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DuckDuckGo Now Blocked In China

Posted by Soulskill on from the fowl-play-suspected dept.

wabrandsma sends this news from Tech In Asia: Privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo is now blocked in China. On Sunday DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg confirmed to Tech in Asia that the team has noticed the blockage in China on Twitter. DuckDuckGo had been working fine in mainland China since its inception, aside from the occasional 'connection reset' experienced when accessing many overseas websites from within the country. But now the search engine is totally blocked in China. ... [T]he GreatFire index of blocked sites suggest that DuckDuckGo got whacked on September 4. DuckDuckGo joins Google in being censored and blocked in the nation. Google, after years of being throttled by China's Great Firewall since the web giant turned off its mainland China servers in 2010, was finally blocked totally in June this year.

9 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. my favorite search engine by Noah+Haders · · Score: 3, Informative

    duckduckgo is my favorite search engine. theirs is the only site that has a clearly written privacy policy. also, with ios8, ddg is now a default option in safari which I appreciate.

    1. Re:my favorite search engine by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 3, Informative

      See also

      https://startpage.com/

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    2. Re:my favorite search engine by SumDog · · Score: 5, Informative

      Plus the NSA is probably logging all your search results with them anyway (regardless of if they know or not).

      I still like DuckDuckGo because I like having an alternative. I like not being in the filter bubble. I have to type in the name of my city for local results, unlike google, but I don't mind that DuckDuckGo doesn't customize my results based on some algorthims about my browsers+ip+os+wi-fi access point+my history.

      And if I can't find what I'm looking for, I can always add !g and duckduckgo redirect to Google...or !yt for YouTube, or !w for Wikipedia or !rt for Rottom Tomatoes or just ! for the first result (I'm feeling lucky). The bang(!) commands are really the best part about them.

  2. Control of Information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Censoring the internet is becoming so crucial for the political control of massive states that virtually all countries on the planet practice it in some manner.

  3. Well now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought the Chinese loved duck.

    1. Re:Well now by pitchpipe · · Score: 3, Funny

      I thought the Chinese loved duck.

      They also love Go. The name should have been foolproof.

      --
      Look where all this talking got us, baby.
  4. A Big Compliment! by hooiberg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When countries like China (and North Korea, Middle Eastern countries, etc) start blocking something, it is a clear indication the authors have been doing a very good job. Better than a hundred reviews. I will switch to duckduckgo today.

    1. Re:A Big Compliment! by Dr.Saeuerlich · · Score: 5, Informative

      In the case of China, if China cannot control it then they will block it. China doesn't spend money on censoring. They ask e.g. Google to spend money on censoring. Each internet company in China must, according to Chinese law, employ their own censors. All the Chinese government has to do is auditing and then fining the companies as needed. Very efficient solution for them. Google didn't want to put up with this, so they left. And since China couldn't control them anymore they blocked Google.

      This doesn't necessarily mean DuckDuckGo is good or safe. It just means the Chinese government doesn't see itself able to control them. Hence the block.

  5. Re:Question remains by Dr.Saeuerlich · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sysadmins for big companies have access to VPNs. The Chinese government is okay with breaching the firewall for the sake of making money. Corporations usually have access to rather expensive and approved VPN connections (such as the place I work for). They allow you to access e.g. Facebook and the IP also shows up as China based. My personal VPN at home is illegal, much much cheaper and usually shows a US based IP.

    Most Sysadmins don't speak much English though, but there are many Chinese IT books available. They're MUCH cheaper than books in the US, although some are just direct translations from the English Help file to Chinese.