1y ago

DuckDuckGo CEO says Google kills competition through phone deals that make it hard for users to switch search engines

fortune.com DuckDuckGo CEO says Google kills competition through phone deals that make it hard for users to switch search engines: ‘It’s too many steps’

The federal government argues Google has smothered competition by paying companies such as Apple and Verizon to lock in its search engine as the default.

DuckDuckGo CEO says Google kills competition through phone deals that make it hard for users to switch search engines: ‘It’s too many steps’

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DuckDuckGo CEO apparently is just another CEO. I've been an early adopter that's been using their search engine long before there were apps or a browser.
What's stopping people from using DDG isn't switching to DDG, it's getting absolutely dogshit results 90% of time. As an advanced user I know I can prefix my search with "!g phrase" to use Google instead of DDG. The sad fact is that despite the ad-ridden result page and tracking, Google is still lightyears ahead in providing relevant, and especially timely results for a user that is both tech-savvy and critical.
They need to improve their product, users will follow a good adfree search engine, that's a given. Only a fraction of users will put up with degraded results in order to search without tracking.
I sincerely hope they will get their tech up to par. And that their browser on mobile reaches feature parity soon. (as a Z Fold user, DDG browser doesn't have tabs. Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox does).
The new kid on the block needs humility and good tech, not shittalk. Fuck that CEO,. he's undermining something very promising and important.
- I've never had a problem with DDGs search results that simply rephrasing my query didn't solve. What are you all searching for that Google's results are "light-years ahead" of DuckDuckGo's? (Honest question)
  
  I agree. Honestly anytime I've resorted to having to use Google for something I feel the results are even worse than DDG.
  
  Not OP, but I get completely trash results on a ton of technical questions no matter how I phrase it. Not a specific example, but if I'm having an issue with some niche distribution of Linux that requires a specific fix, it'll instead insist on showing me the massive pile of results for the normal distros instead of the couple of links containing the answer I want.
  For as shitty as Google has gotten, it'll at least give you the one or two better hits before piling on the generic results.
  It's like DDG changes the query to get more results whereas Google will just run the damn search even if they stuff the results with ads and tracking.
  
  The only thing I goto Google for is when I'm looking for local attractions. With Google maps being native everything is just smoother. Also, Google reviews are much more relevant with whatever duckduckgo has integrated (yelp?). Just my 2 cents.
  I offset any inconvenience with how Google is not much of a search engine but more of an ad company. Also, I disabled all Googles data scavenging shit and I can't even load the site without getting hit with a captcha. As someone who saw Google rise from the librarians favorite search engine, when a cable modem was life changing, it's devastating to see it become everything that's wrong with the internet.
  
  Oh right, don't get me even started on DDG using fucking Apple maps which are complete garbage in my region. Why can't they support OSM? :/
  
  In my recent experience Google still delivers better results for tech troubleshooting queries. "linux drivers for acer e15 card reader" at least points me to some semi-relevant pages on Google that could lead to a solution or more ideas where to look while ddg throws a lot of generic stuff that is only faintly related.
- I often don't find what I want in DDG; and I then try !g to look for it with Google... and Google doesn't find it either.
  In my experience it is very rare for Google to help me with a search that DDG failed with. As for the converse, I wouldn't know - because I never search Google first. Why wouldn't I? They're evil.
  That said, I will point out that I don't use a google account, and I block most google-related cookies. I know that some people find Google gives better results due to its personalised results; and obviously I'm not 'benefiting' from that. So it is believable that you get better results from Google than I do, due to it knowing more about you, and thus guessing what you might want to see.
  
  I used DDG as my main for about half a year recently (and also a few times in the past). I always eventually end up back with Google. Don't get me wrong the results aren't that much better; but they're definitely marginally better, at least for me. The personalization helps, too.
  This time I had a brief detour using Neeva for a while and I was really happy with it; was kinda like a better DDG; but that got defunct so I ended up with Google again in the end and I just don't see a way out.
- I always see people saying Google provides better results, but to me it's awful. I don't even use DDGO anymore, but Google only shows ads and SEO optimized results that look AI generated. Is this common or am I just an isolated case?
  
  I only ever hear people say the opposite. The comment you're replying to is I think the first time I've seen someone say google is better than ddg in the wild. I keep feeling like I'm going crazy when people say ddg is better than google. Google is the only search engine capable of actually finding the results I'm looking for. Half the time it feels like it's reading my mind.
  I genuinely don't know what people are searching for that yields better results on ddg than google. Every time I've gotten someone to give me an example, the thing they supposedly couldn't find was the first result.
  
  Lol, yeah right? I feel the same way most of the time. On top of that, I'm in Google's beta AI thing so usually I just get a summary of whatever the hell I'm searching for right at the top and I don't even have to look at any of the actual results what I'm looking for data.
  
  I gotta say I'm pretty good finding stuff, but i swear Google makes it more complicated for me. In DDGO I only need to change words, in Google I need to filter out half the results to get something human.
  But that was when I used to use DDGO, I now self-host SearXNG and only use DDGO for simple searches and when using my phone.
  I guess Google needs constant use to give something better(?, which would be another reason for me not to use it hehe
  
  My experience has been similar to yours. It's disheartening.
  
  Google results are garbage compared to 10 years ago, but they're still miles ahead of ddg.
- DDG isn't the only alternative to Google. I use Kagi and love it. The results IME are definitely better than Google's.
  
  I just signed up for kagi and so far i like what i see. I am still in my 100 search trial though.
- I've switched to DDG almost a year ago, and I never had issues with my search results. Quite the contrary, every time I tried using !g because I simply wasn't finding an answer, the Google was ad-ridden bullshit full of promoted pages without relevance to what I was looking for.
  I guess I'm just used to DDG quality of results, but I never felt like it's as bad as you say.
  
  That depends very heavily on what your searching for.
  If you're a programmer or similar, like the poster you're replying to appears to be, then you absolutely will find DDG crap compared to Google.
  I use DDG as my primary search engine, but if I have a tech question, I usually skip it and go straight to Google.
  
  I work part-time as a game developer, and part time as a pentester, so I do search for technical questions quite a lot.
  Hmm, now I wonder whether I'm just used to it. I haven't used any other search engine in more than a year. I'll have to compare the results more, but as far as I remember every time I couldn't find what I needed on DDG and resorted to !g, the Google results were even worse.
  
  I am with you. I don't know what this guy's about about the search results of Google. A couple comments above people were complaining about the terrible results googles ad driven engine spews out. Also saying he's so tech savvy and needs the Google "quality", somehow not knowing !g just completely circumvents the benefits of DDG
  
  I work in IT and use the search engine around 100 times a day in order to find specific answers to specific edge cases. DDG results are just too generic most of the time.
  But once they get better, oh yeah.
- I agree that DDG's results suck, but so do Google's.
  
  They really are both just awful. I've yet to find a search engine as good as Google was 10-15 years ago.
  
  I wonder how much of that is Google being worse and you making more complex searches because you're older
  
  You got me there, but only you didn't at all and I just feel sorry for you. Great baseless conjecture though.
  
  I wasn't trying to "get" anyone. It's genuine curiosity. Christ, dude. Send your toxic-ass Reddit attitude back to that shitty platform it belongs.
  
  It was an absolutely unnecessary comment and in no way a relevant quesiton. Odds are I'm better versed in technology than you. Don't act like you were reasonable and you're the one being attacked now. You're one of those people who thinks they have the right to say whatever crappy thing they want and then look all confused when you illicit whatever response you absolutely deserved. Then accuse the other person of exactly what you started. I'm not facilitating this childish banter any further. Have whatever day you deserve.
  
  Man you really think I'm being wildly more hostile than I am. It was genuine curiousity. It was in no way unnecessary, it wasn't attacking you in any way, it was prompting a conversation. If you think every response to you that's only tangentially related to what you said is off topic, then I fear for anyone who even attempts to have any sort of conversation with you at all. That's how conversations work.
  Fifteen years ago my searches were limited to Minecraft and basic programming questions. Now they're more like searching for specific research papers and other significantly more complex topics and I get much less useful results. Are they related? Who knows! It's an interesting idea, though, which I was hoping to explore with someone who might be interested. But no, you decided to be whatever this is.
  Fuck, dude, get your head out of your goddamn ass. Learn how to talk to people. Fuck.
- Until recently I would have agreed 100%.
  But Google's search has turned to dogshit since it's started trying to be smarter than it is, and DDG is now giving me results on par with old Google - that is, a list of exactly what I was searching for on the first try.
- I made the switch a week ago. For two days at work, I always used Google, DDG and ecosia(uses bing) at the same time to compare the results. They are the same most of the time for the first 10 to 20 results. There's sometimes a blogpost that one engine shows that the other doesn't, but that post never made a difference.
  When DDG does not get me helpful results, I can still ask Google to help out.
  
  ecosia(uses bing)
  Ecosia is a fucking scam. They claim that "every search plants a tree", except the monetary contribution towards their "tree-planting" stuff comes from clicking ads -- therefore if you are a knowledgeable user who purposefully skips over ads (or just use an ad-blocker) then Ecosia makes exactly $0 off of your traffic.
  
  nope, they don't get paid for merely displaying ads. as per their own blog, ONLY when you click on them.
- Yeah, I e had worsening search results from DDG over the past 6+ months. I've set it to my default browser, but I often have to switch because the results are not specific enough compared to Google.
  And now Googles AI results are a huge time saver.

204 comments