
Google has added DuckDuckGo as a search engine option for Chrome users - jmsflknr
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/13/google-has-quietly-added-duckduckgo-as-a-search-engine-option-for-chrome-users-in-60-markets/
======
ocdtrekkie
As noted in the article, apparently Google is presenting the top four search
engines used in a given country. So presumably this means they're seeing a lot
more DuckDuckGo searches in the data they're collecting from Chrome users.

It's also a solid choice for them to hedge against antitrust claims, if they
can point to having just added them to their browser, regardless of the fact
that Google is the default and they do not present a choice screen like
Microsoft had to in the EU.

~~~
crossman
> So presumably this means they're seeing a lot more DuckDuckGo searches in
> the data they're collecting from Chrome users

There's a lot to unpack in that statement... Is there any recent analysis on
the usage stats that chrome is reporting back that someone could point to?

~~~
zwkrt
It need not be chrome users, Google could (ironically) get relatively good
metrics just by how many times ddg has been googled.

~~~
zuron7
Or from how many times, people have shebanged their way to google from
duckduckgo.

~~~
mcdevilkiller
Shebanged or banged?

~~~
thisacctforreal
Banged, shebang is #!

------
novaRom
Fun facts:

* DDG in 2018 has served similar amount of search queries as Google in 2000.

* DDG growth rate is accelerating

* Google search growth rate is negative

* Google's share of global search is shrinking

DDG stats: [https://duckduckgo.com/traffic](https://duckduckgo.com/traffic)

Google stats: [http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-
statistics/](http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/)

~~~
pcnix
One argument to be made is that Google Search can only go downwards from here,
as it is currently a clear market leader, and the remaining segments are not
easy for them to break into. For example, Baidu has a stranglehold on search
in China, and that's not likely to change drastically, with Google facing
internal opposition to entering China.

~~~
eh78ssxv2f
This is true, but Google is also adding more search surfaces (e.g., google
home, assistant etc.). So, it's possible that they might attract
proportionately more users using these surfaces.

~~~
bhl
I don’t have any Google home devices, but I’d be curious to know how many of
those queries are simply commands “Google play my music” and how many are
actual internet searches “Google what is the capital of Alabama”.

------
wicket
I don't think this really changes anything. It's more important to Google that
DuckDuckGo users don't disable Chrome's prediction service, that way they can
still collect search data on them. Adding DuckDuckGo as a search engine option
whilst they leave the prediction service option intact means that this is
nothing more than a publicity stunt. It's actually quite deceiving for many
users who do not realise they are still sending data to Google.

~~~
pkasting
Eh? "Use a prediction service" is about whether you send data as you type _to
your default search engine_, not to Google. If you change to DuckDuckGo as
your default search engine, toggling "use a prediction service" on and off
will not send any more or less data to Google, because omnibox typing is never
sent to Google in that case regardless.

Source: I am the former Chrome omnibox owner. You can find the relevant code
for this starting at
[https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/omnibox/brow...](https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/components/omnibox/browser/search_provider.cc?rcl=84aa37ed3a2f13288c93c4ad90fe00513d84d77c&l=613)
; look for how GetDefaultProviderURL() works and when that query is sent. You
can also watch packets with your favorite network analyzer.

~~~
tgtweak
Was playing around with the omnibox debug tool (chrome://omnibox) the other
day, pretty cool how it inter-ranks literal search, search suggests, history
into one.

------
ngngngng
I'm on my second attempt to use DDG instead of Google. As time goes on, my
percentage of searches I use google for ticks higher and higher. I'm starting
to intuitively recognize when search results will be garbage with DDG. It's
tough because I really want to take back my privacy, but it seems that for 50%
of searches, DDG just doesn't get me anywhere near what i'm looking for.

The other day I searched for the website to check a restaurant gift card
balance. All of DDGs results were obvious scam webpages. I often search for
ElasticSearch documentation. DDG always returns very old versions for these
docs, while google returns the most recent version.

~~~
sstangl
DDG has a "retry search in Google" mode if you prefix !g to your search query.

I usually try in DDG first, and then in the small cases where it's not found,
I just prefix "!g" and re-execute the query.

~~~
move-on-by
Even better is the !sp bang, which is for StartPage (a google search proxy).
This way you can get the Google results and still retain some privacy from
Google. I also use !w (wikipedia) and !so (stackoverflow) bangs regularly.
Finally, the search doesn't have to be prefix with these bangs, it just needs
in to be in the search somewhere - I find it quicker to just append it to the
end personally.

Full list of supported bang queries:
[https://duckduckgo.com/bang](https://duckduckgo.com/bang)

~~~
newscracker
You can save one keystroke and type !s for Startpage.

I too just type the bang command somewhere, and usually it’s at the end of the
search term or phrase.

~~~
drukenemo
Nice, thanks for pointing that out! It seems like a small think but typing !s
only is more convenient.

------
wintorez
I started using two browsers + search engines:

1 - I use Chrome + Google for work stuff 2 - I use Firefox + DuckDuckGo for
personal stuff

I sync my passwords with Bitwarden.

~~~
brento
@wintorez, I started using Brave browser[1] and DuckDuckGo for work and
personal. It's based on Chrome but with privacy in mind.

Also, I currently use 1Password, but have been thinking about using Enpass[2]
because you can sync with any cloud drive. I like the idea of syncing to a
third party cloud drive in case my password service is compromised.

[1]: [https://brave.com](https://brave.com) [2]:
[https://www.enpass.io/](https://www.enpass.io/)

~~~
fjp
My concern with Brave is them being beholden to the direction of Chromium - I
am wrong about that?

I used Brave for awhile then switched to Firefox+uBlock Origin, hoping to do
my teensy part in decreasing the market share of Chromium-based browsers while
still being privacy-focused.

~~~
ambicapter
At the same time, having the same base as Chrome means you won't be left
behind when people start only developing for Chrome (which is a problem right
now).

------
ComputerGuru
_Disclaimer: @yegg, if you 're reading this, I'm posting this rant with love._

I am so disappointed with DDG recently, it has adopted Google's strategy of
returning searches that have nothing to do with your query if not enough
results were found [0], and dialed it up to 11. If "I" "don't" "put" "each"
"word" "in" "quotes," the results I get have nothing to do with my search...
but if I do that (apart from the inconvenience of it all) it means
(presumably?) that stemming isn't done on the search terms.

Maybe I'm old school, but I expect search results to match the search terms.
Fuzzy matching (stemming, synonyms) is an added bonus, but silently dropping
words which don't appear is decidedly not. Moreover, a search result returning
"only" two results should be taken as a _good_ thing for someone with
confidence in their dataset (DDG naturally doesn't have that, because their
coverage is far from 100% of the web) - it means the search terms were
extremely precise and the results are highly relevant, with irrelevant results
filtered out. _Decreasing_ the signal-to-noise ratio by willfully ignoring my
search terms may increase the _quantity_ of search results but - and I don't
know about you - for me I don't care about quantity and would choose relevance
as the more appropriate metric to benchmark against.

(All that said, I still use DDG as my main search engine even if I am turning
to appending !g far more than I ever used to because I firmly prefer DDG's
respect for my privacy and person over Google's treatment of the same. But I'm
disgruntled and, frankly, very disappointed. Sorry, @yegg!)

[0]: [https://neosmart.net/blog/2016/on-the-growing-intentional-
us...](https://neosmart.net/blog/2016/on-the-growing-intentional-uselessness-
of-google-search-results/)

Edit: actually the situation is even worse. DDG doesn't seem to even always
respect "quoted" terms. Here's literally the first search I did after posting
this [1]. The quoted term "CFF2" doesn't even appear in the majority of the
results DDG pulls in - not just not in the page summary displayed, but
literally not on the result page at all. For comparison, here's the Google
equivalent:

[1]:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=windows+10+%22cff2%22&t=ffab&ia=we...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=windows+10+%22cff2%22&t=ffab&ia=web)
[2]:
[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=windows%2010%20%22cff2...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=windows%2010%20%22cff2%22)

~~~
Kiro
Your rant is misdirected. This is a problem with Bing (the underlying search
engine of DDG).

~~~
mrweasel
Seriously: Where do you get the idea that DuckDuckGo is just Bing? I can't
find a single source for that claim. What I can find is a post from Gabriel
Weinberg that says that DuckDuckGo is not Bing.

It comes up VERY times DuckDuckGo is mentioned, yet there's not a single
source that suggests that DuckDuckGo is just a frontend for Bing.

~~~
Kiro
[https://duck.co/help/results/sources](https://duck.co/help/results/sources)

~~~
gilrain
I hope people click through, because this contradicts rather than supports
your point.

------
andrenotgiant
It looks like in Jan 2019, Google Analytics finally started classifying DDG as
an Organic Search engine instead of lumping it into "Referrals" category.

Although the change has the awkward effect of splitting ddg reporting into the
two groups based on date of traffic.

~~~
eclat
This might explain some GA reports I've recently looked at.

------
gist
For those that don't know 'quietly' is newspeak for something that happened
that no press release was issued. [1]

[1] Because in the world of the press everything should be announced so they
can broadcast it and sell advertising by running stories. And not have to find
it out by other more laborious methods.

~~~
TallGuyShort
It is also often followed with a statement that the real authority on the
issue didn't even bother responding with any comments, when in all likelihood
the journalists also didn't try very hard to reach anyone. As it is in this
case.

------
stunt
No way! I'm a Firefox user. But the fact that Chrome didn't have DuckDuckGo as
an option for the search engine is funny!!

------
novaRom
My impression Google helps DDG to become a popular alternative to its own
search engine. Why? Just funny fact: In 2018 Google transferred ownership of
the domain name Duck.com to DuckDuckGo.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Antitrust and PR.

Look, you know that Google in an act of benevolence gave them duck.com last
year, that’s PR.

Antitrust angle is obvious. They want to appear they aren’t the only game in
town. Esp when you have people like Warren making (hollow) antitrust campaign
noise.

~~~
stcredzero
_They want to appear they aren’t the only game in town._

Microsoft did this with Apple.

------
lawrenceyan
DuckDuckGo is pretty much just Bing with a duck taped over it though.

~~~
FabHK
Except for all that privacy and functionality and stuff that Bing doesn't have
(like bangs, or cursor down + enter to directly go to search result without
using your mouse, etc. etc.)

~~~
lawrenceyan
Yes, this was mentioned as referenced by the "tape" and the "duck" added on
top of the actual search engine that is Bing.

------
sigacts
Isn't DuckDuckGo just a white label of Bing?

~~~
untog
No:

> DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include
> hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot
> (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer
> indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search
> results, which we also source from a variety of partners, including Oath
> (formerly Yahoo) and Bing.

[https://duck.co/help/results/sources](https://duck.co/help/results/sources)

~~~
Kiro
No? Your quote basically confirms it. All organic search results are from Oath
and Bing. The other 400 sources are just for fluff like widgets.

~~~
bad_user
It's worse.

AFAIK Oath / Yahoo has switched to using Bing under the hood since 2009:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/technology/companies/30so...](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/technology/companies/30soft.html)

------
sneeze-slayer
With some of the huge anti-trust fines levied against Google by the EU, this
seems to me like Google trying to support that they are not a monopoly in
search.

------
anonu
I'll be honest, DDG is my default search on chrome. But I !google half my
queries... Google is still just better.

------
libso
Purely from a search quality and end user experience stand, I'd choose Google
or Bing over ddg. I have given ddg a shot for over a couple of months. But I
found myself using other search engines more often than not for the lack be
quality results.

~~~
hnruss
Can you give some specific examples of search queries in which Google had
better results?

~~~
newscracker
Not the parent, but many searches on technical topics have better quality
results on Google (or Startpage, which is a proxy to it).

DDG also doesn’t have searching by time for longer than the last month,
whereas many a times when I look for technical stuff I also tend to look for
things in the last one year, which Google and Startpage provide.

~~~
hnruss
It would be great if you could provide some concrete examples. I use DDG for
technical searches almost daily and never encounter this problem.

~~~
AlotOfReading
Here's one I encountered today with an obscure debugging tool. Google gives me
a bunch of relevant and useful links, all in the first few results. DDG has
one semi-relevant page that links the actually relevant page and the rest are
useless. That single result isn't even the first link.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=bare+metal+arm-none-
eabi+spr...](https://www.google.com/search?q=bare+metal+arm-none-eabi+sprite)

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bare+metal+arm-none-
eabi+sprite](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bare+metal+arm-none-eabi+sprite)

------
graycrow
I started to use Chrome only for Google services (gmail, youtube, maps, etc)
and Firefox with DDG for everything else. With this setup Goggle can send home
only the data they already know.

~~~
newscracker
As someone who supports Firefox, I would say that it’s important to signal
Google that there are Firefox users using its services. People have been
reporting about issues with some of Google’s services on Firefox. Skype from
Microsoft was recently discovered as not supporting Firefox. Every signal
users send to these companies matters.

~~~
londons_explore
If you don't send back crash reports and statistics to a company, you
shouldn't get upset when they stop supporting your usecase or won't fix bugs
you encounter.

------
ppeetteerr
Probably so that they may track which searches people are performing on
DuckDuckGo

~~~
sidcool
Genuine question, if I configure DuckDuckGo as my default search engine, would
my key strokes still be sent to Google?

~~~
Liquix
Yes. URL prediction & malware blacklisting "services" send keystrokes
regardless of chosen search engine.

~~~
r3bl
> malware blacklisting "services"

If you're thinking of Google Safe Browsing (used by both Chrome and Firefox),
you're wrong.

It works the other way around: Google sends you the list of undesired domains,
and your client prevents you from visiting domains found on that list.

Nothing needs to be shared with a third party for that functionality.

~~~
mehrdadn
I seem to recall reading it can be a mix of both, though generally the way you
mentioned. A Bloom filter that filters locally, and if it's a hit then it
sends over the URL to double-check. Would be nice if someone could confirm
though.

~~~
duskwuff
Older versions were Bloom filters, but newer versions have moved away from
that (and to a list of hash prefixes) because Bloom filters are hard to
update.

------
Aissen
Qwant as well it seems:

> Another pro-privacy search rivals, French search engine Qwant, has also been
> added as a new option — though only in its home market, France.

------
ghinshell
Not sure if this is good or bad for DuckDuckGo, as others have pointed out,
this can be used to track DuckDuckGo usage. Interesting though :D

~~~
Zhyl
I would expect to see a small bump in the stats [1] which given this is DDG's
main source of revenue is absolutely a good thing.

"Duckduckgo is one of our main rivals." Is a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy
for Google. They need to amp up DDG's legitimacy to ward off accusations of
antitrust. Credibility, legitimacy and awareness are really the only things
DDG needs to reach a wider audience and gain greater adoption.

[1] https:/duckduckgo.com/traffic

------
auvi
I am a bit curious, how the name "DuckDuckGo" was chosen? "Google" comes from
Googol i.e. 10^100.

~~~
Fishkins
It's an abbreviation of Duck, Duck, Goose. They don't really explain _why_
they chose to name it after that game.

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

~~~
minwcnt5
Maybe it's their ranking algorithm.

~~~
dharmab
DDG is an anonymized wrapper for Bing.

------
rum3
Most likely they have found another way to get the same data. If not, it will
be interesting to see how long it takes until there is a "bug" that reverts
the search engine back to Google once they've lobbied enough that they feel
safe against antitrust claims.

------
chvid
Is the interface between browser and search engine not explicitly defined? Why
can't I add an arbitrary web application as a search engine for chrome?

(I know ... for business reasons ... but isn't Chrome open source? How is this
in practice prevented?)

~~~
Ajedi32
You can. In fact, Chrome automatically creates search engines for any site you
search on. I can search Amazon by typing "Am<tab><query><enter>" in the
address bar for example, and Chrome learned how to do that automatically
despite not having any knowledge of how Amazon's search system works when I
first installed it.

I guess the only difference is that with this change, DDG is available as a
search engine by default with a blank install, even before you've actually
used it.

~~~
rlglwx
Chrome uses open search for the amazon search. It's not some chrome magic.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSearch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSearch)

~~~
mynameisvlad
Well, the automatically picking it up thing arguably _is_ some Chrome magic.

------
cwkoss
I wonder if Warrens discussion of fair platforms had anything to do with this
move.

------
cmurf
I'm pessimistic enough now that my first thought wasn't anti-trust, but rather
whether Chrome itself tracks my DDG searches and sends to Google anyway.

------
theBarleyMalt
I would like if duckduckgo had an easy way to google a search just performed
there. It's good, but it doesn't replace google regularly enough yet

~~~
ebeip90
Just put “!g” at the beginning of the query (or !s for startpage, which uses
the Google search engine)

~~~
FabHK
(the bang can be anywhere in the search query, fwiw)

------
rscafi
I'm glad to see DDG in Brazil's list :)

------
bluetidepro
This is new? I could have sworn I saw it in there as an option like 5+ years
ago? Or was it taken out, and now they are re-adding it?

~~~
samfisher83
You could always add whatever search engine you wanted in the settings. Maybe
it wasn't one that was already setup as one of the drop down menus.

------
bwang29
Wonder if DuckDuckGo could request Google to be removed from the option and I
kinda wished Mozilla can work the DDG.

------
Rafuino
Huh, it's as if threats from policymakers can cause a change in behavior!

------
paulcarroty
Duckduckgo collaborate(d) with Yandex, it's a huge red flag for me.

------
machiaweliczny
They have omnibar anyway, aren't they collecting data from it?

~~~
pkasting
In the sense you seem to be asking, no; see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19381175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19381175)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19393019](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19393019)
.

------
gesman
Market study for potential business dev. move

------
lucaspottersky
that means DuckDuckGo is harmless to them, no real competition there.

just like Apple lets Pandora on Apple Watch and not Spotify.

------
chid
This is great

------
krm01
Not too long ago, Google gave DuckDuckGo the domain name Duck.com. Now this.
Are they preparing an acquisition?

------
jonnycomputer
why does this make me nervous?

------
smpetrey
Interesting

------
gregoryexe
embrace enhance extinguish

------
bootlooped
Not on Chrome mobile though, where you still cannot add search engines
manually.

~~~
craigc
I have been using Duck Duck Go on Chrome Mobile since the end of January. Do a
search on the site first then it will show up in the list.

------
40acres
Is this the first of a wave of anti-anti-trust moves by big tech? It's a play
that I certainly would advise. It makes sense to trade marginal revenue with
low hanging fruit gestures like these to take the air out of folks like Warren
and the European Competition Committee.

~~~
ucaetano
No, it is just an update to what they've been doing for years: showing the top
4 search engines per market as options.

Nothing new to see here.

~~~
saalweachter
But it involves DuckDuckGo!

------
auslander
Nice try G. I still won't have a byte of your code on anything I use. No data
for you. I wish websites stop using your fonts and analytics and captcha too.

------
3xblah
Imagine if there was no "default" search engine or list of suggested search
engines in the settings.

I keep a running list of "alternative" search engines -- not directly Google
or Bing, not Yahoo -- that work without JS or session cookies. There are
thirteen in the list at the moment.

Takes user a few seconds to type
[https://www.google.com/?q=%s](https://www.google.com/?q=%s) or whatever into
settings.

Would that produce more meaningful "choice"?

Would users choose a search engine based on advertising or word-of-mouth?

Looks like Qwant uses Bing for ads. No ads if Javascript is turned off.

e.g.

    
    
       curl -A "superagent/1.0"  https://lite.qwant.com/?q=example
    

If get no results, try this first

    
    
       curl -A "superagent/1.0" https://lite.qwant.com/verify
    

Can get search suggestions in JSON via Opensearch:

    
    
       curl https://api.qwant.com/api/suggest/?q=example

------
0003
1 week since Elizabeth Warren published this:
[https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-
big...](https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big-
tech-9ad9e0da324c)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The change was committed in December, according to the article and the PR:
[https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commit/98b2af784450beb2...](https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commit/98b2af784450beb20cdb26cbee60168891cec4ec#diff-3168db83d84c9efc4ee8e323bd0bf798)

~~~
aboutruby
Thanks, much more readable than googlesource.com and others.

Also quite interesting that they changed the default search engine for China
to be Baidu.

~~~
thekyle
> Also quite interesting that they changed the default search engine for China
> to be Baidu.

It seems to be a logical move since I believe Google is blocked in China.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China)

