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Inside DuckDuckGo, Google's Tiniest, Fiercest Competitor

462 points| marban | 12 years ago |fastcolabs.com | reply

236 comments

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[+] tosseraccount|12 years ago|reply
Duck duck is barely usable ... but they don't spy on you. The !g and !b commands make it my first choice. If the results aren't getting what you want, try the search on google or bing. IF you don't mind Sergy Brin or Bill Gates tracking you.

I still think there's room for a search engine that supports boolean(ish?) operations like AND, OR , NOT and NEAR. Providing links directly to the source and not a redirect to the search engine company would be a really good thing.

A cookie-less search engine would be double plus good.

[+] josteink|12 years ago|reply
Duck duck is barely usable

On the contrary, I find Google barely usable these days, with everything covered in layers and layers of horrible bloat, random UX mess of the week and constant pestering about G+.

DDG is nice and clean, has features Google is (still) lacking and just gets me the results. I may resort to other search-engines (like Google) once a week or so, but at this point, there's no way I'm going back to having Google as default.

That's just not worth it.

[+] jmsduran|12 years ago|reply
I applaud what DDG is doing. I've been using it as my default search engine for roughly 2 years. Yes, there are some areas for improvement, especially when it comes to complex technical queries. But for the majority of everyday things, DDG is excellent, and returns less advertisement bloat within its results than Google/Bing.

Plus ducks are my favorite animal, so launching DDG as I begin the work day is a joy!

[+] wslh|12 years ago|reply
Google supports AND, OR, NOT and NEAR. There is an AROUND operator that is similar to NEAR.

I think the way DDG can gain more traction is motivating top sites to enhance their local search pagerank. It's incredible how Google search restricted to Stack Overflow works better than the Stack Overflow local search engine. I wrote a rant about this at Challenging Google’s Search Engine [1].

[1] http://blog.databigbang.com/letters-from-the-future-challeng...

[+] laureny|12 years ago|reply
> Duck duck is barely usable ... but they don't spy on you.

1. You don't know that.

2. No search engine ever spied on you when they started.

[+] adrusi|12 years ago|reply
In what way do you find it barely usable? I've used it for about a year and I find the results to be great. I don't think there's been a time when I couldn't find the result I wanted with ddg but could with google.
[+] unicornporn|12 years ago|reply
Barely usable, yes I agree. So use Startpage.com. They also say they don't spy on you. It works just as good as Google, because it uses Google (see it as a proxy).

DDG is especially terrible if you are used localized versions of Google. I was used to "Swedish Google", and using a localized (Swedish) DDG was totally unusable. And so I found Startpage. Works better than the real deal for me. There are a few differences though. A search operator like site: is named host: as an example.

[+] pielud|12 years ago|reply
The killer feature for me with ddg (as a programmer) is the ! searches for documentation:

  !php strstr
  !python os.makedirs
  !pypi requests
  !js String
etc.

This gives you a single search bar for all documentation, which is amazing.

edit: formatting

[+] wila|12 years ago|reply
That's absolutely fabulous. I'm a DDG user already, but didn't knew about this trick. A brilliant time saver.

Thanks for sharing.

[+] edraferi|12 years ago|reply
absolutely. this is why DDG is the default search on my browser. It's site-specific search for all the sites I actually care about rules into one easy command line interface. It's also replaced the desktop calculator thanks to wolfram alpha integration.

seriously, I don't know how I would function without !python, !pypi, !w, !gmap, and !hn

[+] lmm|12 years ago|reply
I already have that in my browser. And have since before DDG was launched.
[+] PLenz|12 years ago|reply
This is ultimately the thing got me to switch the DDG about 2 years ago.
[+] rjzzleep|12 years ago|reply
ironically !c# brings you to a forbidden place :p
[+] zacinbusiness|12 years ago|reply
I've been a happy DDG user for about 3 years now. I initially started not because of privacy, but because I think the home page and search results are much cleaner and more minimalist. And I've told myself that if Google ever produces a search result that I couldn't find just as easily with DuckDuckGo then I will switch back. So far that hasn't happened.

Now I use DuckDuckGo as my home page and it's my only search engine. And the search results just keep getting better and better.

[+] DanielStraight|12 years ago|reply
This has been my experience as well. I have used DDG as my primary search engine for years. The results have been great, and the lack of !bangs on Google makes it extremely frustrating when I'm forced to use it. (Note for DDG users, you can type the bang on its own to go right to the main site. So just "!w" on its own to go to Wikipedia, or "!a" on its own to go to Amazon, which I find quicker than using the address bar.)
[+] JetSpiegel|12 years ago|reply
Not to mention there's a dark mode. My eyes thank them for that piece of CSS.
[+] crassus|12 years ago|reply
Google doodles are distracting. I don't need to see a clever flash game commemorating something-or-other every time I open a new tab when I'm working, thanks.
[+] mrfusion|12 years ago|reply
I've actually been turning to reddit for a lot of my searches. Yes, you read that right, reddit.

I found that a lot of times when I was looking for general advice from other people (recent examples: how to treat dandruff, how to start a garden) I actually get really well thought out answers from real people who have done the same things. And I know they're not trying to sell me anything or just get page views.

Doing those same searches on google just returns vapid SEO filled articles from ehow and wikihow, and those kind of places, pretty worthless.

[+] rwl4|12 years ago|reply
I do the same but with one twist for better results. I go to Google and search like this:

  site:reddit.com start a garden
Google is a much better Reddit search than Reddit is.
[+] moya|12 years ago|reply
Same here. I've been using reddit primarily as a search engine for the last two years. It's a good supplement to filter out the bs.
[+] bsbechtel|12 years ago|reply
I reached out to Gabriel a few times while living in the Southeast PA region for entrepreneurial related questions. He always got back to me within a day or so...incredibly helpful and nice. I switched to DDG a while back, and while it took a little bit to get used to the changes, I use it for 80% of my searches now. The only way they will improve is by us using them more and more often. You can complain about how they aren't as good as Google, but that doesn't help them improve. Getting involved in the DDG community and setting them as your main search engine does.
[+] JunkDNA|12 years ago|reply
I'll second this. Gabriel is an extremely nice guy. I approached him over 5 years ago for info about the Philly startup scene and he wrote me a huge, detailed email that I'm sure he didn't really have the time to write.

I switched my default search engine to Duck Duck Go a few years ago mainly because of that interaction. I still need to fall back on the g! shortcut a lot, but search quality has improved quite a bit over the years. I like supporting a hometown startup that exists outside the Bay Area bubble.

[+] mihok|12 years ago|reply
I switched over to DuckDuckGo as my default search provider, for about half a year. It was alright for a while... but eventually I would search for things on both DDG and Google and realized how much I was missing... Sadly I've moved back to Google since then.

Another issue that kept coming up for me, was their lack of keyboard controls on search result pages. Although, this isn't really as relevant to most users I would speculate

[+] GhotiFish|12 years ago|reply
this is my experience as well. I've got two keywords set up for firefox, g for ddg, and go for google.

I type in "go blahblahblah" a whole lot more nowadays.

[+] 6cxs2hd6|12 years ago|reply
> We give everyone their own dev environment that's a full stack of DuckDuckGo. It's a full machine. Some people are using eMacs.

Is this like how foreign words get remapped into Japanese syllables? Fast Company tech writers only speak Apple? chuckles

[+] sytelus|12 years ago|reply
DuckDuckGo does not have its own index. They are pretty much layer over Bing plus some customizations for query parsing and head queries for trusted sources which they do index. If Bing decided to block DDG tomorrow, they will be toast. The only impressive thing for me about DDG is that they are able to turn privacy thing in to marketing for geeks and get tiny trickle of traffic to stay alive in hope someone would buy them out.
[+] hoggle|12 years ago|reply
As a quacking/ducking web developer, results often are more relevant than with google these days. If I'm not happy with what I find through duckduckgo I just add a quick !g and skim the google results - best of both worlds.
[+] ck2|12 years ago|reply
I applaud the DDG spirit but without their own crawling data their future is doomed.

If their data sources ever cut them off, it's over.

They need to build their own crawlers like gigablast.

[+] hueving|12 years ago|reply
>They need to build their own crawlers like gigablast.

Unfortunately the opportunity for that is pretty meek. Many webmasters block crawlers that aren't the top search engines. :-(

[+] ithkuil|12 years ago|reply
I'm impressed, it works quite well.

However, just to put DuckDuckGo's 4 Mqpd into a broader context:

Google 2013: 5.9 Gqpd Bing 2012: 3.1 Gqpd

Not to put DuckDuckGo down or anything, but it's important to understand what a >1000x difference in scale means, in terms of operating costs and scalability issues. For example, for a single person is very easy to get hold of $10k but it's extremely difficult to get $10M. (I'm not actually interested in money, it's just an example measurement unit, and particular range, that people are familiar with).

Sources: http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/ http://leaderswest.com/2012/07/02/how-bings-search-increased...

[+] gkya|12 years ago|reply
Is Gqpd = giga queries per day?
[+] theknown99|12 years ago|reply
That seems insanely low for Google.
[+] _mhr_|12 years ago|reply
What's repeatedly surprised me is how I'll get results from DuckDuckGo and think that, "You know, I bet Google would have given better/more relevant results." And then I'm proven wrong! When DuckDuckGo gives nonrelevant results, Google often isn't any better, and when DuckDuckGo gives relevant results, sometimes they're often as relevant or more relevant than Google. I switched cold turkey a few months back, and I'm very pleased with how usable it is. I also really like the !word features, it's better than Google in that respect. I should mention that it's easier to do math in Google because Google infers more (such as inferring parens in an expression like: "2 + 2) * 4", outputting "16". DuckDuckGo can't handle that at the moment.
[+] nvk|12 years ago|reply
Nice to see the internals of other companies like us. We love tiny team sizes at Coinkite.com.

It's incredible how much you can accomplish with very very few focussed makers.

We created our own rack mounted HSM, our own Hardware POS payment terminals, and all the payment web structure. Answer to support and automated the supply chain.

Stop hiring!

[+] atmosx|12 years ago|reply
DDG is good but not for non-english context. I mean, comparing to google for Greek text search is laughable at best.

That said, I hope the grow strong so I can use their engine.

[+] dredmorbius|12 years ago|reply
I made two attempts to convert to DDG, the first nearly two years ago, then, successfully, this past June. And in large part, it's working better than Google. Searches are fast, they're unfiltered, the !bang syntax is great, privacy is respected, and overall site weight and load is much preferable to Google. While I don't always find what I'm looking for, switching to !g often doesn't turn up what I was hoping for either -- sometimes it's just search refinement that you need.

All in all, I'm happy with it. This after sixteen years of Google use.

[+] dublinben|12 years ago|reply
I've been using DDG for a few years now. I recommend it to anyone who will listen, and really hope they continue to grow. It's been fascinating to watch Google copy their zero-click results.
[+] Beliavsky|12 years ago|reply
Can't you just browse and search "incognito" with Google Chrome?
[+] bduerst|12 years ago|reply
Not quite - you still have tracking in Google Chrome that links by IP.

You can compile Chromium with the tracking flags off, and then search in incognito.

[+] hmsimha|12 years ago|reply
Browsing google incognito doesn't prevent Google search from receiving your IP address, which they are still able to do tracking and geolocation by.
[+] iqster|12 years ago|reply
I have lots of respect for the founder. One of his blog posts motivated me to buy my own rack + datacenter class equipment. So much fun!!
[+] jonalmeida|12 years ago|reply
Link?

I need motivation.

[+] tzz|12 years ago|reply
How does DDG work? Do they have their own algorithm to rank the web pages? What makes their algorithm better?
[+] Pwnguinz|12 years ago|reply
Behind the scenes, DDG uses Yandex and Bing to power its search results. It also does its own crawling (however, I'm not sure to what extent).

Their algorithm isn't necessarily better, but if you were to just give it a try, you'll notice their 'Instant Answers' section at the top of a search that usually gets you exactly what you want without having to click on a single result (much like how certain search queries on Google will return you an instant answer).