there
could be a way you could tell it. #programming, #cooking, etc. Not sure what
the UI should be.

~~~
simpleigh
Why not just expand the original query? A search for "devise ruby" works
pretty well
([https://duckduckgo.com/?q=devise+ruby](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=devise+ruby)).

I've long given up searching for trendily-named JavaScript libraries without
adding "js" to the search term.

~~~
kagamine
There are some stupidly named plugins & libraries out there, not to mention
films and music too. Sometimes you need context. One of my favorite bands is
called _Perfume_ , results are terrible unless I provide context or type their
name in kanji. I say "one of" but there aren't any others <3

~~~
randomguy7788
nocchhiiii

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

------
rurban
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.

~~~
SeanDav
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
> 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.

------
BuckRogers
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.

------
newscracker
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.

------
bigtunacan
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?

------
FrankenPC
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.

------
luckydude
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
interesting, on mobile google is faster than ddg for me

------
known
When the NSA Shows Up At Your Internet Company

[http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/07/21/1853212/when-the-
nsa-...](http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/07/21/1853212/when-the-nsa-shows-up-
at-your-internet-company)

------
rodionos
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
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!

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

------
shmerl
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 :)

------
k2enemy
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.

------
chjohasbrouck
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
What browser are you using that doesn't have a search box?

------
blerud
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.

------
bane
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

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

------
dude_abides
I wish the headline was s/600%/from 1.5M to 7M in 2 years/

No less impressive, and so much more informative!

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

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

~~~
Nadya
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
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
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
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.

~~~
Nadya
Ctrl+L highlights the navigation area (which doubles as a search bar in any
current browser so long as a URL isn't inputted)

So the difference between the nav bar and a dedicated search bar is almost
nil. They serve the same functionality, but one allows you to search domains
without having to prefix a keyword.

It might sound clunky because I primarily use keyboard shortcuts instead of
reaching over to my mouse.

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

------
ljk
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...

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

------
callum85
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
Watch the video - they show the chart.

And yes, it is a noticeable difference in growth rate.

~~~
callum85
My bad, I skipped through and missed the chart.

(It's at 1:05)

------
jister
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
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
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-...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/18/gchq-hacking-
legal-secret-change-in-law)

