I'm so sick of these DDG stories. The truth is no one uses them, 99.9999% of people outside SV have never heard of them and currently there is no reason to switch to them.
My dad came to me just the other day and told me he didn't like the stories about Google recording every page he searched for, so I told him to use DDG. Heck if I know how big the market is, but if my parents care without me telling them, it has a better chance than most of the startups I hear about on Hacker News.
Sheesh. This was true of Google in the late 1990s when I was telling my coworkers to use it. If everyone listened to people like you then we'd be using Yahoo! and Altavista today.
The thing I don't understand is, for all that DDG does, there's really nothing that Google and/or Bing couldn't just copy wholesale if it were really that great.
The ONLY thing DuckDuckGo can do that Google won't is "privacy" (maybe "less ads" is another thing). While that might be reason enough for some people to switch, it's barely going to make a dent in Google's dominance.
Reading all these comments made me wonder... If DDG uses the Bing API and is passing the search term to whatever search-related text ads they show, that's a pretty big blind spot for the privacy advocates. Because Bing still gets your search term and so does the ad network. What they don't get is your IP address, but as the AOL search dump proved, sometimes search terms alone are enough to identify someone. It's still a nice feature, but I wouldn't consider it a solved issue.
I switched. For 80-90% of my queries it gets me to the same place as Google just as quickly, or more quickly in some cases. For the other 10-20% there's the !bang syntax, which also lets me search images and maps right from the Chrome address bar without ever hitting the mouse.
Use the tools that make you most productive. For me, that's DDG. For you, maybe not. But I think "...there is no reason to switch to them" just isn't accurate in general.
Unfortunately for me, the most used !bang function was "!g" to re-run the search on Google. I used DDG daily for months as my default search engine and on about half of all my queries (most of them technical searches), it would give poor enough results that I'd scan the page, re-run the query with "!g " and find a useful result on Google in the first or second listing.
I finally admitted to myself that I was wasting too much time having to run so many searches twice and I switched back to Google.
I don't see DDG taking Google's search crown. But it could happen the way Firefox opened the barn door - then other browsers came to take the crown (Chrome, for example).
[1] indicates DDG uses third-party APIs for deep web searches. To me that sounds like how Inktomi was a "search engine API" and neither Inktomi nor Yahoo saw Google coming [2].
Even if DDG doesn't succeed, Google is now at the top of the hill and therefore is _the_ target for all competitors.
Last time I tried both, I liked Blekko a lot more than DDG. So unless the "don't let ads track me" becomes a huge issue - like 100x bigger than it is now - I doubt people will be switching from Google to DDG.
I don't think DDG needs to take anybody's crown to be successful. It provides a service to a few niches, mainly the tinfoil hat types and to people who mostly use Google as an intermediary to find wikipedia articles or posts on stack overflow and want a low-friction alternative. Or there's me: I mainly prefer the keyboard shortcuts.
Anyway, my point is that 1% of the search market is about half a billion dollars in revenue.
It'll be interesting to see if Gabriel keeps up with the affiliate model or moves toward an in-house ad solution.
DDG offers privacy, something that Google and other big search engines do not. That is more than enough reason- especially with growing privacy concerns in the US.
aero142|13 years ago
dwc|13 years ago
tedunangst|13 years ago
codeka|13 years ago
The ONLY thing DuckDuckGo can do that Google won't is "privacy" (maybe "less ads" is another thing). While that might be reason enough for some people to switch, it's barely going to make a dent in Google's dominance.
lubujackson|13 years ago
hrktb|13 years ago
glesica|13 years ago
Use the tools that make you most productive. For me, that's DDG. For you, maybe not. But I think "...there is no reason to switch to them" just isn't accurate in general.
there|13 years ago
I finally admitted to myself that I was wasting too much time having to run so many searches twice and I switched back to Google.
Garbage|13 years ago
By quickly, do you mean in less time (search speed is more), or in fewer clicks (search quality is more / relevant links are above)?
sounds|13 years ago
[1] indicates DDG uses third-party APIs for deep web searches. To me that sounds like how Inktomi was a "search engine API" and neither Inktomi nor Yahoo saw Google coming [2].
Even if DDG doesn't succeed, Google is now at the top of the hill and therefore is _the_ target for all competitors.
[1] http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-s...
[2] http://diegobasch.com/a-relevant-tale-how-google-killed-inkt... and HN discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3924609
nextparadigms|13 years ago
zecho|13 years ago
Anyway, my point is that 1% of the search market is about half a billion dollars in revenue.
It'll be interesting to see if Gabriel keeps up with the affiliate model or moves toward an in-house ad solution.
nsmartt|13 years ago
How so?
DDG offers privacy, something that Google and other big search engines do not. That is more than enough reason- especially with growing privacy concerns in the US.
iosctr|13 years ago