How DuckDuckGo Rode a Wave of Post-Snowden Anxiety to Massive Growth

http://www.fastcompany.com/3046943/how-duckduckgo-rode-a-wave-of-post-snowden-anxiety-to-massive-growth

by bootload • 11 years ago

73 55 11 years ago

Good for them. I'm glad they stepped up to serve the sector of people who wanted increased security when searching the web. Most wouldn't try to build a competing search engine these days.

I've been using DDG since I heard about it.

n0us2• 11 years ago

I think there's more room for competition. Google is obviously very good at their core product, and arguably very good at delivering most of their other products as well. These attempt's like Microsoft's Bing I feel like are just attempts to copy Google's search but there hasn't been much in the way of innovation in years. I wouldn't mind using a search engine that takes an entirely different approach than the "type in a box and get a list of text results" (and maybe a little box of information also)

I liken my feelings about Google to my feelings about McDonalds. Most of it is delicious and satisfying, they have a core product that is the best done, some other products which are pretty good and then some other ones that are off the wall. I generally try to avoid what went into making the burger just like I try to avoid thinking about what Google is doing with the information it collects about me. In spite of any short comings you don't try to copy McDonalds, their supply chain is too massive and well oiled and their brand is cemented in people's minds. Google on the other hand has a supply chain of top tech talent, a ton of servers and stuff, and they have a huge brand. I think there is however room for other types of search even if there is not too much room to take them on directly. We will see the Chipotles and Five Guys of the search industry, things people didn't even know they wanted until they were available.

hardwaresofton3• 11 years ago

Not sure if you're a DDG user, but have you seen their ! shortcuts?

For example, you can type stuff like "!newegg laptop" into the search menu (or even easier, the address bar, if you have their browser plugin) and you can search newegg directly. I think the one I end up using the most (at work) is "!java8 something" to search javadoc

Not crazy on the innovation scale (as many browsers let you do keyword searches), but definitely awesome, because there's a huge range of keywords already available

gggggggg• 11 years ago

I have not uses DDG in a while. Do they still get results from Goolge?

timClicks• 11 years ago

AFAIK they've never used Google's index: https://duck.co/help/results/sources

GeorgeOrr3• 11 years ago

The short answer is not all the results. There are many sources. Here's a link with more details.

https://duck.co/help/results/sources

bestnameever2• 11 years ago

They used to lean pretty heavily on bing IIRC.

GeorgeOrr3• 11 years ago

Am I the only one who actualy finds DuckDuckGo's search results overall better?

The main reason, I believe, is that Google's personalized search seems to get in the way.

Add to that the ! commands in DDG, and the fact that they aren't eliminating things from search in the same way google is and I find DDG the better choice for search as well as privacy.

YMMV of course, as the word "better" is so subjective, but I'd be interested if others have that experience as well.

lugg• 11 years ago

Its certainly one of those things you have to get used to.

I try to pick it up every few months in hopes its better but fall back on google bang too much and revert.

I'm disappointed they took the privacy route so hard and disabled / didn't implement bubbling for results. Bubbling is a pain sometimes but overall I think it provides much better results especially for those in certain fields (e.g. IT)

crdb3• 11 years ago

I switched due to being frustrated with many Google results being SEO'ed to death. Sometimes one has to dig 3-4 pages to find a decent result. I got the feeling that if what I was searching for was commercialised, I should expect it to be quite hard to find neutral or deep results (kind of how when you're looking up a company, all you'll find in the news are PR releases disguised as industry articles).

My subjective and anecdotal experience has been that DDG filters the signal out of the noise much better in 80% of situations. In both personalised searches (e.g. for restaurants, which should be geo-localised, a recent search from Singapore sent me to Connecticut...) and for some specific items where Google has built some custom extra logic, such as movies or "site:", the added keystrokes of !g is not much effort. So I haven't switched back. It does feel like Google is a little smarter on some searches but - and I can't think of an example straight off the cuff - sometimes too smart for its own good and stuck in local optima. DDG offers a less noisy, more generalised view on the world which I prefer most of the time.

One nice thing about personalisation is the integration if you use a lot of Google products. For example, when my brother sent me his flight details, the flight was automatically added to my calendar, and Google Now showed me details on the day including the terminal and luggage belt, reminded me to leave on time and estimated the Uber wait time and even the fee (not to mention Maps can send you straight on to the Uber app with the start and end points entered). These things are either incredibly creepy or, if you trust Google and can't afford humans to do the same job, very useful.

cpeterso• 11 years ago

DDG supports site: searches too. :)

digi_owl• 11 years ago

Thing about Google's services is the eternal dilemma between tech and business.

I suspect the techies that implemented the services initially had the best of intentions with them.

But then comes the suits further up the chain, that has as their primary motivation to maximize ROI.

imakesnowflakes• 11 years ago

Am I the only one who actualy finds DuckDuckGo's search results overall better?

At least for vague technical queries, I still find googles results vastly superior, consistently .

mirimir• 11 years ago

Same here. But I use Google via https://search.disconnect.me :) So there's no personalization.

aqme28• 11 years ago

I find the results worse, especially for the technical stuff I have to deal with most of the day.

However the ! commands are what keep me using DDG. They're a gamechanger.

hliyan2• 11 years ago

I switched today. I actually find the results to be better in my case. For example, I don't have to groan every time I search for something web related and get w3schools as the first result.

newscracker• 11 years ago

I find the results worse too, especially for technical stuff. DDG has outdated or poor results and still does not support search by date (this is something I use heavily). I do have DDG as my default search engine, but I often find repeating the same searches using Startpage. It will take a lot more work on DDG's part to have me use it without getting back to Startpage/Google.

The only times I resort to Google are for recent news searches, search by image and times when even Startpage does not provide adequate results (I don't understand why that happens since Startpage is a proxy for Google). The "site:" searches still seem to work better with Google.

Additionally, I also don't like the way the search result links in DDG get selected when using the arrow keys (similar to caret browsing mode) instead of scrolling the page. This becomes more of an annoyance when the mouse cursor is already somewhere on the screen and a search result gets highlighted unintentionally. I found this behavior can be changed by turning off the "Keyboard shortcuts" setting (under "General" settings), but I don't like saving search engine settings, and feel this default is not a good choice. Not sure if others find it extremely useful.

puranjay• 11 years ago

Totally. Sometimes, when I'm researching something for work, I keep getting results from sites I frequent - sites I don't want to see in my results. I want objectivity and for that, I have to go to DuckDuckGo

baddox• 11 years ago

On the other hand, I seem like I'm the only one who finds bang commands almost completely useless. For the vast majority of bang command queries, I'm confident I could just type the query into Google (without the !foo) and get what I want.

Based on my last attempt to use DDG (which, admittedly, was a few years ago) I found myself needing to add !g much more often than finding uses for other bang commands.

teaneedz• 11 years ago

I also love the !bang syntax. I generally find DDG results not only more useful than Google, but presented in a more appealing way. However, I use DDG primarily because it respects user privacy and is not targeting me with pervasive tracking techniques.

omginternets• 11 years ago

The problem with DDG, as much as I respect their efforts and their official discourse, is that you really can't be sure they aren't tracking users based on some secret court order.

For this reason, I still have a very hard time trusting them in any meaningful sense.

ThomPete• 11 years ago

Compared to what?

esbonsa• 11 years ago

the government needs to be held accountable, soon

ucho• 11 years ago

Exactly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6040471 - American company hosted by another American can't be NSA resistant.

Dramatize• 11 years ago

I switched to DDG as my default search engine a few months back. Most of the time it's good enough. If not, a simple !g brings up Google's results.

dmfdmf3• 11 years ago

The title as written is a smear against Snowden.

"How DDG Rode a Wave of Post-Snowden Security Concerns to Massive Growth"

SapphireSun2• 11 years ago

I read it as security concerns related to the NSA. I don't think it's a biased title.

dmfdmf3• 11 years ago

"Anxiety" typically means an irrational or unfounded fear.

We have legit reasons to fear the NSA spying after Snowden.

bane• 11 years ago

Like a few other comments here, I switched to ddg a few months ago and only rarely need to go back to google. In fact, it's kind of nice to have a few places to search now (google, bing, ddg), reminds me of the old internet search engine war days.

Unlike the article, I didn't do it for security reasons, I actually gave it a go and found the search results better for most of the things I search for. And if I don't find what I want I can !g and it'll take me right to google's results so I get a direct like-for-like comparison.

I also generally like how DDG presents the results better than google. Little details like checkboxes next to places I've already been are super helpful and I miss those little touches in google. There's tons of little touches like that all over DDG.

I find about 1:30 searches I hit google for and maybe only half of those do I find anything anyway.

About the only think I don't like about DDG is the image search, google is far superior here still. And google sometimes does a better job bringing up maps of places I'm searching for. But I don't see changing back anytime soon and getting better personal security "for free" is a nice side effect.

It also brings into question how important google's personalized searches are for relevancy if DDG can provide equivalent results without needing that information.

rpedroso2• 11 years ago

Little details like checkboxes next to places I've already been are super helpful and I miss those little touches in google.

Google does do this, and in a less subtle way -- it applies the classic, purple styling to visited links.

Still, I find your comments compelling enough to give DDG a shot. I found the results inadequate when I last tried a year or so ago -- I found myself using !g more often than not, which led me to abandon DDG altogether.

djent• 11 years ago

I'm pretty sure that's a browser thing, not a Google-specific feature.

GeorgeOrr3• 11 years ago

FWIW, !image will use googles image search.

I have a similar reaction to maps, and for that !maps does the trick.

bestnameever2• 11 years ago

you can also use !gi for google images and !gm to redirect to maps.

quaffapint• 11 years ago

While it might be just the opposite of the main purposes of DDG - ie privacy, is there a way to have it show local results?

Like when I search for general things in google it will show me stuff around my area first, whereas in DDG its just generic and could be anywhere.

AdamSC1• 11 years ago

DDG has two ways you could get local results:

1) Type in your city for example "news new york" "pizza toronto"

2) localization toggle - this sets country specific results

It's a bit of change in search style but you can get great local results while still being private

cletus• 11 years ago

Is it just me or is this another in the series that can be generalized at:

"How DDG attached itself to <latest event> to make it look like it's popular"

I have nothing for or against DDG but it's like once a month I see what looks like pro-DDG propaganda.

justin_• 11 years ago

DDG's !bang searches convinced me to use it as my default search. Being able to search various sites from the address bar is really useful. And if their results are ever poor, I can always get to Google with just a !g. I know you could do that before with keyword searches, but with DDG I don't have to worry about setting it up.

adventured2• 11 years ago

In your opinion, how is the bang code system superior to using "site:amazon.com" on Google?

Majestic1212• 11 years ago

Well, instead of typing site:amazon.com you only have to type !a

That's a lot less to type

graeme• 11 years ago

How long would duckduckgo have to grow at its current growth rate to reach google's size?

https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html

That's not a reasonable assumption that it would keep growing that fast. But still interesting to know for when people lambast DDG for being a fraction of google's volume.

brerlapn• 11 years ago

I haven't done a deep dive into how DDG works, but "In Partnership with Yandex" is on the search results. Yandex is a Russian search engine, and while you may find the NSA snooping intrusive and obnoxious, Russia isn't exactly a privacy-respecting libertarian utopia. No one ever seems to mention the Russian connection in discussions about DDG, though. If this is something you've considered and reckoned through to it not being a concern, I would be quite interested in your reasoning.

How DuckDuckGo Rode a Wave of Post-Snowden Anxiety to Massive Growth

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