Not long ago a Firefox update added 'DuckDudckGo' as a possible alternative to Google as a Search Engine.
If what it says is true then one could easily say goodbye and should say goodbye to Google.
What do you guys think of this search engine. Is it what it claims to be? Or should we use it with caution?
One doesn't know what to trust anymore when going online.
Well I'm using Cyberfox rather than Firefox but in any case DuckDuckGo is my default search engine. If I want to search using Google I use the encrypted version.
The thing about DuckDuckGo is that you need to click the "Hamburger" icon to configure preferences.
Really it's down to personal choice and privacy might be an issue for some users.
What do I think of Google? Pretty good most of the time but consider this:
The size of the web is roughly 24 billion web pages. That's according to the latest estimates. The problem is that no one search engine cover the entire Web and maps it. Google displays approximately 8.1 billion web pages, Bing Search 5 billion, Yahoo and Ask both around 3.5 billion.
So Google excludes appoximately two thirds of the web which is either good or bad depending upon what you're trying to find.
Last edited by Callender; 21 Dec 2014 at 14:44. Reason: correct spelling
Callender:
Thanks for the comments.
A few questions:
Do we know how many of those 24 billion pages are found by DuckDuckGo?
As you see it, how do DuckDuckGo's security issues compare to Google? I've looked at it a bit, but was lost in marketing doublespeak and gobbledegook.
Do you prefer DuckDuckGo for any reason other than possibly security? I use Pale Moon. If I recall, DuckDuckGo is the default search tool in Pale Moon. I switched backed to Google, but I can't remember what I didn't like about DuckDuckGo.
@ ignatzatsonic
Well what I'm really saying is that my personal choice is to use privacy focused search engines where possible but having said that I revert to Google searches quite often and use a few other search engines too. I don't limit my searches to just one search provider depending upon what I'm looking for.
See a comparison here:
Best Search Engine: Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo Compared! - Page 3 | Maximum PC
Google is the clear winner but the last page explains my reasons for not using it as my default search engine. DuckDuckGo also forces https where available.
How many pages does DuckDuckGo index? I don't know but you can probably imagine that it's significantly less than Google.
Malware in links? If the links are reported they're removed from DuckDuckGo search results. Additionally if a user wishes to enable WOT color coded search results they can enable that option here:
https://duckduckgo.com/settings# - near the bottom of "Appearance" tab.
So the bottom line is that yes I'm a Google fan and use their products but also try to keep privacy in mind when using them.
Last edited by Callender; 21 Dec 2014 at 17:05. Reason: add info
Thanks for that.
I'm not rabidly anti-Google, but I am somewhat concerned about creeping Big Brother-ism in the form of Google or authoritarians in general. I don't like Google insinuating itself into every aspect of my life.
I don't use mobile devices at all and am not as bound up in Google as many are. I know of people who are constantly logged into Google accounts---100% of the time they are online, which is effectively all waking hours.
I briefly used Google Voice and supposedly still have a Google "account", which I never log into. I hope I got rid of Google Voice, but of course I have no idea to what extent I am tracked.
I still use Google Search and have a couple of anti-tracking apps installed, but of course don't really know to what extent I am under examination.
Nor do I know how much my web searching would suffer with DuckGoGo. I use Google Search probably 10 or 20 times a day.
And---as the link you provided says---your ISP still knows your history. And it's anyone's guess how easily they would cough that up, court orders or not.
Same for ut the results me really. Here's an example of Google search results for sevenforums dot com and results from another search engine that I sometimes use. It's not an English language search engine so I won't post it's name but the results are mostly displayed in English if available.
Google finds 583,000 results.
The other search engine finds 2,060.000 results
I'd say, the best search engine (different than Google) is Ixquick Search Engine.
- Private search engine
- Highly anonymous search engine
- Uses TLS 1.2
- No history
- Doesn't save, share or sell your info
- Has one click web proxy to open each link with
- Rich list of results
- Owned by a Netherlands company (non-US based)
Ixquick's privacy practices have been awarded the highest possible rating by EuroPriSe, the European certifying authority.
Best and most secure SE ever!
For me this is end of story.
Either of those Duck or Ix will be waaaaay better than Google, Bing or any other junk!
Good luck!
Hmmm.......
Let's try it. I made my custom settings in IxQuick with no filtering.
Then I searched a known but fairly obscure person's name with IxQuick and Google.
IxQuick's response time wasn't as quick as Google, but within 2 seconds.
Google generated 3610 hits "anytime"; 5 in the last month; 35 in the last year. If you do an "anytime" search and go to the last page, at the bottom it says 262 were actually displayed, the others omitted because they were "very similar".
IxQuick generates 4590 "anytime"; none in the last month; none in the last year. If you go to the last page of the "anytime" search, the number of hits actually displayed is not mentioned, but by my count it appears to be between 250 and 300, about the same as Google.
Does that sound like a typical experience?
Only thing I don't understand is the lack of hits in the last month or year. I'd think it unlikely that IxQuick is that far behind in indexing, so I wonder if the zero hits for the last month and year are simply erroneous?
IXquick is slow because it uses the highest possible encryption and the location is NL not US. While Google utilizes very high number of servers in pretty much every country and uses CDNs to faster deliver content, IXquick is not so big.
The numbers of the results seems pretty accurate. IXQuick uses results from different sources (not only Google), but primarily Google.
I believe it's not that far in indexing, but not listing the results as we would expect Google or Bing does.
Nobody has the access to the big players' search algorithms. This is just an alternative, which works for me.
So far I was able to find everything I searched for.
I have no problem at all with the speed. I can live with 2 seconds easily.
I'll probably continue to test drive it.
But I will not continue if it has severe indexing delays. It found as many hits as Google overall, but shows NONE in the last year for a random search term. That would be a show-stopper for me if it turns out to be typical.
And how would you ever know how good it is if you search for only relatively common stuff and pay little or no attention to how recent the results are? Getting 10 billion hits for "Barack Obama" doesn't tell me much. Can it find Barack Obama's hat size? That's a more realistic test of how good it might be.
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