
DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU - cheeseyboi
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/duckduckgo-is-now-a-default-search-engine-option-on-android-in-the-eu/343073/
======
nunobrito
DuckDuckGo is only private if you trust their word.

Over the years they continue to refuse access for a trusted third-party
auditor to review their infrastructure and validate (or not) their claims of
privacy.

The preference of Android to place DDG in Europe (31 out of 31 countries) is
strange when considering privacy as argument. Then is placed this "info.com"
as second option on all European countries (31 out of 31 countries) which is
virtually unheard about, and again a US-based service which again raises
eyebrows on privacy.

Europe-wide has a search engine that deserves our preference, and that is
[http://qwant.com](http://qwant.com)

Precisely because it is built and hosted in Europe. Yet, it is displayed as
the last option and only as an option for 8 out of 31 european countries. Very
strange. Talking from Germany, the preference here would be
[http://ecosia.com](http://ecosia.com)

~~~
Accacin
Not doubting you, but do you have any sources for your claims?

I will use Qwant in the future but at the minute it's not suitable (IMO) for
daily usage.

Ecosia seems like a great idea, but these kind of 'Search and earn' sites have
always seemed like a scam to me and I can't find any reason to trust Ecosia
over DDG.

~~~
nunobrito
I'm a software auditor in Europe (per times consulting the European commission
itself), mostly for open source licenses but also for cybersec and privacy
matters.

This topic with DDG is recurring since years. You cannot verify the
infrastructure, it is not hosted on EU-bounded servers and they have been
asked for cooperation. Nothing moved as far I follow.

With Ecosia you are right. The point is that Ecosia accountable to European
Law in case of scam. You can trust germans to close down the service if ever
deemed to be a scam.

~~~
DavideNL
What do you think about Startpage?

And, which European search engine would you recommend?

~~~
jakub_g
Startpage was acquired by an adtech company a few months ago
[https://www.ghacks.net/2019/11/16/startpage-search-owner-
cha...](https://www.ghacks.net/2019/11/16/startpage-search-owner-changes-
raise-serious-questions/)

~~~
DavideNL
Yes i'm aware of that, but they were not 'acquired'... although it's
definitely not a good development, i'd argue Startpage is still better
(privacy wise) than for example Google.

~~~
krageon
> i'd argue Startpage is still better

Why would you argue this? Adtech companies are one of the big sources of
problems with privacy online.

------
therealmarv
It's somehow funny to see that Bing search results are so successful when
packaged with privacy in mind into DuckDuckGo. I don't like bing search
results, especially for Europe. They are just bad for many local things. The
only other search engine beside Google which is interesting and surprising for
me is maybe Yandex. It's also not as good as Google in (most of) Europe but
it's interesting to see that many things are not censored away in comparison
to Bing and Google (political correctness, copyright, nsfw etc. etc.). I'm
happy there is an alternative with different culture and jurisdiction.

~~~
Barrin92
> but it's interesting to see that many things are not censored away in
> comparison to Bing and Google (political correctness, copyright, nsfw etc.
> etc.).

I am not aware that there is a censorship of things that are deemed
'politically incorrect' by either bing or google, and Yandex does comply with
European copyright law and other EU legislation like the right-to-be-
forgotten.

~~~
dleslie
As an illusory example only, and definitely not as an endorsement, and chosen
only because it is the extremes of acceptable speach that are most likely to
be censured; consider these search results for "Daily Stormer"

[https://www.google.com/search?q=daily+stormer&oq=daily+storm...](https://www.google.com/search?q=daily+stormer&oq=daily+stormer)

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=daily+stormer](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=daily+stormer)

DDG provides the link to the site as their first result; Google provides links
to information about the site.

Again, I am not endorsing the site; it is simply an obvious example of search
result differentiation between DDG and Google.

~~~
multiplegeorges
Google knows that when I type 'rails' into their search box I mean Ruby on
Rails and gives me relevant results, instead of railroad tracks or hand rails.

It's not a big leap to think they'd do that globally for extreme results like
DS where most people want to know _about_ them and not actually visit the
site.

~~~
mindslight
It's a website. Shouldn't your first stop be visiting the site itself to form
your own opinion?

~~~
multiplegeorges
You still can, obviously.

It's simply more probable that I would prefer a site that contains expert
analysis of a topic/subject first.

------
blululu
Something that doesn't sit well with me about DuckDuckGo is their hidden use
of affiliate links to Amazon and eBay. Fundamentally search engines are
vulnerable to predatory business models. Privacy is one issue. Providing
financially motivated information is another. To my knowledge (would love to
hear more), Google is pretty up front about what is an ad and what isn't while
DuckDuckGo covertly sells you to Amazon when you might want to buy something.

While DuckDuckGo seems to be enjoying some halo effect in some communities at
the moment (Google once enjoyed a similar glow), I think that general
skepticism is probably a healthy orientation toward search engines.

~~~
franga2000
As long as they don't alter the search results to give those links an
advantage, I have no problem with them using affiliate links. It makes them
money to absolutely no loss to me, right?

~~~
inertiatic
If for convenience I search for "Amazon product X" on my browser bar instead
of directly on Amazon, that means that in order for Amazon to generate a
certain amount of profit on that product they also have to pay my search
engine now, which means all other things equal, this costs me money.

Of course in real life it's not that simple a situation but it's easy to see
that everyone behaving like this ends up with the consumer essentially losing
money.

~~~
mrweasel
>they also have to pay my search engine now, which means all other things
equal, this costs me money.

Most customer focused companies could save a pretty sum of money by not
advertising. Of cause it may hurt overall sales to not advertise.

------
Pxtl
Honestly, I've been using ddg daily and I find I'm having to hit !g more than
I'd like. Google in particular seems better at finding matches that come
related to the ordering of the words, whereas ddg I have to quote them (and
risk getting no results because I misremembered one word) when searching for a
specific phrase.

~~~
fiblye
My experience is that google gives me results assuming all of the words I
searched aren’t the words I’m looking for, and it uses tangentially related
words in place of everything. Even quotes are useless now.

Ddg is useless when I’m searching for local things like restaurants and
whatnot, but for general searches, it gives me what I’m actually looking for
at least 75% of the time. With google, I’m barely hitting 25% these days
unless it’s a very well established phrase/concept that I’m searching. In
which case, it’s basically functioning as a Wikipedia search engine.

~~~
bishalb
Can confirm that Google doesn't honor quotes as it used to for exact match
search these days. It's a hit and miss.

~~~
skinkestek
Can someone who knows about the inside of Google tell us why this happened,
and especially why it happens when verbatim mode is used alone or in addition
to double quotes?

I can kind of see why double quotes could be confusing for people pasting
without being aware of the double quotes rule, but ignoring verbatim outright
as has been the standard for years now is even more confusing to me.

~~~
londons_explore
Usually when people have this concern, it's because the page they are looking
for _does not exist_.

I'd like to see examples where you do a search looking for a specific page,
either with or without verbatim or double-quotes, and then find it via some
other query. Sure, it happens, but it's very rare.

~~~
eitland
Would this count?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22vulnerable+over+and+over+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22vulnerable+over+and+over+again%22&client=firefox-
b-m&prmd=ivn&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiE5q_o44DnAhUy4KYKHZWBCM0QpwV6BAgLEBE&biw=414&bih=716)

The page it is taken from is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22032966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22032966)

It is clearly indexed as it shows up in this search:
[https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-
b-m&biw=414&bih...](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-
b-m&biw=414&bih=716&tbs=qdr%3Ad&ei=f30cXq6dLoiFk74Pgdu42Ag&q=cable+haunt+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&oq=cable+haunt+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&gs_l=mobile-
gws-wiz-
serp.3...32861.38811..39806...3.0..0.173.892.14j1......0....1.9FNq9W2X6M4)

~~~
londons_explore
I think it shows up now?

Yes - I think you've hit a case where fresh content isn't indexed for phrases
only keywords. That latter indexing usually takes a few hours, depending on
which data center you hit and load.

~~~
eitland
Ok. It shows up now and your explanation is reasonable. Thanks!

I don't have more examples right now.

------
heavenlyhash
I find it very interesting that the comments here on HN so far are
predominated by discussion of "privacy".

The article is about _anti-trust_ regulation.

These are different things.

Regardless of what you might think about the privacy of any particular option
today, the point of this change is to make sure more _choice_ is available and
visible to users. In the long run, it's worth remembering that such choice
might _be a prerequisite_ for more privacy-oriented services to _have a chance
to grow_. This is the case even if you don't regard any of the current options
highly.

~~~
OJFord
But they're both about choice, and the usual reason people make DDG their
choice is privacy from Google.

~~~
heavenlyhash
Sure, but grep the fine original article for the word "privacy".

It's not present.

HN is discussing HN's tangentially-related feelings more than HN is discussing
the article. I'm not surprised, but I'm certainly frustrated: in addition to
being navel-gazing, in this situation it's also substantially missing the main
reasons this is _good_ : a regulatory agency is actually doing Reasonable
Things -- things any privacy advocate should probably be pleased with -- but
not just are they doing Reasonable Things, they're them in a relatively
subtle, non-prescriptive way that actually keeps the options open for further
future improvement. This is _great_ ; DDG is an incidental detail.

------
gempir
I personally hope DDG is going to namechange soon. I don't hate their name,
but if you present the user with a choice of

\- Google

\- DuckDuckGo

\- Yandex

Why would he click the "silly" option besides humor. It's a bad brand name IMO

~~~
skrebbel
It's also not very well targeted at global reach. I mean, I assume it's a
reference to something in some language / locale? Or, is the humor just super
absurdist, i.e. they might've called it ShoeShoeEat and it would've been
equally "humorous"?

Assuming the first, it simply means they never imagined being used by people
other than (I guess) Americans. Which is unfortunate, but forgiveable.

It's also a terrible finger twister on the keyboard. I wish they swapped
duck.co and duckduckgo.com so I could search on duck.co and find dev info on
the fingertwister.

~~~
OJFord
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose)

(I assume, anyway.) I happen to remember it from a drama lesson at school in
the UK, but I'm pretty sure it's predominantly American, yes.

~~~
latexr
> (I assume, anyway.)

You assume correctly. The Wikipedia page for DuckDuckGo mentions it at the
top, with two references.

------
surround
How is Apple getting away with iOS? Unlike Android, you cannot cannot change
the default browser, maps, messaging apps or _anything._

~~~
akersten
My take is it's a consequence of their vertical integration. Maybe they saw
all along, by not even allowing the option to change, there's no way they
could be forced to present a rolodex of possible choices - since there's only
one choice that works.

You always _had_ the choice with Android, it just had a default. That didn't
smell good to regulators in the EU, and they saw an easy option out of that.
Telling Apple to open up their walled garden is a lot harder, compared to
Android where the garden's already much more open.

IMO, sad that the better approach is getting hit by the regulation stick. Not
that I personally think it's needed in either scenario, but it is frustrating
to see Apple skate by.

~~~
surround
> sad that the better approach is getting hit by the regulation stick.

It’s not sad, it just doesn’t make sense. This isn’t logical - Apple should be
getting hit worse for being more restrictive

~~~
drywater
Most devices are that restrictive. It's not like you buy an oven and you get
to install Linux on it.

------
sriram_iyengar
I use ddg as my default on laptop(Firefox) and mobile(safari), on SE Asia
region. The basic search results are quite reasonable. The challenge comes
when I need specific information, or second level info. It gets quite hard and
I end up hitting a !g on private mode. Partly, stackoverflow helps. I would
say 80-85% it is ddg. Having said that, I also feel ddg has come a long way
than how it was 3-4years back and I’ll continue to use it.

------
priitmaxx
Same thing happened to Microsoft with browser selection. This does not really
change anything. Google search results are just better.

~~~
lucb1e
I'm actually interested in this, do you have any data to back that claim up or
is it just your personal impression? It's not that I don't share it, but I am
curious if indeed it did "not really change anything".

By the way, it's not like a marriage where you bind yourself to one party
exclusively. I use DDG as default but fall back (for any queries that do not
yield good results and are non-sensitive) to Google when necessary. Still an
improvement.

~~~
pnako
I don't see a difference between DDG and Google for content that is new to me
(because I can't possibly know better), but if I'm trying to retrieve one page
in particular (i.e. use Google as a smart bookmark), in my experience Google
works much better than DDG.

------
Zhyl
Duckduckgo has seen some pretty strong growth [0]. Given that this is merely
an option (most people won't change from the default, or will pick Google out
of familiarity), I'd be interested to see how much of an effect this will have
on their numbers.

I think a secondary issue Duckduckgo and other competitors have to contend
with is the idea that nothing other than Google is worth the time of day. I
know every thread on HN has people queuing up to say how DDG results aren't as
good as Google results (or to say how they switched a while ago and DDG is
good enough for their needs), but from a user perspective we can see a much
more level playing field in Google vs DDG et al (2020) as opposed to Google vs
Altavista et al (1998).

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

~~~
ngold
Duck duck go doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Google but it is my
default search engine. The genuis thing they implemented was !g at the end of
a search term. Now I can get two sources of search info for problems. Most
things ddg is fine, but technical problems, you can't have enough options.

~~~
saghm
> Duck duck go doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Google but it is my
> default search engine

I mostly use Duck Duck Go now (with liberal use of !g as needed), but the main
issue I've had with making it part of my spoken vocabulary using it as a verb.
It's much easier to say I "googled" something than "Duck Duck Go'd it" (duck
duck went?) or "searched for it on Duck Duck Go". It's been a pet theory of
mine for a while that any attempt at getting people to change the words they
use is doomed to fail if the replacement contains more syllables (e.g. "letter
carrier" for "mailman"), and now I'm wondering if that's something companies
should take into account when naming themselves too.

~~~
catalogia
Is it really necessary to use verbified brand names? Why not just use the word
'search'?

> _" search for someplace for us to eat tonight"_

> _" I was searching online for a used car"_

> _" dude search for 'cat does a backflip', it's epic"_

etc

~~~
surround
“Search” or “look up.” Don’t beholden yourself to any brand name.

~~~
addajones
Thank goodness I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I "search" too.... I
don't get why people like to get behind some brand.

------
kerkeslager
The past tense of DuckDuckGo is DuckDuckWent, as in "I DuckDuckWent my name
and discovered my high school yearbook has been digitized."

~~~
Fnoord
Except it is rather like you exclaim "Duck Duck Go!" to a duck who then
executes your command. A past sense would be that you exclaimed "Duck Duck
Go!". Turning it into DDGing makes more sense, as already suggested.

------
meerita
DDG is my current default search engine in all my devices. It's been 2 years
using it. In so few ocassions i needed to rely on Google, but really, you
don't need it that much is if Stack Overflow search all day or do overal tech
searches. If you need to review more, then use Google and compare search
results. But for daily search use it's way ok.

------
OrgNet
I've been using DDG for about 2 years almost exclusively, but in the last
month, quality appears to have degraded a lot? I actually switched back to
Google last week, unfortunately.

~~~
AdamSC1
There won't have been any major change in the past few months that would have
negatively impacted your search results.

If you have any specific examples you can always reach out via the feedback
box or to staff directly :)

------
deeblering4
Being a year or two late to the party is better than not showing up at all!

------
dantondwa
I can't recommend DDG to friends in Europe until they fix their quick actions
and translate them in other languages. It's not acceptable that to look for
the weather in Rome I have to write "weather Rome" because "meteo Roma"
doesn't bring the quick action up. Also, the local results are very bad,
unfortunately.

~~~
AdamSC1
Thanks for the feedback - I've made sure this is logged internally.

It looks like it may have been an edge case around capitalization where "meteo
roma" was working and "meteo Roma" wasn't.

We can only find cases like this when users report them - so if you run into
one again, feel free to use the feedback button on the bottom-right hand side
of the screen! :)

------
sandoooo
They need to fix that low-quality duck icon at some point. It's up there with
Irfanview's 'roadkill' icon for ugliness when zoomed in, and it is
unrecognizable at very small sizes (e.g. as a tab icon).

This gets harder and harder as time goes on since there's brand recognition
attached.

------
Despacito2019
It's been over six month since i switched on all my devices over DDG and i
still miss dearly the Google results/layout/metadata etc... How long is the
withdraw syndrome needs to go for?

------
yilugurlu
Why is [https://cliqz.com/](https://cliqz.com/) not an option? They do some
excellent work toward privacy.

------
aberforth123
What a shitty website is searchenginejournal, full with spyware:
[https://webtest.app/?url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com...](https://webtest.app/?url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com/duckduckgo-
is-now-a-default-search-engine-option-on-android-in-the-eu/343073/)

------
keyle
I switched to ddg a couple of months back. This wasn't my first switch away
from google, I've always reverted back at some stage.

Now I can happily report that it really is 90% as good as google, if not more.
It's fast, it's accurate, it's context sensitive. Most importantly I don't
feel like I'm being preyed upon. Brilliant.

------
starpilot
DDG for personal devices, Google for work. Don't care if they track my
stackoverflow results.

~~~
rlv-dan
DDG is quite good at serving stackoverflow results though

------
geek-advised
I'm glad this happened, but I would really like to get rid of the bloatware
like Chrome, Maps and Gmail.

------
Sami_Lehtinen
Why is Mojeek forgotten? At least it's a real search engine, and not just a
front-end.

------
hoffs
Misleading title, it will be offered among other options but will be at the
top of the list

------
foolrush
>"DuckDuckGo will soon be offered as an option for default search engine on
Android devices across the EU."

"[...] option for default [...]"

~~~
microcolonel
The word "default" is used a bit weirdly in Chrome. The "default search
engines" are ones intended to provide search to the omni bar; as opposed to
other search engines which Chrome just picks up passively when you browse the
web (often these are suggested when you start typing).

------
ykevinator
Isn't ddg yahoo search engine?

------
Fat_Thor
I would like to see Mozilla Firefox be forced to do the same. As of now, they
don't even notify the user of their default Google search to the users. So
millions of their user url typing history are being recorded and sent to
Google even if they don't use the search function specifically. This in
someway has to violates the GDPR.

~~~
fghgfhg
>they don't even notify the user of their default Google search to the users.

After your start typing it clearly says "Serach in Google"

------
cavisne
"Other options, which differ across the EU, include Info.com, Yandex, Qwant,
GMX, PrivacyWall, Givero, and Seznam"

Will the EU be liable if/when these illustrious providers have a data breach?

~~~
Polylactic_acid
Why would they? Its still up to the user to pick one. Just like how right to
repair laws allow you to perform a shit repair that breaks something.

------
lucb1e
I still feel like Google should participate in the bidding and distribute the
resulting money (their own and their competitors') to a charity rather than
keeping it as profit. They got a fine for a reason, turning it into a profit
scheme is a big middle finger to anyone who cares about monopolies.

The question would be how to pick a charity in an unbiased manner, but I guess
there are a lot of ways to answer that such as picking the most well-funded
charity worldwide, or distributing it over the top ten.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
From an economic perspective, this makes no sense. The economic benefits
google gets from Android largely derive from the control over the default
search engine. You're asking that they should donate the proceeds of this
benefit. Why would they work on Android at all if they could not benefit from
it economically?

The purpose of the auction and the choice is to allow competition for that
default spot, and ensure google isn't using Android to further its market
dominance in search. However, the EU has its head on straight enough to
understand that being chosen as the default search engine for a device still
has serious value. There's nothing anti-competitive about google charging a
fair price for this benefit. And fortunately we know, because of the auction
process, that the prices are fair (i.e. the other bidders certainly bid a
price less than the benefit they expect to derive from being selected).

~~~
Marsymars
> Why would they work on Android at all if they could not benefit from it
> economically?

Someone might think their current monetization model should be discouraged via
regulation.

MS used to charge manufacturers for Windows Phone - Google could undoubtedly
do the same, Android has too much of a moat now for manufacturers to succeed
with anything else.

