
New DuckDuckGo design - ashishk
https://duckduckgo.com/whatsnew
======
Spittie
That's awesome! I've been using the beta for a while and it's been much better
than the old site.

A bunch of ideas/complains:

\- It's awesome that you're showing me a nice map when I search for
places/address, but let's be honest, I'll probably need to load it into an
online map (OSM, MapQuest, Google Maps) to get directions. So a "open in map"
button would be great (yes, I can copy/paste the address and !bang it, but
it's not exactly a great experience)

\- Sometimes I just want to search for images or videos. Yes, I can search
"Images X" or "Videos X", but it's not nice. Also you get the minimized
image/video box. I'd add two bangs, !i and !v (those right now alias to Google
Images and Youtube, which have !gi and !yt anyway) to search for images/video
and that will auto-open the images box.

\- Auto-suggestions are neat, but please add an option to remove the "select-
on-hover" behavior. It's really annoying to casually move the mouse and select
something else.

That's mostly it, otherwise I'm really, really happy with DDG. Thanks, and I
wonder what the future will reserve!

~~~
blueblob
So the maps did work for you? I looked up a few places just to test it out and
most of them were not found or not identified as places. I am living in New
Hampshire, so perhaps they just haven't done much with NH addresses yet. I
love duckduckgo and I am glad that they are making improvements but I
currently can't use the map feature reliably.

~~~
joveian
Also not working for me if I search for some random street address (which
works well on Google), even if I add a zip code to the end. Even if it isn't
possible to be confident enough to show the map first thing like Google does,
at least adding a map tap on any search that looks like it could possible be
interpreted as a map would be cool (though I could fairly easily just add
!map, so it isn't that important).

Edit: tried a few more and some of them work. It seems like intersections may
never work and some addresses don't work.

Other suggestions for DDG:

Speaking of !bang!, did you consider making the tabs !images, !video, etc.?
That might help more people discover that really cool feature that I didn't
know existed until folks here mentioned it (and is why I switched to DDG as my
primary search engine). Similarly, the "try these other search engines"
section at the end could have !g, etc. in parentheses.

I'd also suggest keeping the X in the search bar visible all the time, at
least if the page is wider than some minimum width.

I like the few orange lines at the top of the page as the only header to make
it easier to identify the page. I just noticed the up arrow off to the right
when scrolled down, which is helpful too.

I really like that you just show the site rather than the full url until I
mouse over that result.

The one thing I miss is the longer text list of meanings; only being able to
scroll three at a time isn't fun if I'm looking for number 11, but before it
was easy to pick out #11 even if I had to click once to expand the results.

Edit: I just noticed the result site favicons, which is nice too. I don't
remember if that was there before, but I hadn't explicitly noticed it. I use
the FaviconizeTab extention on Firefox so I appreciate wider use of favicons
:).

~~~
blueblob
Yeah, I think it's not DDG's fault. It looks like they are using
OpenStreetMaps, and OSM is not finding the address that I look up either. It's
definitely an admirable project that I look forward to using eventually.

~~~
joveian
Thanks, that seems to be the case for me as well testing on
openstreetmaps.org. In one case I tried openstreetmaps.org is returning two
options (one of them being what I entered :/), so it seems like in that case
DDG also just doesn't show a map tab.

(this reminds me why I never try to use OSM more than once every year or two;
I hit too many cases too easily where it doesn't work; maybe I can just use
DDG results to determine when OSM is worth trying :) ).

------
yegg
Here's the announcement I just posted on our blog:
[https://duck.co/blog/whatsnew](https://duck.co/blog/whatsnew)

Thank you to everyone who provided feedback to us during our public beta
period! Please keep the feedback coming so we can quickly iterate. We really
do listen to it all.

~~~
qntmfred
[http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/](http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/)

~~~
dredmorbius
Ironically, that page fails with JS disabled.

Related: I've spent more than a few minutes on sites unwrapping carouseled
content to just display stacked on the page. It's fucking annoying.

------
ianstormtaylor
This is a really amazing direction in terms of design. Like most people
probably, I've pretty much ignored DDG because it didn't seem to be doing
anything more than Google already did, but this design is really interesting
for going in a new direction.

The only thing that stands out to me as less useful than the equivalent Google
search at this point is the hiearchy of the results. Google uses a link-like
blue color for the titles of each result, which seems like a leftover from a
past age of the web, but is actually useful for scan-ability because the text
of the headers stands out.

Compare the current DuckDuckGo...
[https://i.cloudup.com/vrwZgUkOty.png](https://i.cloudup.com/vrwZgUkOty.png)

...to Google...
[https://i.cloudup.com/eFCFEE5TYG.png](https://i.cloudup.com/eFCFEE5TYG.png)

...to an adjusted version of DuckDuckGo...
[https://i.cloudup.com/jluIYZWtzz.png](https://i.cloudup.com/jluIYZWtzz.png)

Having an extra color for the headings lets you scan the page much more
easily, which lets you get to the result you wanted faster. The downside is
that since their brand color is red, it feels "best" to have the highlight
color red. But then that has some negative emotional connotations. Tried green
as well, but it didn't stand on it's own enough since there's so little green
on the page.

Anyways, I've switched to DDG as my default and will try it out for a while
again. I also love those favicons that show up next to the domain names.

~~~
Holbein
Love that design suggestion! It looks _so much better_!

Btw, you can make it your default today by playing with the ddg address
parameters:

[https://duckduckgo.com/?k9=%23b02900&q=melanie%20laurent](https://duckduckgo.com/?k9=%23b02900&q=melanie%20laurent)

This solution is preferable to changing colors in the settings screen if you
regularly delete your cookies (and with it the custom colors) - just change
your browser search engine shortcut.

More info: [https://duckduckgo.com/params](https://duckduckgo.com/params)

~~~
moollaza
Actually there is a "Cloud Save" feature that helps you save (and restore)
your setting without using cookies. Scroll to the bottom of the settings page
and you'll see it.

As the page says, "The benefit of [Cloud Save] over using the URL parameters
bookmarklet is that when you change settings, they will automatically be saved
in the cloud."

------
Walkman
Honestly, I don't care how clean or nice the page design is, until it can't
give me good results. Here is an example:

The other day, I was searching for a Django core developer's contact. I knew
his exact name was Baptiste Mispelon so I searched that directly.

On Google [1] after his Twitter and Github accounts, the first picture is
correct, and I did not have to do anything else, the contact infos are there,
his picture is there, great.

On DuckDuckGo [2] the picture is not even close, and the first couple of
results are not as useful as on Google [1].

I think it is a mistake to concentrate on clean design on a search engine
until the searching algorithm is not that good. AFAIK Google's page ranking
algorithm is well known, when I were in university I even heard stories that a
student (going on the same class as me) reproduced the algorithms only on his
own!

TL;DR: I want to search relevant information with a search engine, not to look
some nice webpage.

[1]:
[https://www.google.hu/search?q=Baptiste+Mispelon](https://www.google.hu/search?q=Baptiste+Mispelon)

[2]:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Baptiste+Mispelon](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Baptiste+Mispelon)

~~~
citruspi
When I search "Baptiste Mispelon" in Google, the first three results are:

(1) Ad for Christianity

(2) GitHub Profile

(3) Twitter Profile

When I search the same thing on DuckDuckGo, the first three results are:

(1) Twitter Profile

(2) LinkedIn Profile

(3) GitHub Profile

I definitely think that the first couple of results on DuckDuckGo are as
useful as those produced by Google, if not more so.

~~~
Walkman
Strange, I don't see any ads at the top :O on Google. I have no ad blocker
enabled.

~~~
gtremper
I didn't get an ad either. With my search order being Github, twitter, photos,
linkedin.

~~~
us0r
I got the same results. The images are quite random.

------
k-mcgrady
Instead of putting a large box at the top of some search results with what you
think I want, why not put it to the side (the way Google does) and make use of
the large amount of waster whitespace. I have tonnes of horizontal space
available, not much vertical.

~~~
joosters
This would also mean that the results don't suddenly jump position when the
top box loads. Many times I've mis-clicked because of the page flow change.

~~~
Joeboy
Yes, this always seemed like a gross usability faux pas to me. If you don't
wait for some unknown period after you see the first result, you risk clicking
on an unwanted link that unexpectedly appeared under your cursor.

Maybe this is fixed with the redesign?

------
chimeracoder
I've been using DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for almost three years.

It's improved fairly steadily in that time (as measured by how often I end up
falling back to appending "!g" to my search), but this is the single biggest
improvement I can remember in my time as a user.

Aside from the auto-complete (which is nice), it feels significantly faster,
and it's also easier to parse visually.

I'm really excited about seeing DuckDuckGo evolve, and it seems more and more
people are as well:
[https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html](https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html)

~~~
mrweasel
My need for !g has certainly decreased, but I also find that when I do use it
I often feel that the DuckDuckGo result was actually closer to what I wanted.

DuckDuckGo seems to be getting better, while Google is getting worse in some
areas. The results that I get from Google is still impressive, but more and
more it seems that they are making wrong assumptions about my wishes.

------
egfx
[https://duckduckgo.com/tty/](https://duckduckgo.com/tty/) = better

~~~
Nanzikambe
New home page for me, thanks!

~~~
shmerl
It still has a keyboard bug (tabs switching doesn't work with Ctrl+PgUp / Ctrl
+ PgDwn when there).

~~~
tripzilch
seems to hijack a lot of browser keys in fact. I don't like that.

------
mike-cardwell
I use <alt>d to select the text in my address bar. If I am on a duckduckgo
search results page, it seems this keyboard combination is intercepted and I'm
bounced off to one of the results (well, the 'd' on it's own does this too). I
can also use <ctrl>l, but I've gotten use to using <alt>d.

[edit] I have bug reported this. They have a very good feedback system on
their website.

~~~
shawnz
There's also "F6", which is just a single key. Maybe that will be easier to
get used to.

~~~
malnourish
There's also ^L, a chord which I find much easier to type than reaching up
three rows to an F key (especially with my caps lock mapped to control).

Regardless, he shouldn't have to change his shortcut because a website (a
search engine, no less) hijacks his keys. That's bad UX.

------
james33
I've never really bought into DDG, especially for its lack of features. It
still can't match Google, but this is certainly a step in the right direction
and gives me pause to think about using it at least once in a while now. Glad
to see progress in search outside of Google for a change.

~~~
kermitdance
This post made me finally create an account here. I do admit that personalized
searches improve result quality a lot, at least for some topics. But after
using DDG as my main search engine for about a year, > especially for its lack
of features just sounds wrong. On the contrary, I tend to feel really helpless
when using Google because of the lack of DDG bang syntax. For me, DDG is like
my perfectly customized search engine with all the features I need - without
actually customizing anything. This enables me to have the same, good search
experience wherever I am (notebook, desktop PC, tablet, some else's
machine...)

So to conclude this: Not relying on the search engine to guess your intention
based on personalization takes some time to get used to, but for me it
definitely payed off.

~~~
weaksauce
any good resources for learning how to effectively use DDG?

~~~
m_mueller
Why is kermitdance's reply to this post dead now?

~~~
maxerickson
Probably because they used a url shortener.

------
Arnor
I've tried DuckDuckGo a couple times before. Today I decided to give it one
day and see if I felt more comfortable with it. I was having a really hard
time parsing the results so I did a search side by side in Google and
DuckDuckGo. I looked at Google and thought "yeah, I know I want link #3" then
I looked over to DuckDuckGo and saw that the same link was result #2 but I
couldn't identify it as the page I wanted just by looking at the results page.
Further analysis helped me to understand the process I use for parsing search
results. It turns out that the most important part is the URL and I've trained
myself to look for that in the format Google renders it (right after the
link). When I realized that this was what I was actually looking for, it all
became much easier.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Today I decided to give it one day and see if I felt more comfortable with
> it.

I tried that myself several times, and never quite managed to do it. It only
stuck when I forced myself to do it for an extended period, at which point I
finally started being able to reliably differentiate between "good results"
and "results that feel like Google". I found it disturbing to realize how much
I had conflated those.

------
joosters
White text over white images on
[https://duckduckgo.com/whatsnew](https://duckduckgo.com/whatsnew) \- not very
readable!

(Edit: How odd; a reload caused the page to be displayed differently, with the
images below the text and icons.)

~~~
criley2
Personally I am not a fan of horizontal navigation that breaks scrollwheels.

People get through websites with scrollwheels. Forcing people to use non-
standard scrolling (left right) AND forcing them to do with click handles... I
wonder if they're keeping data on how many people see the main preview and
quit out versus how many actually see the other 5+ slides...

~~~
SwellJoe
I clicked on "press" at the bottom (which happened to be at the bottom left of
the screenshot on my device). Thinking it meant, "press me to continue" (which
seemed a bit weird). Nope. It's their press page.

So, yeah, the "what's new" page is real clunky, but I haven't, so far, been
offended by the changes to their actual design. I haven't used it much since
the changeover, but DDG is my primary search engine, so I'll probably have
opinions on it soon.

~~~
criley2
I did the exact same thing. "How does this work? What am I supposed to do? Oh
I'll press the press button!"

~~~
SwellJoe
I felt kinda dumb after finding myself on the press page. I feel better
knowing I'm not the only one similarly fooled.

------
edwintorok
What changed since the preview was announced?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7700192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7700192)
The contrast on the main page is still too low.

~~~
bsstoner
We have implemented a bunch of the feedback from the original discussion.
Detailed release notes were posted in the forum:
[https://duck.co/forum/thread/5747/duckduckgo-beta-
refinement...](https://duck.co/forum/thread/5747/duckduckgo-beta-refinements)
[https://duck.co/forum/thread/5851/duckduckgo-beta-
refinement...](https://duck.co/forum/thread/5851/duckduckgo-beta-
refinements-2)

We also added themes (in the side menu) to address some of the feedback on
contrast. Classic theme reverts to the color scheme of the old site. And you
can fine tune the individual colors further in Settings.

~~~
edwintorok
Thanks, the 'dark' theme seems to have the best contrast, better than both the
classic and default themes!

------
gejjaxxita
Small but surprisingly annoying thing about DDG: I have to hit TAB too many
times to start cycling through search results, on google one TAB takes me to
the first search result, on DDG it's an unintuitive series of links.

~~~
josteink
Why tab? You can just use arrow up and down to navigate the search results
directly.

~~~
gejjaxxita
You've just made me very happy.

~~~
MrUnderhill
For fellow vimmers, using j & k also works ;-)

~~~
vhost-
Unfortunately, I use vimperator so j and k scroll for me. I'm glad to see some
sites incorporating some good keyboard shortcuts, though! Maybe one day I can
ditch vimperator in favor of common keyboard commands in my favorite sites.

~~~
blerud
You can disable vimperator on certain sites

:ignorekeys

------
shmerl
The fonts look messed up for me (Debian testing / Firefox 29.0.1). In some
cases letter i has a shifted dot (see the word Wikipedia in the last search
result in the image below):

[https://i.imgur.com/SsicEFJ.png](https://i.imgur.com/SsicEFJ.png)

The fonts come from here:

* [https://duckduckgo.com/font/ProximaNova-Sbold-webfont.woff](https://duckduckgo.com/font/ProximaNova-Sbold-webfont.woff)

* [https://duckduckgo.com/font/ProximaNova-Reg-webfont.woff](https://duckduckgo.com/font/ProximaNova-Reg-webfont.woff)

~~~
klrr
This is due to patents. I blogged a solution some while ago, but since then
removed my the entire blog, here is a raw paste of the original commit:
[https://gist.github.com/klrr/73ce6da0fb6947ed92a5](https://gist.github.com/klrr/73ce6da0fb6947ed92a5)

~~~
shmerl
My settings already include antialiasing and hinting (with medium level). The
only difference I see is that in your configuration autohint is true across
all fonts (not in mine). I enabled it for a few fonts only, since it's
recommended not to use it for all:

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Font_Configuration#Auto...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Font_Configuration#Autohinter)

 _> The Autohinter attempts to do automatic hinting and disregards any
existing hinting information. Originally it was the default because TrueType2
fonts were patent-protected but now that these patents have expired there's
very little reason to use it. It does work better with fonts that have broken
or no hinting information but it will be strongly sub-optimal for fonts with
good hinting information. Generally common fonts are of the later kind so
autohinter will not be useful._

Anyway, I don't think it's related to the shifted letter "i".

By the way, how does fontconfig translate to the Web fonts? Is there any way
to affect them through it on the individual basis and not with global
configuration?

UPDATE: Just found this: [https://necoro.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/matching-
web-fonts-w...](https://necoro.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/matching-web-fonts-
with-fontconfig/)

------
api
I tried DDG about six months ago and went back to Google, but I recently tried
it again. The gap is closing fast. As of now it's my default search. Google
still does a better job seemingly "understanding" queries sometimes, so
occasionally I go over there, but I'd say I'm only doing that about 5% of the
time.

One of my favorite things about DDG is that I do not have to worry about
"search bubbles." I don't have to worry that DDG is profiling me and de-
prioritizing results it doesn't "think" I would want to see. I know Google
thinks search bubbles are a feature but I think they're a bug. I don't want
some algorithm trying to reinforce cognitive biases for me so I don't
experience the shock of a dissenting opinion. I've observed a few times that
DDG seems to do a better job finding really obscure things, and I've wondered
if this might somehow be related to profiling algorithms or lack thereof.

I also find the level of data mining Google (and Facebook) engage in to be
creepy, invasive, and to hold a high potential for abuse. I'm certainly open
to alternatives whose business model does not revolve around that kind of
intrusive personal profiling. I'm aware that DDG does have an ad-and-analytics
business model, but they seem to be taking the high road with it.

Prediction: "privacy is dead" will in the future be regarded as an idea that
greatly harmed several multi-billion-dollar companies. I think it's firmly in
the realm of utter crackpot nonsense, and anyone who thinks this is either
hopelessly naive or delusional about the political, social, and economic
realities of the world. A full-blown user revolt is underway.

------
orrsella
Interesting to see that many of their "whatsnew" examples use Yandex[1]. Is
that a new partnership?

[1] [http://imgur.com/3tBrS7h](http://imgur.com/3tBrS7h)

~~~
malnourish
Nice catch -- this is interesting.

Has Yandex ever had any privacy concerns? How did this partnership come about?

Why is DDG leveraging Yandex?

~~~
magicalist
I imagine it all still goes through DDG, so it would be very difficult for
Yandex to disambiguate more than a short stretch of a stream of search queries
(let alone associate them with a person) even if they wanted to.

There's still the issue of individual queries revealing something that the
user doesn't wish revealed. It would be interesting to see how exactly DDG
uses these other search engines as sources (and if they are able to make
demands with regard to logging), but it's worth noting that DDG logs search
queries itself (just not associated with a person), so that may not be
possible to ask for.

------
Patrick_Devine
The new design looks pretty slick. I really dig the bootstrappiness of it. I
do, however, have a couple of nits. I couldn't figure out how to make the
weather in centigrade, so I tried searching for this:

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weather+palo+alto+in+centigrade](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weather+palo+alto+in+centigrade)

It came up with some interesting results. The images opened automatically for
me (not sure why) and were a little off the mark. Ideally there would be a
link to switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit, with maybe even a cookie to
save your preference, although I don't know if that's very anti-DDG (does DDG
store cookies for anything?). Yahoo "solves" this by having you go to
weather.yahoo.ca to default to metric. At any rate, given that 95.5% of the
world's population uses metric, it'd be a nice feature.

------
okbake
I think I found a bug. I'm using the dark theme and customizing the colors. If
I set my background color to #000001, all of my text will turn blue (#0202FF).

Also, setting the Header option to Off is the same as On With Scrolling. This
is on ff29.

Other than that, I think I'm finally switching over to ddg.

------
ankurpatel
Good design but disappointing that the search and Menu option disappear when
the browser size is shrunk to tablet or mobile phone resolution. Not
responsive.

------
dvcc
I feel like this hasn't been really tested in Chrome on Windows. The gray,
detail information on search results is pretty hard to get past. I kind of
just give up using it halfway though, looks like it might be better on other
browsers though.

~~~
jaryd
You can change the default theme using the menu icon in the right hand corner.
We have a couple of themes preset, you can try implementing your own color
scheme by selecting the "Settings" option.

~~~
dvcc
In all cases, the font size makes it hard to read. Seems like increasing the
font size just helps. Thanks though!

~~~
dublinben
The detailed descriptions on DDG and Google are both exactly the same size,
13px. I think the people complaining about these visual issues are imagining
things.

~~~
dvcc
Font size isn't exactly comparable across different font families. In the case
of DDG they are using DDG_ProximaNova, while in the case of Google they are
using Arial.

Arial is much easier to read on Chrome for Windows over DDG_ProximaNova.

I also just noticed that we can change the font on the settings page, just
feel like it shouldn't be necessary.

------
skizm
Unrelated UI nitpicking: I feel like I should be able to scroll on this page.
Just seeing the top of the virtual screen is annoying.

~~~
aquadrop
Yes, I couldn't concentrate on content because I had an urge to scroll it
down.

------
bluthru
Really like the new update, but I still don't like how there is a dead click
space between the results, and I find the background hover to be unnecessary.

------
Geekette
Wow DDG, you guys are on fiyah! I just rebooted Firefox and saw the new new
look; love it. What I noticed:

* Someone looking to search immediately may be confused/frustrated as the text entry field is currently not visible until the slideshow ends.

* Consider relocating the "press" button away from bottom right; I almost missed it and only saw it because I'd been on the page for a few minutes, finished the slideshow and was looking for more.

* Also, when I saw that button, I thought it meant "press this to see something cool", so I was disappointed when it only took me to the company press page.

* I really like the background colour scheme on the front page but you might consider switching it off as it doesn't carry over to other pages. I.e I found the visual discontinuity a bit jarring when the search and press pages didn't reflect it; that's when I realized that the biggest message I got unconsciously was that my default DDG pages would now be in this colour (with ability to change it). I see now that the pages depicted on "inner" screen were the usual white, but I honestly didn't see/process that against the bolder background.

------
TheLoneWolfling
Not sure if anyone at DDG would ever read this, but my comments on the preview
are still valid.

The contrast is way too low, it prefers vertical over horizontal (I, like any
people, have a widescreen monitor. Displaying 3 search results by default is a
little absurd), a couple other issues.

It feels like a mobile interface.

Oh, and there's no way to revert to the old version. The options merely change
the color scheme, as far as I can tell.

~~~
mrspeaker
I don't get this contrast thing everyone is saying. My eyes are shit, and the
"light grey on white" pops out fine. Any darker and it would be annoying. I
really like the current color scheme.

My 'puter is a mac with retina screen - so maybe it's a monitor thing? Are
there any "progressive desaturation" or "color calibration detection" tricks
available to web devs in these situations?

~~~
bluthru
I agree. The text color is #595959, and that's quite far from the #ffffff
background.

------
hngiszmo
The first time I saw that (so called) design I literally hit refresh 5 times
to hopefully get that missing CSS file. Having all in just light grey and
white doesn't really help finding anything quickly and why hide the path of
the url onMouseOut is beyond me.

DDG is my search of choice and the pain induced yesterday is not enough to
swap back to google but still, not happy at all :(

~~~
bsstoner
Try selecting the Classic theme in the side menu. It has blue/purple links,
darker description text + full urls.

~~~
hngiszmo
Thanks! That fixes a lot of my concerns. I hope they do some A/B testing cause
I don't believe they win many friends with this contrast-free version.

------
frik
Your intro says:

    
    
      Smarter Answers
    
      Answers to your questions from the best sources,
      developed by our open source community.
    

Where is the open source repository located? I would like to browse the
templates/recipes/sources. Found nothing on
[http://duckduckhack.com](http://duckduckhack.com)

~~~
Spittie
[https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-
goodies](https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-goodies) and
[https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-
spice](https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-spice)

I agree that there should be a link on duckduckhack (or, if there is, it needs
to be more prominent and I couldn't find it too).

------
dredmorbius
On the page layout: one very positive sign is that my custom stylesheet
appears to make no difference whatsoever to how the page displays. Which means
that either the CSS classes have all been changed or my suggestions (recently
here on HN) were all adopted.

I noticed the change, and it didn't annoy me much ( _any_ change is a bit
discombobulating), which is actually high praise. I haven't stumbled into any
"woah, that's cool!" features yet (though I'm noticing a few things and
nodding appreciatively).

Just checked the "what's new" and I'm pretty much liking.

I'd still love to see time-bounded search provided. That's one of the very few
uses that will draw me back to Google for general Web search (Google's special
collections: books, scholar, news, etc., may bring me in more often).

I've been using DDG off and on for a couple of years and solidly since last
June. It's definitely working for me.

------
clarry
In the old version, the instant answer box would usually load after the
results and with some delay. Very often it would materialize the very moment I
click on a result, causing the content to move, leaing me to a place I did not
want to visit. That was my biggest issue actually.

I can't seem to trigger it now. So I guess it's an improvement.

------
donbronson
Adding images makes DuckDuckGo now a legit competitor for Google for my usage.
The usability has also dramatically improved as well as load times. Their
mobile javascript needs to recognize gesture swiping and other minor UX
improvements. But this is a leap forward for them.

------
yalogin
The main thing to me is they still do not have driving directions. That to me
is really needed to make it useable to the mainstream public.

Also searching for say chicago, IL does not show the maps tab. We need to
search for Chicago IL for that. Not sure why the comma is throwing them off.

------
me_bx
The "Meanings" feature is a great thing, semantic and ubiquitous at the same
time.

It works well with "orange" as in the example, but searching for "Apple"
directly shows result for the company without displaying the "Meanings" panel.
We can't see the fruits' search results using that term, which is quite
disappointing.

It gets more puzzling when you search for "Apples" and are displayed with the
meaning tab

try: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=orange](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=orange) vs
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=apple](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=apple)

Edit: apart from that this redesign is very pleasant :)

~~~
tr4656
Apple shows the "Meanings" panel for me.

------
dredmorbius
More search results than layout, but as a friend pointed out, "open source
office suite" produces notably and significantly different top results in DDG
and Google.

Specifically: the DDG results _don 't_ rank the arguably top-rated open source
offic suite (LibreOffice) at the top of the results page, instead showing an
order suspiciously similar to that of Bing. Google (both logged in and out)
puts LibreOffice at the top of results, as does StartPage.

Some argue a bias against free software by DDG. I apply Hanlon's razor, but
this is one example where improving results would be a bonus.

Screencaps of results:

[http://imgur.com/a/XAb1F](http://imgur.com/a/XAb1F)

~~~
maaaats
My Google isn't the same as yours, so you should stop reading so much into
this. Besides, it's really the same results, just ordered slightly different.
For me, Google shows pcworld->libre->open. DDG shows pcworld->open->libre,
e.g. #2 vs. #3.

~~~
dredmorbius
I'm aware that Google targets its responses.

I've got my search history disabled (when logged in), and ran the second
search in a logged-out session, to see if the results differed (that they
don't is ... curious).

StartPage, however, claims to proxy its results anonymously, which makes the
similarity with my Google search results ... interesting.

That said, for DDG _not_ to return the leading open source office suite as its
top result (similar to Bing's response) strikes me as a less-than-optimal
situation.

SERP is the new Tarot.

------
webwanderings
All the more power to competition and diversity of choices. But I see these
reinventions and makeover campaigns and I really wonder if things are going
well or not.

I use search engines for a niche blog, and I have a need to keyword search
certain specific terms which are not common words. I have consistently tested
all the available search engines (there aren't many). And I have always
arrived at the same conclusion: there is no better search engine out there
then what Google maintains.

I am no blind Google lover, but when it comes to practicality of effective and
useful products, you have to have the best, in order to make your case.

------
Holbein
I don't like the low contrast and drab grey of the result page. It makes it
much harder to jump between results with the eyes.

Luckily, there is a "classic" mode. Please Gabriel, make classic mode the
default mode again.

------
cvburgess
The UI is super slick. Bravo!!

I miss some of the simplicity of the old DDG but after adjusting the only
thing i find missing is the StackOverflow integration. It may totally be
there, i just haven't had the right query yet...

~~~
rsl7
It's there

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=apache+nginx](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=apache+nginx)

~~~
cvburgess
Awesome! Thanks

------
hysan
I really like the new design, but I'm still hoping for better discovery of
bangs. Perhaps DDG could include links to suggested bangs alongside Images and
Videos based on the search term. With the final link being a dropdown of all
other available bangs (sorted by potential relevance maybe). Another
possibility would be to include the list of bangs (or a shortened one) in the
pull out side menu. For me, bangs are one of the best features of DDG, and
it's disappointing that they aren't more discoverable.

------
rane
I used DDG as my main search engine instead of Google for two weeks just now,
but ended up going back because very often DDG just couldn't find the results
I'm used to finding with Google in that amount of keywords.

Usually I had to add "github", "npm" or some other word that would narrow it
down for DDG, while Google just knew what I wanted and/or already visited.

Maybe it's the lack of personalized search results or Google is just smarter.
Either way non-personalization is a double-edged sword.

~~~
pessimizer
Instead, add !github or !npm to the beginning of the query to use those site's
internal searches. For a specific fulltext site search, "site:" works.

~~~
socksy
But that isn't the point. The point is that in Google you don't need to do
that — it just knows what you're searching on (possibly) due to the
personalisation.

~~~
MildlySerious
That is, of course, true. I personally prefer it this way, though. Now I know
where I end up by triggering the right mechanics, instead of Google knowing
where I end up becase it just keeps track of me _that_ much. I can live with
prepending !gh to my search. Most of the !bangs I use are two or three
letters.

------
bm1362
When it loaded, it failed to load the CSS etc. I saw the typical white page
with black text and thought maybe this was their way of chiding those critical
of the redesign.

------
rakoo
Very good job DuckDuckGo team! I was just thinking that I'd have to switch
back to Google because of the poor results... but this new experience has
given me some hope.

What saddens me though is that we (as in "the users") still don't have a
strong guarantee on the respect of our privacy. We still have to trust the DDG
team. I know there is no easy technology to do it, but still, the whole thing
is only marginally better than using Google.

~~~
dandelion_lover
Actually, the alternative exists already for a while. It is free software and
not even in beta anymore. Check out [http://yacy.net](http://yacy.net)

------
gcd
I never really gave DDG a shot until now. I tweaked the link color as
suggested above to the DDG orange #C9481C (surprised blue was the only
option.. had to use custom color and dig into your CSS to find that) and I
think I'll give it a shot for at least a week. !bang seems to make up for any
deficiencies (I'll probably be using !gm the most, for when I need
directions).. right now things are looking great. Keep up the good work!

~~~
bcj
Just a heads up, !m also leads you to Google Maps

------
scrabble
Still not totally in love with it, but it's still my primary search engine.
While looking for ways to alter the UI, found the Dark theme -- so that was a
plus.

~~~
woopdy
Thanks for that!

------
backwardm
Just switched my default search engine to DuckDuckGo for a self-initiated 10
day trial. All the work you've put into the new layout / results look great.

------
lazyjones
Looks good, but they really need to weed out some spammy websites from their
index.

For example, all the <domain>.<something>stats.com sites that try to get
traffic when people search for various brands, or this strange one:
[http://www.loginto.org/<domain>-login](http://www.loginto.org/<domain>-login)
(apparently it tries to steal login credentials, or I don't see the point).

~~~
_zekiel
eek--thanks for the heads up. Not to subject you to that again but do you
remember what the subdomain was? Was it content from
[http://stats.com/](http://stats.com/) ?

~~~
lazyjones
There are a bunch of these subdomains that somehow get a high ranking:

clearwebstats.com pandastats.net cubestat.com allwebsitestats.com

(all in the top 10 results for one particular domain)

------
mstade
I'm loving the new version. I tried switching some time ago, but found the
results lacking and the experience just annoying enough to not help me get to
where I wanted. Now with this new version it's a whole different ball game.
I've been using the beta for a while, and it's just so good .

I'm loving it – excellent work!

------
PaulKeeble
I am a not a big fan of all the results being down the left hand side of the
page. Considering how the top fancy gadget thing seems to extend well past the
right of my page with silly right arrow buttons it seems a lot of the screen
is just being wasted and it would be nice to have the results at least
centred.

~~~
npongratz
You can move the results into the center by going to Settings > Look & Feel >
Placement, and select "Middle".

------
tripzilch
This looks absolutely gorgeous!

And thank you so much for not including the large(-ish) _position:fixed_
header/banner that we saw in the preview last week. Vertical screen estate is
so precious on today's widescreen netbooks.

------
anilmujagic
Is there a way to filter results by time, like on Google? I can't find it.

------
tzury
Dear Gabriel Weinberg, after so many posts on HN, I am still missing the point
behind DDG.

Can you tell me, the end user, what are other benefits of using DDG aside
_privacy_ (given I am using chrome/incognito by default)?

~~~
dandelion_lover
I guess, first of all, believing google in terms of incognito mode is a
strange thing. Especially on proprietary browser. I suggest to check out, what
is free software and why it is important [1]. [1].
[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-
sw.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html).

------
s9ix
This looks pretty awesome! Good to see them doing well. Sad realization: 'what
rhymes with orange' did not give a cool response. I expected it to at least
try according to smart responses, haha.

------
cgag
I've started using ddg instead of consistently skipping it by using g! since
the new design came out. I didn't really grok how much the design played into
my trust of its results until now.

Big improvement imo.

------
izzydata
This is really neat. I played around with the site awhile back and I found it
particularly displeasing due to its layout and design, but now I'm really
liking this modern and more minimalist look.

------
pubby
I hope a setting gets added to make the images and videos tab always display
fullscreen results. The default display of only 4 images at a time is
pointless to me. Good work otherwise.

------
blueskin_
Horizontal scrolling on a desktop is FAIL.

I also hate the way results have no apparent division between them, not even a
prominent title; it makes them all blur together when I am scanning the page.

------
vohof
Wish they'd add pronunciation to their definitions
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=define+duck](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=define+duck)

------
fotoblur
First I'm the founder of Fotoblur.com, a creative photo community. I just went
to check out the site. What I'm concerned with is when I search for fotoblur
([https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fotoblur](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fotoblur)),
and go to images, it looks like you've slurped the image source and not the
source page the image comes from. You're also providing a link to download the
image. Don't you have any thoughts for user's copyrights or even content
providers of which you've swiped content from? Boooo.

------
geekam
How to turn off auto-scroll and turn pagination on?

~~~
bsstoner
They can both be configured in Settings:
[https://duckduckgo.com/settings](https://duckduckgo.com/settings)

------
gdonelli
Nice. first thing I tried was to scroll down.. (I was on my Mac). I think
because of the cut iPad(?)/Screen... Was it just me?

------
wtbob
'Sorry, this page requires JavaScript'

~~~
Andrenid
> This page requires Javascript to function. If you want to use DuckDuckGo
> without JavaScript, please use our HTML[0] or lite[1] versions.

[0] [https://duckduckgo.com/html](https://duckduckgo.com/html) [1]
[https://duckduckgo.com/lite](https://duckduckgo.com/lite)

------
deathflute
A question for DDG or anyone who might know: How does DDG plan to monetize
this without storing any data?

~~~
frabcus
By selling adverts based on the current query. It already does so.

~~~
deathflute
Thanks. That is sort of like going to war with knives amongst machine guns,
but what do I know.

~~~
sejje
I'd say it's more like harvesting with a sickle when the competition uses John
Deeres.

Doesn't mean you can't make a lot of money with your sickle.

------
Thiz
If I could change the name of two great ideas doing great stuff they would be
Ubuntu and DuckDuckGo.

------
nchlswu
Please. There's no need to have the non-descript hamburger icon on a page
designed for desktop

~~~
sehr
It's the commonly known symbol for a menu button, and is used throughout the
site. Don't see what the problem is?

~~~
nchlswu
I suppose given an assumption of who uses DDG it's okay to use the icon, but
my core point is really that it's _not_ as common as one may think.

In general, solely using an icon instead of text (or a combination of the two)
is poor from a usability standpoint. Within a mobile context, I can understand
the general push towards more compact treatments, but an icon with three lines
does not intrinsically have any definitive meaning. While the icon may be
aesthetically pleasing, I always felt there were some more effective
alternatives.

There's been some recent discussion and data generated related to this icon
(1,2), some of which can obviously be debated, but I think it's safe to say
it's not as ubiquitous as you may think.

Overall, I don't think the hidden drawer pattern (and the associated menu
icon) are appropriate for the site when it's being used on a desktop. But,
it's OK given the contents of it and understandable when the site seems to
have been designed mobile first and responsive. I do think more time should be
given to the final 'desktop' state for a lot of responsive designs these days,
though.

[1] [http://jxnblk.tumblr.com/post/82486816704/an-update-on-
the-h...](http://jxnblk.tumblr.com/post/82486816704/an-update-on-the-
hamburger-menu) [2] [http://exisweb.net/menu-eats-
hamburger](http://exisweb.net/menu-eats-hamburger)

~~~
joveian
I like the arrowed version that DDG uses; I haven't seen that elsewhere (that
I can recall) so far. I think the arrows encourage clicking on it to find out
what is behind it, and most folks will probably not want or need to access the
information behind it anyway. I prefer less text clutter personally. My
personal favorite menu indicator is a small triangle in the corner of the
screen (that you mouse over to get to the menu), but that is even easier to
miss if you aren't expecting it (the triangle needs to be large for touch
interfaces but if standardized could be set to be tiny or not graphically
displaying for folks who know it is there and have a mouse).

Also, even if not perfect, I would love if sites that use infinite scroll
would standardize on something to get to the stuff that is usually in small
text at the bottom, and that icon seems as good as anything to me.

Firefox just changed to the three lines menu icon for the main menu so a bunch
more people who haven't noticed it before will be forced to figure out what it
means.

------
hrjet
I like DDG, but have to ask, what is the revenue model? Is it going to serve
ads eventually?

~~~
shmerl
DDG already serves ads, but without tracking. I disable Adblock Plus on DDG to
allow those ads to appear. It's just a small text banner on top of the search
results (marked as "Sponsored link").

------
FlacidPhil
I love the Forecast.io integration, by far the most beautifully done weather
app out there.

------
wuliwong
Wow this looks great. Just set it as my default search engine. Thanks Gabe and
company!

------
shmerl
Is image search new functionality or I just missed it in the older UI?

------
ixmatus
Awesome change, results are much improved too, using it as my default.

------
Asla
Very cool duckduckgo.

A question. Where do ddg guys get this massive taste for color red?

Thank you.

------
brent_noorda
On my iPhone 4 browser, I don't find any way to close the DuckDuckGo web page.
Until I figure that one out, this new DuckDuckGo is YuckYuckNo (ha ha, I made
that one up myself, I'm so Ducking funny!)

~~~
brent_noorda
I just lost an HN Karma point for my comment pointing out the DDG webpage is
seriously broken on the iphone (because it disables the browser's back and
close buttons and so is effectively a roach motel). What HN Karma god loves
DDG so much that it can't take criticism?

~~~
rsl7
In iOS 7, you just tap on the top bar and the Safari navigation buttons
appear.

~~~
brent_noorda
It works! Thank you, rsl7. I retract my DDG hate.

------
higherpurpose
It seems to cause some problems with the WOT extension?

------
sergiotapia
_Love_ the recipe search! This is fantastic!

------
idealform01
doh! I kept trying to scroll down the page to see the rest of the image that
looks like 1/3rd is cut off

------
newbrict
since when does noch rhyme with duck

------
finalight
why duckduckgo instead of google?

------
oldgun
Looks good.

------
whoismua
DDG is my default SE. Once in a while i ave to go to other SE (Bing second,
Google third) but it's a small price to pay to give them a shot.

Hopefully the market share will be more evenly distributed among SEs. Let's do
our part

