The Duckduckgo Skeptic Thread

[Stasi]

I've been using DDG and Startpage recently and privacy aside the search results are not great.

If its something even slightly obscure then need to go to Google as these two don't seem to give decent results but Google picks up on the first page.

Startpage also seems to struggle with spelling. Phone typing is an ass pain but Google usually spots stupid mistakes and gives relevant results. I've had startpage show zero results with a couple of typos.

 

[Dr. Sexbot]

I don't use DDG for the illusion of privacy, I use it because it's not one of the big two.

Google's search results have been fucked ever since they quit handling booleans correctly and started insisting that it knew better than what you had typed. Bing is OK for image search. I'll still fall back to either of them if DDG doesn't turn up what I want. At least Altavista didn't alter your fucking search query.

If you want privacy, proper opsec is the only way to hope to maximize it.

 

[GhostButt]

Google's search results have been fucked ever since they quit handling booleans correctly and started insisting that it knew better than what you had typed.

Is that what's happening? God all I know is that it is 100% useless now. Especially the news tab which almost seems to be random results.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

yes but why would vlad care about censoring english sites when barely any anglo uses it.

It's about tracking users.

 

[Basil II]

It's about tracking users.

I mean what the fuck is Vlad gonna do when I live thousands of kilometers away

 

[Coffee Shits]

I've seen DDG billboards going up claiming to not sell user data. Their service is free, they have employees and headquarters. Where is this money coming from? If it's from angel investors, how do they plan to recoup it?

Also their lame ass """privacy features""" breaks the back button in unpredictable ways every time. I'd rather use Bing.

 

[Pinochet Was Right]

DDG has never given me any meaningful results.

Google is shit, but shit that works despite being shit, I mean whenever I search something with a single "known" keyword the consoomer department of Google will take over my search and send me to normie "trademark mainstream" big sites only with curated narratives, you know, the kotakus, verges, ebays, etc. and it's only on page 3 or 4 when you start seeing more random stuff relating to the query.

For example, good look wanting to search for something talking about Amazon, your results will be endless pages of Amazon links selling something that matches in one word with the rest of your query, and Google will completely disregard any special parameters. No, they determined the only reason you'd type Amazon in the search box is because you've got to be looking for something to buy and nothing else. Obey. Consume.

Now if I search for something more random, Google will deliver. Bing is misguided, underwhelming but helps with video and pics, DDG misses the point completely.

 

[AmpleApricots]

Does DDG do any own crawling to a significant degree now? Last time I checked it's results were mostly compromised of Bing, Yahoo and Yandex results. Yandex is pretty good sometimes since my guess is advertisers don't spend as much money on manipulating it. Discussing on which is more respecting of your privacy is purely feel-based and akin to religious belief since you'll never know anyways.

 

[Dr. Sexbot]

Say what you will, at least Duck Duck Go doesn't Go there:

 

[Slav Power]

I use DDG just because it has the ability to redirect a search directly to a different site. Privacy be damned, it doesn't exist in this day and age.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

I use DDG just because it has the ability to redirect a search directly to a different site. Privacy be damned, it doesn't exist in this day and age.

If you mean that it doesn't repackage the link with tracking information like google does there's an extension that stops that for chrome/ff.

 

[Slav Power]

If you mean that it doesn't repackage the link with tracking information like google does there's an extension that stops that for chrome/ff.

I mean that for example I can add "!osm" to my search to redirect it to OpenStreetMap, or any other site without needing to add a completely separate search engine to my browser, and that's something that, as far as I know, only DuckDuckGo offers. It's pretty handy.

 

[dirtydeanna96]

Can't be a modern one. the CPUs all have backdoors, as do the operating systems.

If you want to be secure, don't ever connect to the Net.

Transfer your data via usb drive from someone else's computer.

 

[Govt. Shitposting Machine]

If you want to be secure, don't ever connect to the Net.

Transfer your data via usb drive from someone else's computer.

>using someone elses computer to do your dirty work
You telling me you don't send out letters written by cutting out magazine words to various cartels in shithole countries via carrier pigeon giving instructions on how to export data with a puncher card on an IBM and then send out smoke signals in binary to the next group of cartels so they can download some anime and shitpost online for you on their corebooted Thinkpad running Haiku?
Have I been doing something wrong?

 

[dirtydeanna96]

>using someone elses computer to do your dirty work
You telling me you don't send out letters written by cutting out magazine words to various cartels in shithole countries via carrier pigeon giving instructions on how to export data with a puncher card on an IBM and then send out smoke signals in binary to the next group of cartels so they can download some anime and shitpost online for you on their corebooted Thinkpad running Haiku?
Have I been doing something wrong?

right.
if you're that fucking paranoid about internet use, you aren't the kind of person to use the internet.
i know people who build their website on a internet-free computer , copy it to cd, mail the CD to someone, and have this person upload it.
also, they do not use checks, credit or debit cards, money orders only.

 

[murdered meat bag]

money orders only.

That feeling of walking into the grocery store customer service desk with a large stack of money orders made out for $400.

we will never, ever see those days again. you need an id now.

 

[Pinochet Was Right]

right.
if you're that fucking paranoid about internet use, you aren't the kind of person to use the internet.
i know people who build their website on a internet-free computer , copy it to cd, mail the CD to someone, and have this person upload it.
also, they do not use checks, credit or debit cards, money orders only.

heh, I remember when "noscript" was very popular between paranoid little hipster shits acting smug about their paranoia
yeah, you're sooooo enlightened by browsing broken pages because somewhere, someone might use javascript to hack you.

 

[emo goff]

i stopped using it because it never brought up the search results i wanted and the name really started pissing me off since it was recommended to me by a now ex-friend who turned into a histrionic programmer socks troon. he'd always sperg about the browser like it was jesus.

 

[Pinochet Was Right]

News!! DDG worked for me this time because GOOGLE SHIT THE BED HARDCORE. I'm reading some psychology shit, I search for some simple phrase containing a thought, to see what do people who think that are saying... and I only get results for a song that shares two words with my search query. Reminds me of high school when I was trying to write a report on drugs before Wikipedia existed, and I only got results for some D-list art-fag hipster movies named after whatever drug I typed on the search box.

DDG finally worked!

 

[Kosher Dill]

i know people who build their website on a internet-free computer , copy it to cd, mail the CD to someone, and have this person upload it.

... So how does he know if it actually got uploaded?