This article is pure crybaby bullshit PR about a nonexistent problem. Does anyone care about DDG anyway? They're trying to solve a completely imaginary problem, and they haven't got a hope in hell of creating a viable search engine as that costs billions of dollars.
Why is your comment the #1 comment? I mean, I count 3, count them, 3 unsubstantiated claims:
1. Does anyone care about DDG anyway? I think it's safe to say, yes, there are some who do. I for one.
2. The problem DDG is solving is imaginary. Oh really? What precisely is that problem? Is it search itself that you're referring to, or the prospect of going up against Google? If the former, then you are delusional, and if the latter, there is nothing wrong with attempting to disrupt a monopoly.
3. A search engine costs billions of dollars. Actually, no. There is no rule of computer science that says that. If someone discovers a new, cheaper way to do search then cool!
In answer to your final question, perhaps the reason this article is on HN is to inspire comments like yours, which are wrong, and then comments like mine, which correct comments like yours.
The privacy problem is imaginary because (a) only a puny fraction of users care, and (b) thanks to the "patriot" act, our ISPs are storing our search history anyway.
I have worked on search (see my background), and doing search well is massively difficult. The problem has deep necessary complexity, and Google has invested thousands of PhD years against that already. If Google were incompetent, maybe I could see it. But they're damned smart and their product is extremely good.
Data is also a problem - Microsoft has been collecting all your google searches since IE8, and can probably just clone Google's search results for the top few million queries. But even given that, Bing is a massive undertaking.
Since nobody uses DDG, Google can't be expected to make them a default search choice in Chrome. Accusing Google of some malfeasance is just childish and silly.
Finally, the name DDG is atrocious. Really bad in more ways than I have time to list.
"At the very least, this change means that the government can use a pen-trap to see the email addresses of people youre sending email to and the addresses of people who send email to you, along with the timestamp and size in bytes of each email. The FBI can monitor the IP addresses of all the computers you interact with over the Internet, or capture the IP addresses of every person visiting a particular website. Under the vaguely written statute, it may even be able to capture the URL of every web page that you read, although the FBI refuses to confirm or deny whether it has done so."
Sure, I should have inserted the word [can], but it hardly changes the point. Given the direction laws have taken since 9/11, you would be foolish to rely on your search activity remaining anonymous.
While awful, that is not in any way the same thing as ISPs storing our search history. It means that the FBI can monitor internet usage on an individual basis, not that the ISPs are tracking and storing everybody's internet usage.
I think the imaginary problem he meant was searching without being "tracked." The vast majority of users simply don't care. The ones who do can get around it.
Hi, this is Gabriel Weinberg, the guy mentioned in the article.
The main issue I have is with duck.com. A lot of people remember that we are a search engine "duck something" and so naturally try duck.com. As a result, there is a lot of confusion, e.g.:
"I was telling someone about DuckDuckGo and they thought it was Duck.com and they went to Google. Is Google using this to find people who make the mistake to Duck.com instead of DuckDuckGo?"
"Can't you do something about this? I keep going to Duck.com when meaning to visit DuckDuckGo.com They are using the DuckDuckGo name to get people to search Google."
Google should legitimately not sell it to me, though it would have been of course nice to do so when I first asked in 2010. I think an appropriate remedy would be to either point it nowhere, point it to the original page it had been pointed to for many years, or point it to the acquisition page (as http://on2.com still does) -- all things they do in other cases if you look at past acquisitions.
Just to be clear, it is only anti-competitive because it causes confusion, and relates to their core search product. The facts of the situation (that it switched shortly after I asked, and only seemingly that one domain) make it appear to be deliberate. And if it were not deliberate, I've brought this up many times and there has been ample time (including now!) to correct the situation.
> Just to be clear, it is only anti-competitive because it causes confusion, and the facts of the situation make it appear to be deliberate. And if it were not deliberate, I've brought this up many times and there has been ample time (including now!) to correct the situation.
So if Google changes it they admit that they may have harmed you and you get a legal remedy. If Google doesn't change it you claim there's no reason not to and you get a moral argument.
Sounds like you're trying to construct a situation where you win and Google loses no matter what. How about just deal with the fact that it's not your domain? I quite like camping.com, doesn't mean I have the right to it.
I don't see how you can legitimately make a claim on a generic name. I also don't see how this is a monopoly issue. It is a trademark issue, which doesn't have much likelihood of winning.
I think i'm gonna start my own search engine called searchsearchfind and than complain about CBS's search.com monopoly.
I don't think he is making any such claim. Like I mentioned elsewhere, if you follow his full explanation, it is Google that is actually capitalising on this confusion and redirecting users to their own engine.
The confusion (if it really exists) has nothing to do with Google. It has to do with DDG not protecting their turf. When they chose their name, they could have chosen thousands of others. This isn't and shouldn't be Google's problem and quite frankly comes off as a weakness that DDG ran with this story.
Google should legitimately not sell it to me, though it would have been of course nice to do so when I first asked in 2010. I think an appropriate remedy would be to either point it nowhere, point it to the original page it had been pointed to for many years, or point it to the acquisition page (as http://on2.com still does) -- all things they do in other cases if you look at past acquisitions.
Effectively it is Google's fault because they are doing it now specifically in his case and not for others (as he mentions clearly)
Secondly, while it would be nice to pre-empt all angles and all possibilities etc., etc., but I don't think any of us can foresee every possible way something will come back to bite your backside in the future. So, no, I don't think that it is somehow DDG's fault that they did not foresee this and preempt it.
P.S: FWIW, google renamed themselves from googol to google because the VC mispelled their name on the cheque. Just goes to show that such things are a fact of life. People have every right to vaguely try to look up "Duck something" search engine. However, Google is definitely in the wrong for sneakily redirecting users back to their own engine in this case by misusing this vagueness.
"I keep going to Duck.com when meaning to visit DuckDuckGo.com"
Tell them that you called your search engine Duck Duck Go, registered DuckDuckGo.com, and for them to visit DuckDuckGo.com. It's not as though you were ever called Duck.com instead. This just sounds like a petty whinge otherwise. Sorry!
Daniel meant to convey that he hears that line from other people who get to hear that line within their circles of recommendation -- effectively after the damage has been done.
Doesn't sound like a petty whinge according to me though at least if you follow his full explanation of Google actually capitalising on this confusion and redirecting users to their own engine.
Capitalised on the confusion? They have hundreds of domains pointing to their main site. On2.com or whatever it is showed an acquisition notice because that was the company purchased. It's definitely possible that enquiring about the domain reminded them that they had it and should forward like the rest they owned.
Love DuckduckGo and totally understand the bullshit move Google made by letting it point to google.com. I for one think save-searching using DuckDuckGo has huge potential especially when Google starts selling the information they hold on you. Not for GoogleAds but for marketing purposes. Think about it: Wouldn't your health care insurance company like to know your entire search history? What would that be worth? You search for pain in abdomen a lot? Pop! Up goes your monthly payment. Crazy? I don't think so and I specialize in consumer and shopper marketing. You are totally honest inside that little google search box. It's not just health care and insurance, it's everything.
I have been watching your work for quite a while, and from what I have been able to grasp, currently, your main advantage is the privacy.
Now I wonder if you ever considered instead of developing a new search platform, developing a user friendly privacy proxy platform and let Google and other search engines (including bing which your results relies heavily on it) do their job, while you keep your customer's privacy in the middle.
There's something else I'm starting to worry about. Some websites (e.g. The Financial Times) restrict access to their subscription only content to the Googlebot (and presumably Bing/Yahoo). Is that something you worry about? Do you just ignore that content or do you talk to the website owners if you feel they are important enough?
In an interview on Wednesday, Weinberg said it is difficult to make his
DuckDuckGo the default search site in Google's Chrome web browser.
I just hit ⌘+' on my keyboard and selected duckduckgo.com from a drop down. I didn't even have to hit save and it starts working with DDG immediately. How is that difficult?
Why are you here? This is entirely relevant to HN. How is a small business that does things uniquely supposed to get users when their biggest competitor is actively making it difficult to try the other service out?
Regardless of whether their claims are true or not, that is.
The number of votes and comments tell me people on this forum do care. Personally, I care because DDG is doing something ambitious and competition is good(it helps keep people in line). Also, even if I didn't care, I don't see a reason why I should shit on someone's hard work.
> They're trying to solve a completely imaginary problem,
Privacy isn't an imaginary problem.
> and they haven't got a hope in hell of creating a viable search engine as that costs billions of dollars.
Creating one from scratch will take time and money, and no, as blekko folks pointed out, it didn't take them billions. But DDG uses bing apis augmented with custom index.
Is it PR bullshit? It probably is, but are their claims entirely wrong. If you see my comments, they are not entirely baseless.
Let's not kid ourselves, Google is a good company but they have to defend their position. Not just DuckDuckGo, but even your supposed billion dollar search engine will face same issues mentioned in the article. So this is not about the DuckDuckGo as a company but about monopolistic practices. Let's talk about that.
"In an interview on Wednesday, [Gabriel] Weinberg said it is difficult to make his DuckDuckGo the default search site in Google's Chrome web browser, and that Google disadvantages his company in the Android mobile operating system as well. ....
"It's one-click to get onto Firefox and it's five steps on Chrome and people generally fail," he said.
The Google spokeswoman said popular search alternatives were offered on its Chrome browser in a dropdown menu, such as Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing, but any search engine could be easily added."
In Firefox if I click the dropdown on the search field, then click 'Manage Search Engines' I get a dialog in which can be found a link to 'Get more search engines...'.
Clicking that opens an add-ons store tab with the 'Search Tools' filter applied, none of whose above-the-fold suggestions has anything to do with DDG. That's not one-click, it's a runaround.
In contrast, Chrome automatically adds search engines as you browse the web and lets you set any one of them as the default. It also has clearly labelled fields to let you create your own by copying the format of the ones listed. Getting to there takes 3 clicks and a scroll.
Two reasonable gripes: the existence of the free-edit fields is not immediately obvious upon clicking 'Manage search engines...' and neither is the fact that the domain name in the second column is an editable keyword.
On Firefox, by clicking "Add to Browser" and checking "Start using Right Away", you can make it default.
On Chrome, if you click on same button there is no way to make it default. You have to find the list of search engines in settings and click "Make Default".
On IE, process is similar to Firefox.
It wouldn't be hard to make this similar to Firefox on Chrome, just add "Make it Default" check-box when adding new search engine, but that won't happen anytime soon.
No offense, but I don't what a website to be able to add themselves (or anyone else) to my browser settings with a javascript call. While it may not be a strict security issue, you could imagine an unscrupulous person registering a very similarly sounding name (b1ng.com, or something unicode-y) that could cause confusion. This is especially true when talking about changing your default search engine.
If you really want to tell people how to add your site as their default, then detect Chrome users and tell them how to do it in Chrome. There is no need to blame Google for this - they aren't treating you differently than anyone else, aside from Bing and Yahoo (who are added to the default list).
While I appreciate that other sites are doing this by default without user interaction, this is just ripe for a phishing attack. So, I would assume this will go away soon.
EDIT: Ugh I am woefully wrong, the Chrome extension only shows up when you visit the site from Chrome. Perhaps they mean choosing a default search engine in Chrome is not as straightforward as Firefox. You will have to open preferences -> Search -> Manage Search engines and then change the default engine.
> I don't know why no such addon exists for Chrome?
Because someone has to be arsed to write it?
I suspect that part of it is a confluence of events: it's not exactly easy to change the search to DDG, most Chrome users don't bother to change it, and no one who is capable really wants to write an extension for Chrome to make it easier.
Which is, to my mind, a far simpler explanation than a conspiracy against DDG (in that one area).
Click-and-hold on the firefox search engine icon in the search field, and a list of engines appears. I clearly see "Add DuckDuckGo" as an option in that list while I am on the site, and you can slide the mouse over to that option and release. So yes, one click.
One click on the search icon in the address bar and Bing and Ask.com (really?) are listed as two default search providers.
There is an Add button which takes me to an Internet Explorer Add-On page. DDG and Google are highlighted as popular options. Click on the "tile" and another click to install.
So 4 clicks for IE9.
It's 4 clicks in Chrome (Menu - Settings - Settings - Manage Search Providers, to get to the "Manage Search Engines" screen but DDG is nowhere to be found. YOu have to manually add it and it isn't very clear how to do it because the textbox is truncated for the actual url.
but DDG is nowhere to be found. YOu have to manually add it and it isn't very clear how to do it because the textbox is truncated for the actual url.
Unless you visit duckduckgo.com once, at which point it's added to the list of "other search engines" on that page. Which seems like a totally reasonable way to manage that list, since otherwise Google is responsible for pre-populating and maintaining a comprehensive list of all other search engines out there.
(This behavior was tested on Chrome 24, and I verified it by deleting the record for DuckDuckGo from my "other search engine" list, then visiting duckduckgo.com and reloading the list.)
You should probably try it again. It does indeed set DuckDuckGo as a search engine for the address bar when installed. The pop up button can be removed.
1. Right-click on search bar when on duckduckgo.com
2. Click edit search engines
3. Next to DuckDuckGo (it's autodetected the first time you visit the site), click 'make default'.
It's more clicks than firefox if you do it via the extension, but google's stance on blocking third-party extensions by default makes sense when you consider the threat of malicious extensions, and how most people don't read the permissions prompt.
Search Provider is not an extension it is just a setting in your browser so I am not buying the argument that is is for security purposes.
Also, these three steps are not intuitive i.e. you can't ask user to click a button on your website to initiate the change. While on Firefox, clicking on a button, a prompt gets shown to make your search engine default one. Even in case of Firefox, user has to explicitly click on check-box to make your search engine default.
I don't know what he is talking about. I have my search engine settings page open and there are more than 20 different search engines listed that I can make default with one click, including Duck Duck Go!
I like the idea and philosophy behind Duck Duck Go, but maybe improving the search results, which are no where near as good as Google's results, would help bring more traffic than whining about non-issues.
Which is totally true. Also, if one has already searched on DuckDuckGo, it's even easier to switch to it as it has been added to the search engine list.
What's the qualification for a "popular search alternative" ? Is there a specific level of market share that's required before a SE can be included in that list?
It sounds like a bunch of lame whining to me. I didn't use DDG before, but I at least respected their work. This is just weak. Google has done great things for the tech world by building chrome and android and releasing them as free and open source, to attempt to bring them down because you think it takes too many clicks to change the default search engine is shameful. Yegg, if you don't like it build your own browser and mobile operating system.
You, the HN reader, are not the target of this. Of course it ticks you (and me) off the wrong way - but your reaction is likely an unintended consequence!
It's excellent PR because it creates a coherent David Vs Goliath narrative that journos will buy and so will the bulk of the non-technical populace. A few more variations of this in different publications, and you'll see that it might seep into the public consciousness.
Me, the HN reader, is who DDG markets to. They try to sell themselves as the search engine for the informed user - the people who care about privacy and understand how google tracks you. The "bulk of the non-technical populace" will see an article about search engines and skip over it. They will never in their lifetime change any setting on their computer away from the default.
Has anyone ever seen DuckDuckBot hit their site? I don't have any web property large to appear via DuckDuckBot, but maybe someone else does? Im fairly certain it crawls Quora, as via this tweet https://twitter.com/yegg/status/33693491838066688
I checked my logs and there are several fetches from 72.94.249.37 and 72.94.249.38, over a number of domains that I host. None are particularly popular as far as the greater internet is concerned; one is a semi private site that I set up for my daughter's photos, another is one that has not yet been developed, apart from a few words of text and an image.
Interestingly, the fetches do not have a user-agent that identifies itself as the DDG crawler:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
I'm assuming this is the crawler because it does not fetch anything besides text/html.
No, it crawls non-Alexa sites too. I host two sites, one PR4 with Alexa rank 1.6+ million and another with PR3 and no Alexa rank. Only the latter one was accessed in the last year according to my servers access logs (and only with a single "GET /" request).
Try searching for something using their api, and compare with websearch. There is a world of difference between the search results. IIRC they aren't allowed to share results from some of their other sources via their api, so you can get a good idea of how much they take from other sources and how much from their own index.
But that is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned. As long as the results are relevant and they got them legally, then who cares where or how they came from?
Both are search/website results. "Links to entries on other sites" are exactly that, and DDG's special sauce is presenting third-party results contextually.
As for "followed by bing results", there is a single one that is equal to bing. The results that follow are also far from similar (this is exacerbated by Bing insisting on giving me local results regardless of relevance, which DDG purposedly avoids).
And yes, I do single word searches very often, but if you're so inclined, here are results for a longer search: http://cl.ly/image/0m1E3I3J0M1U (DDG shows Hulu, tv.com, CTV, amazon, and doesn't repeat the Wikipedia entry)
DDG is really only displaying definitions, aside from hacker.org. Given that this is a dictionary "word", I'm not sure how much of this query is really due to indexing and how much is due to identification of it as a singular word. Because there is so much query specific customization with search engines, (context-dependent results), it's hard to identify what results would have been returned from their raw indexes.
If you adjust the term to "hacker movie", you get more similar results between DDG and Bing. But, overall, it does seem like DDG is returning more differing results now than in the past.
But they are using legitimate means to provide search results. And feed(/API) providers are not shutting them out.
Same argument can be made about Google, they do not produce their own data just copy webpages from content providers. If content providers decide to block them from indexing their websites, Google would be irrelevant.
They are completely forgetting about the standard cross-browser external.AddSearchProvider API. One-click install initiation works fine in both Chrome and Firefox in a DuckDuckGo + Google Suggest search plugin I put together at http://eligrey.com/blog/post/encrypted-duckduckgo-with-googl...
Maybe DDG should get around to actually competing in the search market by, you know, building its own search engine. Let's see if Weinberg has any real engineering chops, or if all he can do is complain.
Until DDG bothers to step into the real search arena and compete, they get no interest from me.
The only thing that caught my eye was Google redirecting duck.com to google.com when DDG expressed interest in purchasing the domain. That seems a little underhanded, but not illegal....
Yeah, doing a reverse IP lookup with domain tools shows a list of 1,029 domains currently directing to google.com (some direct to youtube.com)
Duck Duck Go has a TM application filed on April 2, 2008. Google acquired duck.com's owner in 2010.
There is a very reasonable case for a WIPO domain dispute, which isn't particularly costly (granted if Google lost, and then sued you it would be expensive.) Very good way to generate a lot of press coverage.
> Duck Duck Go has a TM application filed on April 2, 2008. Google acquired duck.com's owner in 2010.
For any sort of mark dispute, you shouldn't go by when Google acquired On2, you have to go by when On2 acquired the name. I assume this was closer to the domain creation date of 1995 (or the On2.com creation date of 1999).
Wouldn't it be a factor that On2 isn't/wasn't in the search space at all? Only after the Google acquisition did duck.com come to be associated with search, and then only by virtue of Google redirecting it to their main page.
Reminds me of Scott McNealy complaining about Microsoft instead of beating them with products in the market, while his company was busy imploding and becoming irrelevant. That's DDG's future if they go the route of whining instead of competing.
Linux, Google, Apple, Oracle, Intuit, (and countless open source software like Apache) et al. demonstrated time and time again that Microsoft could be trounced. Yet there was McNealy whining like a baby to the trust busters, while his own company was melting down.
Sun was responsible for a lot of tremendous technology (understatement of the year), the only point was that while McNealy was whining, his company was burning.
What is wrong with people using Google's product and Google showing preference to their products first then others? I mean after all, you are using THEIR software running on THEIR system. Don't like it? Go use something else. No one is forcing you to use Chrome, etc...
I have been a happy DDG user for more than two years and it's one of the best things I have done in a while. It works well, and it's great for productivity. So, that Google does not take it extra easy on them is not surprising. However, as Google matures, they will realize they need an AMD to their Intel. Something that poses little business threat, yet diffuses the antitrust threat. ... Watch.
I set DDG as my default search in Firefox; the results were abysmal. It felt like being transported back to altavista.digital.com, wading through middling irrelevant links searching for info. I got fed up with having to put !g into every query to get a good result, I ended up switching to DuckDuckGoog instead (and this is my current search provider).
The web community (that is, all of us) really, really needs an alternative to Google. I don't care whether you love or hate them. We desperately need an alternative.
MS spent gazillions of dollars trying to do it with Bing and isn't close yet. Google is simply the best service out there by a very wide margin. When people close the gap, there will be a viable alternative. There's no cosmic law that says there needs to be an alternative to product X.
I have no access to the internal budgets of Microsoft so I can't really comment intelligently. I am a cross-platform smartphone developer so I use wp7, wp8 as well as Google APIs daily in order to do my work and bing doesn't seem so bad for consumer oriented searches. YMMV. For the queries I execute, I agree their results are subpar.
But I feel compelled to respond. If there is no alternative to Google for something as important as indexing the output of human knowledge production... we are in serious trouble. The library of Alexandria burned and we still have no idea why [0].
Google is interested in one thing, getting you to look at ads. In their defense, well-targeted ads (++efficiency!). However when given the opportunity they have exploited their leadership position for every commercial advantage and recently to the detriment of search (e.g., I do not care to see what a bunch of "thought leaders" in google+ have to say on the topic I'm searching for). Their support for "Do Not Track" is grudging at best. [1]
Their business model is approaching that of a virus infecting a host. They enter an external market and utilize their near monopoly in web search/advertising to drive the value proposition for competitors to near-zero. And that gives me pause. It is like Starbucks opening in every local branch of your public library.
So, I support DDG and I give them feedback on my own time in the hopes they aren't also inherently out to screw me in the end. Also because I do believe (and this is an assumption on my part) that a "cosmic" -- well that may be an overreach -- law is involved. Search is not a natural monopoly [2].
"Need" implies that it requires state intervention on Google's products/services; that somehow Google's position as the market leader in... whatever it is exactly we care about (search, I guess) is a very bad thing.
Except that market forces are what they are, and there is no compelling reason to compare Google who has tons of backups and with many competing services (though most are bad) to the Library of Alexandria which had a very concrete single point of failure - which is the entire problem the Internet was developed to solve.
Google having competitors is good for all of us. But it doesn't "need" one, as if we must forcibly install a competitor in... well, whatever area you think they "need" a competitor in (Google services quite a wide range of areas).
>Their business model is approaching that of a virus infecting a host. They enter an external market and utilize their near monopoly in web search/advertising to drive the value proposition for competitors to near-zero. And that gives me pause. It is like Starbucks opening in every local branch of your public library.
Google horizontally integrates by buying companies and reforming them into their own services.
And Starbucks' share price has been significantly reduced from its high earlier this year. (And recovered after losing 50% of its market share by closing a lot of its unprofitable branches some years ago.)
I never stated I advocate state intervention. I said search is not a natural monopoly and as a result we as a market need viable competitors. As the perceived cost to us for both is zero, those competitors need "charitable" use to improve because the product is the activity. You can only improve human search by analyzing human searches. One might argue I suppose that there is enough capital to throw at the problem (say, pay me to use ddg until it catches up or pay Google to provide data), but I question whether that can be the case due to the network effects of the integrations you mention.
The Internet was not designed to provide highly-available redundant backups of data. It was designed to route packets across disparate peer networks in a manner to minimize congestion. Is there an ietf rfc you have in mind that illustrates your assertion? [0]
I do not follow; what does fluctuations in Starbuck's stock price have to do with the discussion? It was used as an example of a brand latching on to a public resource, libraries, in the hopes of becoming indistinguishable from the activity, namely reading.
Instead of supporting yet another closed engine and hoping that they -or whoever happens to control it in the future- won't screw you, you could do what I did for a while, and run an instance of Yacy[1] on your own computer or VPS.
When Google testifies before Congress, they tend to mention "Bing and Blekko" or "Bing and DuckDuckGo". Since Bing is losing a lot of money every quarter, and is owned by a pretty big company (M$), it's useful to have smaller, newer competitors around.
Frankly all this cry baby entitlement mentality lowers DDG in their users eyes. It makes one wonder if they are just another mouth piece for Microsoft (like Fair search camp).
First of all, in my opinion, executing a frighteningly ambitious idea[1] is like performing inception. You need the simplest version of the idea for it to be "planted" in the user's mind.
People aren't using DDG much not because of any difficulties in the browser, because they don't want to. This is a very lame excuse. Google never won its users because they were able to convince users to set their Search Engine as default in their browsers.
As for DDG, the problem starts their name - "DuckDuckGo". You don't need to be an analyst with years of experience to say that this won't work because even their name is not something that is a)Catchy b)Easily rememberable c)Simple. Contrast this with Google. That's just one quick, easy to remember word. Now compare, Duck+Duck+Go. That's three words and it seems long. It looks like they didn't put much thought into this. This is not to say that DDG didn't do their homework properly, but just that it seems a little immature, given their name and their strategy. It looks more like they just read PG's essay[1] and started something out of the quick inspiration.
To kill a huge competitor like Google, you need to provide more value. Google is very hard to kill right now because, 1)Their search is vastly superior 2)a lot of people are locked into their ecosystem 3)They have created a valuable brand. No, by locked, I don't mean it's a bad thing. For example, I use Gmail, Google Contacts, Calendar, Blogger, Google Apps for my domains and a lot of other stuff because I want to. A single sign-in into their Eco-system lets me use all these services. And now, the best part is there's Android which seems to integrate all these things so easily like a snap that makes my life just a breeze.
So, first you need to understand that Google is now more than a search engine. Because if it was, Bing would have overtook it long back. You need to analyze the reasons why people still use Google. It's not just a search engine that they're using it for. Google has taken years and years to build the trust factor into their users. It has taken them years to make all these users "fit" into their eco-system and create a tremendously valuable brand . It's not like that they did it in just one day. So, just starting a new search-engine and expecting people to join on board is not going to happen. Despite so many "Ad" controversies, Google is still the king here because of the trust factor that no one else in the industry is able to provide. The trust factor that they will remain here, unlike the rest is the most important value that they provide to their users.
If you want to kill Google at this instant, you are going to do a lot more hardwork than you thought you should do, you need a brand of similar magnitude and the important essence here is the time and trust factor which everyone seems to ignore.
I disagree. From personal experience, I suffer absolutely zero lock in to Google's search engine due to their ecosystem. I use their docs, I have an Android phone, I use Gmail, and I use their search engine completely separate from any of those (regardless of any back-end tie-ins that Google performs to supposedly optimize my search experience).
I specifically go to google.com to search, ditto on my phone. Nothing in their ecosystem prods me to do so, and nothing in their ecosystem prevents me from using a competitor.
I use Google because it's vastly superior to any other search offering. Period.
I actually think their name is one of the strongest things going for them...and Google being more than a search engine to be the very reason Bing is gaining market share and brands like DDG actually have a shot at competing.
Regarding the name...it is unique and very MEMORABLE (repetition is one of the four mental glues.) It has just as few syllables as Microsoft, and is super easy to pronounce... From a branding perspective they are taking a very strong positioning play of being the Search Engine that respects privacy. Smart strategy if you ask me... to position themselves opposite the dominant brand with a hot button differentiation.
Regarding the trust factor, and the being locked in to google, those are actually both weaknesses of Google. The locked in issue is part and parcel with the privacy issue, which is the market DDG is trying to penetrate. Regarding Trust, I don't see why I need to trust a search engine to use it. In fact, the privacy thing again is the very reason I DON'T Trust Google...
People Use Google because Google focused on Search when all other search engines tried to be so much more. Once Google won the category (where people say, "Just Google It." They assumed they owned the market and started betting on the future convergence of search and social, etc... I actually think in 5 years from now, Google won't be the dominant player in search, although I do think Android will become a bigger money maker for them...
DuckDuckGo is doing a fine job with their name and brand strategy...up until this article and complaint which undermines their focused strategy. By complaining about Google, they appear to be in the game of competing as an equal search engine, not a DIFFERENT search experience, which is the play they need to make to win.
It's the reason Burger King can't take over McDonalds...because they just claim to be better, not different.
Pepsi on the other hand claims to be for the New Generation, Different than Coke which is classic, and the real thing. Just like Listerine has the brand of being more powerful than scope because they used the slogan,"The Taste You Hate Twice a Day." They said we are different, not better.
Human perception is near impossible to change... Complaining about monopolies is like saying, "we are better but they wont let us play."
If DDG wants to win, they need to pound hard about how they are different, and if they insist on complaining about Google, it should be consistent with their brand strategy and focus on how Google is more than search, and DDG is for when you just want to find what you are looking for with true privacy.
I just visited duckduckgo.com again (though full of hesitation) and as a designer I can tell you:
1) Their design is very complex and un-appealing with no simplicity that a SE should posses (For Eg. Google, Bing have a very simple design). They don't design Search engines to be simple because they like it that way, because they have invested a huge amount of money in researching about which colors and patterns work best. For example, DDG uses a red menu-bar on the top which tells me they haven't done as much research. I keep repeating this, but hopefully enough people will realize this:
DO NOT over-use red. Red is used to denote only important elements on a website (like a sign-up button), a call-to-action element (For example, compose button on Gmail). Look at DDG, they have a whole top-bar in full red.
2) As a general user, there is no difference between DDG and Google in my eyes because both have a sponsored link at the top. Both try to benefit from my searches, so I see no perceivable difference between Google and DDG. Now, I already know Google has a superior Search algorithm, period (from what I perceive). So, there is not a single reason for me as an end-user to use DDG over Google.
And one more - Look at the irony, even you reference them by DDG and not DuckDuckGo, whereas you reference Google by just Google and not by any other short form. This is exactly what I meant. Brand Naming is something that we don't even pay attention to, but plays a much much important role.
> 1) Their design is very complex and un-appealing with no simplicity that a SE should posses
Enough people have already said it. I feel like a broken record but what's very complex about a text box and a logo?
> because they have invested a huge amount of money in researching about which colors and patterns work best.
Interesting. Do you have any citations to back it up? I haven't heard of Google researching what colors work best for a search interface. Or bing for that matter.
> DO NOT over-use red.
The thing about design advice is everyone fancies himself Steve Jobs. Even if I started listening, I would never have a definitive, agreed-on opinion.
> Red is used to denote only important elements on a website (like a sign-up button), a call-to-action element (For example, compose button on Gmail)
Where is this definitive design rule book of yours? As long as you have sufficient contrast, that is enough to attract attention to important elements. Are you saying if I have a red background and a white compose button with black text, user will somehow see the background as call-to-action and not the button? Now don't go on how red background will not look very good. That's not the point. The point is color alone doesn't decide which section of the page is important.
> Look at DDG, they have a whole top-bar in full red.
Since they merge in serach box with the bar, that section is important.
> Now, I already know Google has a superior Search algorithm, period (from what I perceive).
This has been done n times. There is no clear pattern when it comes to choosing google vs bing results in a blind search result. As far as the end user is concerned, it's not possible to tell which one is algorithmically superior.
> Look at the irony, even you reference them by DDG and not DuckDuckGo,
What's the irony here?
> whereas you reference Google by just Google and not by any other short form. This is exactly what I meant. Brand Naming is something that we don't even pay attention to, but plays a much much important role.
Oh my. How much it has hurt Microsoft. They should have just called themselves MS and be done with it. I can't fathom how much of a hit y-combinator and hacker news are taking because their names can be abbreviated.
But Microsoft by itself is not a "consumer" brand. Bing is, XBox is, Windows is, Live is, Office is, Microsoft is only the name of the corporation behind those products and people don't use it in daily conversations. "Hey Dad, I want a Microsoft XBox so I can play games with my friends on Microsoft Online Services" -- said no kids ever
Y-Combinator/HackerNews is even less a consumer brand.
Of course, that's only a problem if you are trying to appeal to the mass market, YC/HackerNews isn't, but DuckDuckGo is.
So are you seriously saying brands which can be abbreviated aren't adapted as well by consumers as brands which can't be? And do you have anything other than "I said so" to back it up?
It's not whether the brand can be abbreviated or not, it's what you choose to build your brand around. A short, easy to remember name is crucial [1].
You don't hear much about International Business Machines, but you do hear a bit about IBM, because IBM built it's brand around the abbreviated form which is easier to remember. Likewise, HP is now the word du jour to refer to Hewlett-Packard.
Abbreviated forms are fine, and have actually been used to bolster (or change) a company's image. Outside of tech circles if I say MS I'll most likely get awkward glances, but the moment I switch to saying Microsoft I'll get immediate brand name recognition. Likewise, you don't hear many people talking about P or C&C, but drop the name Pepsi or Coca-Cola and you'll also get instant brand name recognition.
So the question becomes is DuckDuckGo really an easily recognizable, easy to memorize, that generates imagery associated with the given product/service? Is it really that appealing?
Surely, it's memorable due to it being so weird, but is it memorable in a way that I'll link up with search? I dunno, but there's some validity to what's been said so far about the name being a bit too long or awkward for the company's sake.
1. http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/library/working-paper-articles/199... p.11 "Accordingly, the criteria rated most important were relevance to product category (5.99), connotations and images generated (5 X3), and overall appeal (5.79). They did not lose sight of the fact that names should be memorable. Ease of recognition (5.77) and ease of recall (5.42) also were rated highly."
I am not questioning building a brand. As I said elsewhere, in blind tests, people have a hard time distinguishing google search results from bing. Brand name is one of the major factors when it comes to consumers.
People preferred pepsi to thumsup in blind tests. Thumsup sweetened its drink and faced a major backlash. Thumsup drinkers associated themselves with Thumsup brand and took pride in "not sweet as pepsi".
I do understand that brand plays a major part for the consumer.
What I was questioning was the ridiculous assumption that somehow calling DuckDuckGo as DDG is diluting its brand, and always calling Google as Google is indicative of its strong brand.
As I see it, using DDG instead of DuckDuckGo is not the core problem. It's not that doing so dilutes the brand (it does in way, but that's really irrelevant) I think the main point is that if the users feel compelled to rename then there is something in the original brand name which is inefficient or cumbersome which thus detracts from the brand's overall value.
And I do not think it's ridiculous to assume that repetition builds brand awareness. The study I linked to said as much, indicating that repetition was one of the best ways to establish brand identity in the minds of consumers. That's why as a company you're best served by aligning your brand name with whatever moniker people are more likely to use and hence why a short, memorable brand name is more powerful than a unique but long-winded archaic name (at least in this day and age).
What appears to be just a text box and a logo has a lot of details. I presume you are not a designer, nor do you have a knack for details (Yet, you run a web-development company...cool story bro!) but for the sake of others, I've compiled a list of comparisons:
1) DDG uses a lot of Gradients, which is what I referred to as complex. Gradients in general are used to add complexity. However, not in every case - For example, Apple's website uses a lot of Gradients too, but it is one of the most clearest and simplest sites you will ever find. Google also uses gradients, but it is very subtle and you don't even notice it most of the times.
DDG also uses a lot of prominent borders on the gradients, Google and Apple uses them to, but it's very very subtle. This is another factor that makes their design look 'complex'.
2) Padding is another element - DDG uses too much padding for most of its elements, whereas Bing/Google uses a lot less padding.
3) If you notice, Google uses red only for certain important elements like the Plus one button, Compose button in Gmail and so on. DDG uses a whole menu-bar as a red block. This is a general rule of thumb that I didn't come up with certainly, but is what most top-notch companies follow. It make sense because the signal lights are in Red for the same reason, because they denote something important. Contrast this with the entire signal metal frame painted in red, that would be a bad idea. Not that you can't live with it, just that it's a bad UX.
>I haven't heard of Google researching what colors work best for a search interface
You haven't heard of a lot of things, that doesn't mean those things aren't valid.
> As long as you have sufficient contrast, that is enough to attract attention to important elements.
I for one aren't listening to your advice on design after you described DDG's design as just a text-box and a logo.
>As far as the end user is concerned, it's not possible to tell which one is algorithmically superior.
Did you read the entire entire comment? I've noticed your previous comments as well, you just like to half-ass read stuff and jump in straight away. Read what's written in the braces, I clearly say that's how I perceive about the algorithm as an end-user.
>The thing about design advice is everyone fancies himself Steve Jobs
Like you half-ass read the other things, you half-ass know about me too. Please read my other comments, I am not a follower nor a fan of Steve Jobs. Nor am I trying to be like him. I'm just a designer with experience and I'm critiquing a design that has a certain level of flaws. You are free to critique my criticism, provided:
1) You have enough knowledge about the subject - (N/A)
2) You don't attack on me personally - (Which you do)
You know what's so ironic here? I am not the one with an 'i' in front of my name. Now..please don't ask me what's ironic here again...
>What's the irony here?
You're proving it time and again. Please don't comment next time without reading what the other person has said fully.
> What appears to be just a text box and a logo has a lot of details.
And since it appears as a text box and a logo, doesn't it make the point about having a lot of details moot? It's slightly different than google or bing, but vastly similar. Let's not make shit up here.
> (Yet, you run a web-development company...cool story bro!)
Take a breath. Web development isn't the same as web design. It's kinda sad that I have to point it out.
> 1) DDG uses a lot of Gradients, which is what I referred to as complex
Instead of making shit up, you could have just said it's using a lot more gradients.
> This is another factor that makes their design look 'complex'.
To you. I missed the meeting where you were appointed the authority on design. Since you are all pumped up about how you get design, I will be interested to know what have you built.
> It make sense because the signal lights are in Red for the same reason, because they denote something important.
For the nth time, stop making shit up. Red is used because it scatters less(higher wavelength) and can be seen more clearly from a distance.
> You haven't heard of a lot of things, that doesn't mean those things aren't valid.
I checked that before commenting. Your user survey about usability doesn't say google researches whether padding is beneficial for search.
> I for one aren't listening to your advice on design after you described DDG's design as just a text-box and a logo.
So what exactly are you not listening to? That contrast attracts attraction? Wow.
> Did you read the entire entire comment? Read what's written in the braces, I clearly say that's how I perceive about the algorithm as an end-user.
May be I should have been clear. I am saying your perceptions are made-up.
> I've noticed your previous comments as well, you just like to half-ass read stuff and jump in straight away.
What comments would that be? I can't say the same about reading yours. The cover is enough to drive me away from the book.
> Like you half-ass read the other things, you half-ass know about me too.
I don't know about you and I am not commenting about you. I am commenting about the behavior where everyone fancies himself Steve Jobs. That's what you are demonstrating by assuming you know everything about design and other people don't. Since you are so cocksure, I am asking again. Have you ever built something, or do you just comment on internet forums?
> You know what's so ironic here? I am not the one with an 'i' in front of my name.
Please tell me this is a fucking joke. Do I have to discuss my handle now?
> Now..please don't ask me what's ironic here again..
I won't. You clearly don't understand what irony means. BTW, is it too much to ask to actually know what irony means before throwing it around every other sentence?
For the rest of the world to see, that's what iRahul has built so far and he's here to critique a designer. And now you know why the search boxes appear the same to him, and probably everything else will, too.
>May be I should have been clear.
Yep, you never are. You like to make vague statements to attract controversy.
>Since you are so cocksure
Please keep your profanity to yourself. You just proved you are worth no one's time. Bye.
That thing is called a prototype. And you are not obliged to tell what you have built, but when you are throwing shit all around, at least have some credentials. Either don't be an asshole, or at least be correct. When it comes to opinions(and not absolute facts), who has it is an important factor in evaluating it.
> For the rest of the world to see, that's what iRahul has built so far and he's here to critique a designer. And now you know why the search boxes appear the same to him, and probably everything else will, too.
In case it didn't occur to you, rest of the world doesn't give a shit about a petty internet argument. When I did the prototype, it was open for everyone to see. I don't see the point in your declaration about the whole world seeing what I built. Different strokes for different people. Some people build things and move on if it doesn't work; some people post comments on news forums with nothing to back them up and then go digging something to feed their vanity. Vain people are a big pain in the ass, not because they are vain(that too) but because they sustain themselves on putting others down, rather than getting themselves ahead.
> Please keep your profanity to yourself. You just proved you are worth no one's time. Bye.
It isn't like I am being benefited from getting in argument with some random designer on some internet forum. And do you always lobby others to cry for you?(rest of the world to see, "no one's time" rather than "my time")
What's complex about the design? The main page seems brutally simple compared to Google or Bing. And the search results pages do not seem to have more interactable elements than Google/Bing. What is your metric of simplicity here?
Your one example is use of the color red, which may be an issue of taste or branding but not really simplicity. (And there are reasonably popular sites with very prominent red elements, like cnn.com)
Agree with everything you say, except ". By complaining about Google, they appear to be in the game of competing as an equal search engine,"
The nature of his exact complaint is that Google is capitalising on people's confusion with the name "Duck something", and then proceeding to capitalise on this confusion (in a somewhat sneaky way) by redirecting "potential DDG users" back to their own page.
>> they need to pound hard about how they are different
And this point is very difficult to achieve if the "market leader" is (sort of) preventing people from accessing you in the first place.
Whether Google did this or not is hardly the point. The point is that DDG can never win if they lump themselves into the same category as Google. The confusion they complain about, and monopoly is DDG claiming we are the same as Google. This is the not the play that will win them the west.
I totally disagree that DDG has to replicate the Google service stack to become successful. I am actually more inclined to use an alternate engine for my searches considering how much info Google already has on me, and how difficult it would be to distance myself from that profile if the time arised. I have already disabled Web History and Search History, but I feel more comfortable using a totally separate service.
I still use Google as primary despite multiple attempts to switch to DDG over the last 3 years. While I have found DDG superior for generic informational queries, it has been, in my experience, much worse for finding source documents of quotes I remember loosely or searching for error messages, so I always find myself headed back to Google. Would love to switch to a search-dedicated search engine.
First, I agree that they should not lump themselves in the same category. Second, I am not sure there is any point in crying yourself hoarse about how "different" you are when the general public who are looking for you using natural language constructs are not being allowed to access you in the first place by the "market leader". Going forward this that line of thought, I am reproducing my reply from below to your point, as it seems relevant here as well. (Apologies for the multiple posting).
If you read @yegge's original response from below (I reproduced it here)
Google should legitimately not sell it to me, though it would have been of course nice to do so when I first asked in 2010. I think an appropriate remedy would be to either point it nowhere, point it to the original page it had been pointed to for many years, or point it to the acquisition page (as http://on2.com still does) -- all things they do in other cases if you look at past acquisitions.
Effectively it is Google's fault because they are doing it now specifically in his case and not for others (as he mentions clearly) (because from their own tracking of searches, they probably found out that DDG is gaining significant traction -- this is my own opinion)
Secondly, while it would be nice to pre-empt all angles and all possibilities etc., etc., but I don't think any of us can foresee every possible way something will come back to bite your backside in the future. So, no, I don't think that it is somehow DDG's fault that they did not foresee this and preempt it.
P.S: FWIW, google renamed themselves from googol to google because the VC mispelled their name on the cheque. Just goes to show that such things are a fact of life. People have every right to vaguely try to look up "Duck something" search engine. However, Google is definitely in the wrong for sneakily redirecting users back to their own engine in this case by misusing this vagueness.
Although you might be right about DuckDuckGo and similar search engines, the article is not claiming that DuckDuckGo is best search engine in the world since it is subjective. It is up to user to make that choice, and given the network effects, that won't happen unless user can easily switch to it. It is about making it even harder for a supposedly better search engine than Google to acquire users.
Switching search engines is ridiculously easy. There aren't many things related to tech so easy; no sign up, no user names or passwords necessary, no network effects required, no need to share your FB or Twitter account. Just go, type, and search.
Firefox managed to severely dent IE in a similar default situation, despite needing to be downloaded and installed, which is a huge effort wall compared to using a search engine. Ditto for Chrome.
If you build a superior engine I have no doubt users will type the address in manually or bookmark it or even go through the couple clicks it takes to switch defaults.
Well Chrome is the most popular browser and I have no idea how I would change my default search engine in it.
This is important because I almost never search by going to google.com and typing a search term. The location bar does this automatically using google.
the easiest way is to right click on the location bar, but, I hope unsurprisingly, you'll find the setting for the default search engine in Settings, under "Search".
> People aren't using DDG much not because of any difficulties in the browser, because they don't want to.
You are wrong and you know it. Most people use whatever is the preset default search engine in their browser and that is why Google pays a lot of money to Mozilla.
I worked in Search and on Search-related problems for nearly 4 years so here's my 2c.
For most users Google is "muscle memory". It is quite good for most Search needs. The angles of attack that tech-savvy folks think are amazing (category filters, privacy, fancy CoverFlow UX, bigger index - all real differentiators tried by real companies) - most normals don't give a rat's ass about.
IMO the only real ways to compete are as follows:
a) build something specialized that is several-x better in the specialty (Kayak)
b) build something on top of data that Google doesn't have (Facebook Search, whenever it stops sucking)
c) go head-to-head with nearly equivalent quality and buy your way in on the CapEx and the Ad/Mktg dollars required to change muscle memory (Bing)
Beyond that, most companies have had trouble w/ direct search because Google + Wikipedia gets the job done, by and large. SearchMe? Dead. Kosmix Search? Pivoted successfully before acquisition. Cuil? Dead. Mahalo Search? Pivoted several times away from Search. Qwiki? Pivoted successfully.
The sad thing is that Search is such a fun and challenging space with so much work to be done; I want the space to be more competitive but most consumers like the status quo just fine.
Lastly - a salute to @yegg for taking this one on. He's a far braver than I, and most others on this thread critiquing his work.
Just for kicks I searched for 'search engine' on Google - once on Chrome(logged into my Google account), and once on Firefox(not logged in). Didn't get Google on the first page on either searche, did get google custom search engine though(which is a completely different thing). Duck Duck Go was in the first page both the times, as were Bing, Yahoo, some engine called Dogpile(never heard of 'em but it was #2 on Chrome), the Wikipedia article for Web search engine and a few other links. There was a list of popular search engines at the bottom of the page in Chrome, DDG wasn't there, but lots other were, and it was compiled from other sources.
Don't see much discrimination there. Especially when they don't even list their search engine on the first page
On chrome, when I right click on the search bar on duckduckgo.com (or any site), I get an option to "Add as search engine...", on clicking it, I get a dialog box for specifying Name, Keyword and URL. What chrome can do is add a checkbox to this dialog box for making it the default search engine.
DDG is my default search engine, I use it every day.
It is vastly superior to using Google, and they don't track my searches, I don't really need any better reasons to use it. It is really annoying that I can't easily switch my default search engine in my phone, especially because typing things into the text entry bars basically feeds them straight into Google, which basically publicizes all I do on my phone. I can't stand Chrome as a browser on my laptops, so I don't use it, but if I did I probably would want to be able to switch my search engine as easily as you can in FF. I expect to see antitrust movement soon.
The biggest takeaway is that Google owns duck.com (through acquisition), duck.com pointed to a web page for the company they acquired up until DuckDuckGo made enquiries about potentially getting it, duck.com was then pointed toward google.com. That's probably the biggest dick-move Google has made, and they're perfectly within their rights to do it. It's still a dick-move, Google doesn't need to worry about DDG ever attaining marketshare in a meaningful manner, and DDG have said they're not interested in that.
Current Firefox Nightly uses Google for search when something is typed in the location bar even when a) DuckDuckGo is the default search engine, b) Google is removed from the search engines list completely.
Go figure... I've lost all respect for both Mozilla and Google recently.
Correction: a) when DuckDuckGo is the selected search engine. Changing the default search engine (from Firefox's perspective, not what the user thinks it is) apparently requires fiddling with about:config.
I am ardent DDG fan,but i cant seem to win over my non-CS buddies to use it,simply because duckduckgo sounds funny& laughable.I wish they could switch to a flashier name.
I really like the idea of duckduckgo, but it just doesn't do it for me. As an example, I can't find articles posted in the last hour, let alone the last week (eg. iOS 6 jailbreak).
I know it's slightly off topic, but this would certainly encourage me to use this - and I have a community around me that tends to adopt what I do.
I agree. I have tried DDG and found their quality and freshness are both much worse than Google. Bing at least presents a credible alternative in terms of quality, depth, and freshness, but DDG is only good for people who actually don't care much if they find what they are looking for.
I've switched to using DDG over the past 6 months and use it as my main search engine because I think the results are as good as Google and there are less distractions, and I don't want my search history stored.
If I need to search for news, images, etc then it's back to Google. For me it's akin to using the command line for most tasks, but every so often opening up a cluttered but easier to use GUI.
It's very disappointing that DDG is resorting to the same whinny PR tactics as the less than savory competitors.
It's fairly easy and straight forward to add DDG to Chrome or Android, much easier than other platforms in fact, you’re not being “shut out” because you're not the default engine.
It is a search engine that allows you to find pages on the internet. The name comes from the misspelling of a large number: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googol
Why is this article even on HN?