

Duck duck go! - setori88
http://www.duckduckgo.com

======
jpwagner
Ok these 10 node branches are becoming a pain.

It sounds like this community has some fundamental issues with privacy at
google et al and is willing to sacrifice some obvious perks to relieve that.

If google made it possible to do anonymous searches would google be the ideal
solution? or is there something wrong with the paradigm such that alternative
solutions give us a glimpse of something different and the ideal solution is
really yet to be realized?

I've got to point out that your average old man user clicks on the ads and
doesn't care about privacy (or doesn't know anyway.)

~~~
setori88
Privacy is one matter some people are deeply concerned about, especially when
search terms can get you locked in prisons by governments - decent search
results is another: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1209482>

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axod
How did the advertising on Reddit go? Was it good value for money? Did it
result in a good amount of traffic? Or was the main value in feedback from
redditors?

Any insight would be really valuable :)

~~~
epi0Bauqu
I thought it was very valuable, and I am currently writing it up in a blog
post :). I was just waiting for the #s to settle. I'll post all of the exact
numbers.

The short version is about 3c a click, low bounce rate, lots of feedback,
users definitely sticked, and it probably helped me get on the front page of
reddit the other day.

~~~
mixmax
That's great - We'll really be looking forward to hearing more and seeing some
numbers. Thanks in advance for being so open about it, so the rest of us can
learn from you.

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dym
If you want a multisite search engine, check out <http://startbox.org/> \--
something I hacked together a while back and still use as the start page.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
That is not what I'd call a multisite search engine. It's a multisite search
box submitting a query line to a button-selected SE.

I was expecting something like "blindsearch",
[http://blindsearch.fejus.com/?q=alicious&type=web](http://blindsearch.fejus.com/?q=alicious&type=web)
.

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RevRal
I use DDG along with googlesharing (<http://www.googlesharing.net>) for when I
need to use google.

This submission might end up dead, but at least it'll introduce this great
search engine to some new users.

~~~
setori88
well I did notice the privacy policy - duck duck go does not store ip
addresses - you can also search via https if you wish.

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dublinclontarf
https search. If google enable https then I would be happy with that, until
then, duck duck go.

~~~
ntoshev
What an evil idea. Track Google searches from your corporate proxy and use
some Google-trends-like analytics on these data. This would offer a glipse of
your true corporate culture.

~~~
nailer
I currently get a fairly good glance at that from all the racist edits logged
by Wikipedia as coming from behind my offices NAT firewall.

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viraptor
A bit surprising that this link was not here before... Unfortunately they
still don't like my developer-specific queries.

~~~
timf
It's been discussed quite a bit on HN: <http://searchyc.com/duck+duck+go>

Gabriel is an active user, see his comments and submissions here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=epi0Bauqu>

~~~
viraptor
> It's been discussed quite a bit on HN

That's exactly why I was surprised the main site hasn't been submitted so far.
I've seen a lot of articles about it.

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Pistos2
I gave duck duck go a chance for a while. While it was acceptable for most
searches, on some searches, it just couldn't compare to Google. For example,
try these queries on both:

usb /dev/sda missing

javascript determine font size

~~~
setori88
Your point is moot, you still havn't seen the beauty of DDG.

Firstly for your two queries DDG's results where acceptable, Google's was
slightly better - but using this example isn't enough to shadow ddg killer
feature.

Lets try something else:

Search Target = star shaped guitar

limitation.

\- you may only type/search once (click/scroll as many times as you want).

\- you may only use one word; that being "star".

Good luck with google. (im on page 23 in google and still getting star trek
stuff)

You might argue; I could just type "star shaped guitar" into google and it
does work, but try find the song named "asterisk" when you have forgotten the
band named M83 and I hope you see my point.

The icing on the cake comes when you click on the star shaped guitar item in
DDG and notice how it filters out non star shaped guitar results.

you need to adjust the way you search, get used to surfing categories to
narrow down search, dont rely on this google profile, which thinks for you.

------
rue
Does the FF toolbar allow HTTPS searches now? And is the "useless page
blocker" optional?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
No, but I'm going to do a whole new FF add-on.

You can get https search in Firefox by going to the https site and clicking
'Add to Firefox' at the bottom.

------
setori88
my default search engine

~~~
baddox
Same.

~~~
blueben
I am curious. What's the benefit?

~~~
setori88
just use it for a week and you will see the benefit
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1209384>)

~~~
blueben
Two questions:

Are you an employee, investor, or other interested party?

Is there not one good benefit of this search engine that you can put in to
words?

~~~
setori88
My only relationship to duck duck go is as a user. nothing else. second
question -> I know full well my words could have absolutely no effect in
persuading you, as search is such a personal and habitual experience. So
instead I resort to simply saying; use it for a week and let the site speak
for itself. Pardon my deliberate canny dodge.

anyway after a bit of a rant here is what i consider the most powerful feature
of ddg: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1209619>

~~~
blueben
That doesn't make any sense. I'm asking to be persuaded. Obviously I'm looking
for your words. Asking me to invest a week of my search traffic just because?
That's more likely to have absolutely no effect in persuading me.

~~~
setori88
Remember, I simply posted the duck duck go site and said this is my default
search engine, why persuade you?

Research yourself, can't be bothered well, so be it. Try it for a week don't
like it ... so be it.

Good luck mate

The internet has too many trolls - not that you are a troll

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python123
There's no image search.

~~~
qnrq
You can read about !image here: <http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html>

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jcsalterego
But, not Hacker _News_ , so I'm flagging.

