More People Than Ever Are Using DuckDuckGo; Site Says It Observed 14M Searches in One Day This Month (betanews.com)

Until the money runs out... by wbr1 · 2017-01-23 04:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

Caveat.. I do not know how DDG is funded. That said, serving that much traffic COSTS. The data they could collect has value. It is likely only a matter of time until one of the following:

1. Company folds due to lack of funds
2. Company sells or reorganizes to collect funds and starts divulging user data to do so.
3. Governments come in and either silently snoop or shut them down.M

Yeah, I am a cynic and have little faith in humanity. Sorry.

--
Silence is a state of mime.

Re:Until the money runs out... by houstonbofh · 2017-01-23 04:10 · Score: 3, Informative

Seeing as how it just donated a quarter million to privacy sites, I would say they are OK for cash right now. (From the article above) And advertising still pays without having to need the whole pie. https://www.quora.com/How-does... (Searched for on DDG)
Re:Until the money runs out... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 04:13 · Score: 1

> The data they could collect has value
That's the point. Pretty sure they anonymize anything they have to log and delete everything they can asap. Theoretically they should have no valuable data, that's why they get so much traffic.
Pretty sure they have an ad model for funding and it seems that nobody over there is looking to be a gazillionaire, so they might actually pull it off.
Of course, things change at scale as we all know...
Re:Until the money runs out... by telchine · 2017-01-23 04:13 · Score: 5, Informative

I do not know how DDG is funded.
DuckDuckGo earns revenue in two ways:
Serving ads from the Yahoo–Bing search alliance network, and
Affiliate relationships with several companies
Re:Until the money runs out... by wbr1 · 2017-01-23 04:29 · Score: 1

Not collecting data does not mean they won't in the future. I have altered the deal.... yadda yadda yadda

--
Silence is a state of mime.
Re:Until the money runs out... by Pascoea · 2017-01-23 04:32 · Score: 4, Interesting

Affiliate relationships with several companies
That's a pretty vague statement. I don't claim to know anything about DDG, or how they are funded, but that statement to me smells a lot like what Parent Post is concerned about. When your only product is data about what your customers are searching for, what do these "affiliates" have to gain by giving DDG money? Unless these affiliates are just handing over cash, without expecting anything in return.
Re:Until the money runs out... by Rick+Schumann · 2017-01-23 04:36 · Score: 1

I was thinking #2, actually, assuming that is that they haven't been lying this whole time and have been collecting and using data.
Re:Until the money runs out... by Oswald+McWeany · 2017-01-23 04:43 · Score: 1, Troll

Affiliate relationships with several companies
So, they're selling your data too in other words.

--
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Re:Until the money runs out... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 04:48 · Score: 1

2. Company sells or reorganizes to collect funds and starts divulging user data to do so.
There's no problem with ads when they are done in an ethical way. There's a huge market for ethical advertising and I think THAT is where the value is. If only companies realized that.
Re:Until the money runs out... by shaitand · 2017-01-23 04:55 · Score: 1

No no, they stream the data to their affiliates real time so they can honestly say they don't retain anything. Of course, one of those affiliates is likely a data warehouse owned by them with them as the only client but DDG deletes everything!
Re:Until the money runs out... by barbariccow · 2017-01-23 04:56 · Score: 4, Informative

Basically the way it works is if you search and the link ends in ebay or amazon or another one of their partners, it adds something to the url like "&from=dg" . Then they get either a small amount from the click, or it saves in a cookie/hidden form field, whatever "I came from duck duck go" so that your purchase yields a small percent.
Anyone who tried to make money from their personal website in the late-90s early 2000s probably remembers this model. It's old. And doesn't track you (It doesn't include WHAT you searched for, just that you found the item and you got there from duck duck go)
Re: Until the money runs out... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 05:22 · Score: 1

there is no login and they even have a lite version with no js you can save settings by a long address that incorperates all those settings ie no need for cookies. they are a good alternitive and one of the better alts.
Re:Until the money runs out... by Anubis+IV · 2017-01-23 05:42 · Score: 4, Informative

No, they're selling your attention without selling your information. As they make abundantly clear in their privacy policy (that's written in refreshingly plain English by the site's founder himself, no less), they modify links to some product pages to make them into affiliate links (i.e. they get a kickback for referring you to product pages at Amazon and eBay).
Their Information Shared section is a quick read. After they explain that they don't share any info, but that you might inadvertently leak search terms to the sites you click on if you purposefully disable protections DDG enables by default, they then have this great snippet that demonstrates the sort of mindset they follow:

Also, like anyone else, we will comply with court ordered legal requests. However, in our case, we don't expect any because there is nothing useful to give them since we don't collect any personal information.
Moreover, you can disable advertising for DuckDuckGo if you want (it's a setting you can toggle). Oh, and all of those settings I'm talking about? They only ever exist client-side and aren't linked to an account or identity in any way. You either pass them in as a set or URL parameters or as a cookie that contains no identifiable information. In fact, in a quick check of the site via uMatrix (with ads disabled), it shows that 100% of the resources served are first-party, so there isn't a single external Javascript or tracking cookie being set by sleazy advertisers or people outside their control.
If you're still concerned, here are the details about how they make money, which make it abundantly clear (again, in plain English) how they make money without selling their users' information.
Honestly, if you want to complain about DDG, the biggest issue remains the quality of their results. They finally got "good enough" for me, so I switched to them about a year ago and haven't regretted it, and they've only been getting better since then (e.g. they'll oftentimes have the top-rated StackOverflow answer displayed as a pull-out at the top of the search results), but there's still room for improvement (e.g. longer search terms produce noisy results for me). That said, the fact that they offer bangs makes it drop-dead simple to deal with those situations (i.e. add "!g" to your search to Google it instead). Plus, the fact that I can set them as my default search engine in Chrome/iOS/etc. means that no matter where I am, I can just use the bangs for Amazon (!a), Wikipedia (!w), Google Maps (!gm), Rotten Tomatoes (!rt), or whatever else to immediately jump to the results at those sites, rather than having to first navigate to them.
It's a great site that's continually getting better, and I would strongly encourage others to give it a shot or try it again if it's been awhile since the last time they tried it.
Re:Until the money runs out... by arth1 · 2017-01-23 05:50 · Score: 1

There's no problem with ads when they are done in an ethical way. There's a huge market for ethical advertising and I think THAT is where the value is. If only companies realized that.
Who gets to decide what's ethical?
Re:Until the money runs out... by Anubis+IV · 2017-01-23 06:05 · Score: 5, Informative

uMatrix shows that 100% of the resources being loaded in a DuckDuckGo search are first-party. There are no external scripts, tracking cookies, or other cross-site references of any sort. The first-party cookies they set are opt-in, entirely optional, and contain no identifiable information. The affiliate stuff is just the Amazon and eBay affiliate programs that anyone can sign up for (i.e. they add parameters to Amazon and eBay URLs to identify DDG as the referrer, that way they get a kickback, but it can't be tied back to you or your search).
Their privacy policy is written in plain English and--particularly in the three sections about information (not) collected and shared--makes it abundantly clear that they go out of their way to avoid collecting anything remotely related to you in the first place, that way they never have to face people being concerned about the retention loopholes you're talking about. They even offer tips for how you can help prevent information leakage and point out some ways that you may leak information if you choose to disable the protections they've put in place by default.
I get the cynical attitude, but at least look into things a bit before you wantonly smear one of the few companies that's actually trying to do right by their users when it comes to privacy.
Re:Until the money runs out... by houstonbofh · 2017-01-23 06:12 · Score: 1

250k is nothing.
I think you and I budget differently.
Re:Until the money runs out... by nitram31416 · 2017-01-23 07:12 · Score: 1

I only logged in to thank you. Your reply is clear, informative and provides all the good links. You've done the research, and added concise information on the website, such as bangs, which I didn't know about. Like you, I had issues with their search results not being so good, but thanks to you, I'll be returning to check it out. Thank you for such a great post, a rare find on the internet nowadays.
Re:Until the money runs out... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 08:23 · Score: 1

You do. Vote with your feet.
And stop waiting for someone else to tell you what to do.
Re:Until the money runs out... by harperska · 2017-01-23 09:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

I just read through the DDG privacy policy statement you linked. I have no reason to doubt their intentions at preserving your privacy. However, it would not be in violation of their privacy policy for them to do a call-out to a third party REST service (e.g. one run by the aforementioned ad network) on the server side as part of their search engine code, sending your IP, user agent, and search string. All they say is that they do not include your search terms in the referrer header sent to websites via links in the result list, and they do not persist any of your information themselves.
Re:Until the money runs out... by Anubis+IV · 2017-01-23 10:02 · Score: 4, Informative

That's a loophole worth considering, to be sure, but I don't think it's actually a concern in practice, given that their Information Shared section lists the data they share (i.e. nothing) and the conditions under which they share it (i.e. only when there's a court order). Suffice to say, if they were sharing info in the manner you described, they'd be obligated to disclose it there.
Re:Until the money runs out... by Anubis+IV · 2017-01-23 10:40 · Score: 1

You're very welcome. I like to think that Slashdot is one of the few places where we can still find posts like these, so inasmuch as I can contribute to that ideal, I like to do so.
Re:Until the money runs out... by shaitand · 2017-01-23 10:47 · Score: 1

In fairness that is just a hit counter, you don't need to retain any specifics just to keep count.
Re:Until the money runs out... by rtb61 · 2017-01-23 13:49 · Score: 2

Actually the way it most often happens is. New company with good management provides quality services at a low price with tight profit margins and grows and grows. Along comes a dick bag douche psychopath and quite simply pays more for the company than it is worth with the cooperation or corrupt psychopathic banksters. Once bought they, cut services, cheapen and offshore labour, force up prices, get rid of support and basically trade on betrayed trust with the customer base. Once the profits have been bumped up high enough and just prior to collapse, the banskters dress up the turkey to dump on the market, sell and some short time latter the major collapse, with the psychopaths wandering off with the inevitably offshored profits.
Those people left holding the bag of shite company, then try to fix it, either by going back to the original quality model (generally the original owners buying it back at a much lower price than they sold it for) or simply trying to force the exploitative model to work (company limps along until bought out at a major discount).
This is done on purpose with forethought and planning, a corporate scam enabled and protected by government corruption. This is done again and again to virtually every company at one time or another. Which is why the all eventually fail. Corporations that do not test for and exclude psychopathy are fools, eventually those tools will bring down the company, just a matter of time.

--
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Re:Until the money runs out... by ChrisMaple · 2017-01-24 03:56 · Score: 1

Affiliates might get preferred placement near the top of a search page.

--
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Re:Until the money runs out... by Anubis+IV · 2017-01-24 04:15 · Score: 1

They've posted the details about how they make money, which basically boil down to two things:
1) They show clearly-identified ads (unless you disable ads in your settings) at the top of some search results. The only information they send is your search term, that way they can get relevant ads. They never send anything identifying or that would allow Bing/Yahoo (the source of the ads) to target you specifically.
2) They modify eBay and Amazon links to make them affiliate links, just like you'd see on review sites or pretty much anywhere else. I.e. The URL is modified to indicate that you're coming from DDG, so they get a commission if you end up buying anything.
For them, that's enough to keep the lights on, though I doubt they're bringing money in hand-over-fist, since the majority of their current users are likely savvy ones who've disabled or blocked the ads, I'd imagine. They're probably hopeful that they can attract a more mainstream crowd with time, since those users are more likely to see ads.
Re:Until the money runs out... by doccus · 2017-01-24 07:16 · Score: 1

I've been using DDG since the day it first came out. Not very often, until recently, precisely because of, as you say, the "quality of their results". These have improved significantly, but not enough, yet, for me to use it as my go-to search engine. Although, mostly out of habituation, I still have Google as my home page on my browsers, fact is, for searches, I usually use ixQuick, which I'm surprised to see nobody has mentioned, yet, here on SD. You've done a great explanation of DDG here, and due to physical limitations I'm not able to type as exhaustive a description of ixquick, but the quick description is it acts as a "shim" between your browser and Google, so Google only ever sees the ixquick request, and nothing else. It then hands over the results to ixquick, or "start page" as it is also known, which then strips out all the tracking info, and hands over results without any "personalization" , meaning you het ALL the results, not just the ones that Google thinks you might want the most.
I've probabl;y done a poor job explaining it all, but there's an easy and clear explanation on their "start page" (https://www.ixquick.com/).
Between DDG and ixQuick I feel pretty much covered..

Google as last choice by houstonbofh · 2017-01-23 04:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

A lot of people (myself included) will look for any other alternative to Google first. That simply became too intrusive, and people are getting very uncomfortable with it. Those same people are still on FaceBook only because that is where everyone else is. If another option becomes available, (What I would love is federated social networking somewhat like e-mail works on various servers transparently) FaceBook may see the same kind of change.

Re:Google as last choice by tomxor · 2017-01-23 04:36 · Score: 1

Social networks are overrated anyway, i'm convinced they are a long fad, just go cold turkey and enjoy life with more meaningful communication. Twitter is at least focused on the actual communication part more instead of "profiles".
Re:Google as last choice by hodet · 2017-01-23 05:10 · Score: 2

I used to have that view. But truth is you can't live in a bubble. Well maybe you can, but you shouldn't have to. I treat FB like walking down the street. If I wouldn't say it in public I don't say it there. I logout of FB when I am not using it. I am still relatively sure they are tracking me if I logout so my whole approach to online is using my public persona. As for Twitter, the communication is limited. With FB you can at least share with family and friends. Twitter is just a bunch of people talking and never listening. They want you to follow them, they want to be popular, they want to push their wares or crappy ideas/ideology.
Re:Google as last choice by CRCulver · 2017-01-23 05:35 · Score: 3, Informative

What I would love is federated social networking somewhat like e-mail works on various servers transparently)

Even the federated model of e-mail has declined over time, with the vast majority of people using an e-mail address from a handful of large providers like GMail. Universities and companies are under pressure to have all the e-mail under their domain names actually served through GMail instead of running their own infrastructure. If you want to run your own server, there are a lot more hoops to jump through these days before you can federate, otherwise things you sent out just end up in spam folders. (These hoops are generally reasonable anti-spam ones, but they are nonetheless very different than a decade or two ago.) And now certain websites that monetize the hell out of their userbase are refusing registrations if the e-mail address you enter is from a domain that doesn't nudge its users into adopting a format like firstname.lastname@gmail.com.
Re:Google as last choice by houstonbofh · 2017-01-23 06:05 · Score: 1

Mainly use FaceBook for events. Twitter does not have them, and meetup charges, so no one joins.
Re:Google as last choice by houstonbofh · 2017-01-23 06:12 · Score: 1

Still a half dozen is more than one. And you can run your own mail server, (If you have the skill and the desire) but you can not run your own FaceBook.
Re:Google as last choice by hodet · 2017-01-23 06:52 · Score: 1

Of course FB is a bubble, but that's not what I was talking about. The bubble I am referring to is his ideology, one I actually share to a certain extent. As for your sidewalk comment, in my case it seems like the vast majority of my friends and family are then hanging around in front of his house, I am much more likely to find them there then out in the world.
Truth is, I spend only a few minutes a day on FB, and that is to interact with people I care about (say hi, give them a like or encouragement, share a joke, make a quick plan for IRL meetup etc etc), the rest of it, I am out there in the wild. I don't post my inner thoughts and life goals and supper pics and kid pics etc etc .....

Re:But we have Trump now by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2017-01-23 04:07 · Score: 5, Funny

"Obama was doing spying, a lot of spying, and it's been a disaster. We're gonna do spying, they'll be so much spying, you'll be saying "Can we stop some of the spying, just for a change of pace?", but no, we're gonna keep spying, wonderful spying, the best spying you've ever seen"...

Re:And they're improving, too by RobotRunAmok · 2017-01-23 04:12 · Score: 2

They can't NOT improve. It looks and behaves like a first-year CompSci student's summer project. I applaud the spirit behind what they are doing, but if Google is Photoshop, DDG is an Etch-A-Sketch.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2017-01-23 04:19 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion

For comparison by cdrudge · 2017-01-23 04:28 · Score: 4, Informative

For comparison purposes, Google hasn't said exactly how many searches it handles recently, but in 2012 it said it handled 1.2 trillion searches (or averaging 3.3B/day, 137M/hour, 2.2M/minute, 38k/second). It's estimated they handle over 2T per year now (5.5B/day, 228M/day, 3.8M/hour, 63K/second). So Google likely handles in 2 days what DDG has done in 8 years.

Re:For comparison by Oswald+McWeany · 2017-01-23 04:47 · Score: 1

DDG is still small fry compared to google. I think most people TRY duck duck go, hoping to switch (I know I did), the problem is, when you do try using them you quickly find how inferior they are as a search engine.
I really hope they improve and become a true competitor (even if I don't trust any tech company is really privacy-first), right now though, they're not very good. I went with DDG for a month- but then switched back to the big evil that is Google.

--
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Re:For comparison by shaitand · 2017-01-23 05:03 · Score: 1

Fair enough but it is worth remembering that something like that usage comparison will be true at some point of whatever search does dethrone Google in the end.

The good thing about a search engine is that it is a tool that works equally well regardless of whether others have adopted it or not. This is quite distinct from tools that gain their value through some sort of interaction with data created by other users of the tool.
Re:For comparison by Voyager529 · 2017-01-23 05:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'm unfortunately in the same boat, but I think it does also depend on what you're looking for. I'd wager that if a lot of people had their default search engine changed to DDG, they'd probably fine. Let's be real, "facebook" and "facebook.com" are very common searches because most people have forgotten the distinction between a search bar and an address bar, so typing URLs in a Google/MSN search is probably a solid third of their traffic. DDG would probably be just fine for this sort of thing; people sure didn't notice when their default search got changed to Trivoli or the dozen other browser hijackers that were making their rounds a few years ago.
Where DDG comes up very short, however, is in more specialized searches. If you're looking for a code snippet or an outdated version of some app or something more specific and technical, DDG is a crapshoot at best and useless at worst. I mean, I can't really blame them - Bing is still inferior at this point and they have thrown Microsoft quantities of money at the problem. Search is hard - there was a decade prior to Google where Altavista and Lycos were doing their best with plenty of money and lots of talent, and they were still beaten by Google.
Ironically, DDG might get better relative to Google because Google results have continued their downward spiral toward the lowest common denominator. Just yesterday, I was trying to find out if anyone else with my particular TV was able to get the Android app "AnyRemote" to send the right IR code. I went to Google to search the model number with 'anyremote', and Google seemed to thoroughly ignore the existence of 'anyremote' in my search query, instead showing me physical remote controls, even when I put anyremote in quotes.
If Google continues this behavior, it's only a matter of time before they end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, giving DDG inroads to increase their market share. The ultimate question is, however, whether the revenue they get while retaining their staunch privacy directives is enough to keep them profitable, or if they will have to compromise their privacy policy, be bought out by someone who does not share their values, or make some other rough choices to keep themselves afloat.
Re:For comparison by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 05:34 · Score: 1

I added a small Javascript as a link to my favorites bar (not sure /. will show this) and started using DDG as my primary search site. If I'm not happy with the results, I can click this link and it copies my search from DDG and fires a query to Google:
javascript:url='https://www.google.com/';if(document.getElementById(%22search_form_input%22))%7Burl='https://www.google.com/%23safe=off&q='+document.getElementById(%22search_form_input%22).value%7D;window.open(url,'_self',false)
Re:For comparison by Oswald+McWeany · 2017-01-23 06:14 · Score: 1

That's really not a bad idea, thanks!

--
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Re:For comparison by danomac · 2017-01-23 06:42 · Score: 2

most people have forgotten the distinction between a search bar and an address bar
Yep. Just last week I saw someone searching for their bank through Google rather than typing it in the address bar. I explained why it's bad to do that in layman-friendly terms and all I got was a blank stare.
It doesn't help that some browsers are combining the search and address bar; these really should be kept separate.
Re:For comparison by lgw · 2017-01-23 08:04 · Score: 1

That gives Google the revenue to be far more evil than DDG. They have a full engineering team devoted to determining your race, your religion, level of education, income, and so on. If you're worried about Trump wanting a "Muslim registry", you should at least be vaguely concerned that Google already has one.

--
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.

Re:And they're improving, too by GLMDesigns · 2017-01-23 04:29 · Score: 1

True. Unfortunately. But true. Let's hope increased usage allows for some updates.

--
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond

Re:Great search engine by GLMDesigns · 2017-01-23 04:31 · Score: 1

Really? Thanks I'll give it another chance. Hope the 16th time is a charm.

--
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond

Re:Great search engine by Opportunist · 2017-01-23 04:33 · Score: 1

For now, until the SEO locusts find out that people start using that engine.

So maybe we should be quiet about it. let the SEOs mess with the results.

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re:But we have Trump now by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 04:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

Trump will get rid of all the spying. Thank you Trump.

When Obama was campaigning in '07 he said he would end the spying on U.S. citizens. And have the most transparent government ever. And close Gitmo.

I actually heard the speech this morning on talk radio.

I don't even care what Trump's stance is on domestic spying, because the alternative was Hillary. And rules don't apply to a Clinton. Rules like the Constitution.

Re:And they're improving, too by Pascoea · 2017-01-23 04:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

but if Google is Photoshop, DDG is an Etch-A-Sketch.

This is an excellent analogy, especially if all you need to get the job done is an Etch-A-Sketch. In most cases, the less complicated the tool is the more effective it is at accomplishing its intended purpose. Which is going to be a better tool for pounding in nail? A hammer or this?

Another Google Alternative by allo · 2017-01-23 04:46 · Score: 1

https://www.qwant.com/

Results are quite good and seem to be a bit better than duckduckgo sometimes. Uses more fancy javascript, but has more fancy features as well and the same promise of no data collection.

Re:Another Google Alternative by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-23 05:16 · Score: 1

This is one of the options which I am planning to test while looking for my new primary search engine. I knew about Qwant because its bot has been systematically visiting my main site (customsolvers.com) during the last months. I went there once and didn't get a bad impression, but still have to test it a lot before having a worthy opinion.

As a complementary fun fact, the top search-engine bots visiting my sites are the following:
1. Google (by far, the most persistent bot ever).
2. Yandex (no idea why as far as all the contents are in English and Spanish).
3. Sogou/Baidu/Soso (no idea why for the same reason than the previous one).

--
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Re:Another Google Alternative by allo · 2017-01-23 06:35 · Score: 1

I found qwant in my referer logs as well, because it got me visitors ;-).
But i have the hang to type "!g search term" in these search engines (which i use via urlbar shortcut anyway).
From the quality:
- Google
- Bing/Yandex
- qwant
- duckduckgo
For some terms ddg before qwant. Yandex and Bing are very good alternatives when google finds only the seo spam sites or big companies.
Re:Another Google Alternative by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-23 06:53 · Score: 1

I thought that Yandex was mostly in Russian/for Russia and never tried it, at least not directly (a big proportion of the DDG results come from Yandex); I might try it as well. I had some past bad experiences with Bing, but I guess that should try it again. Thanks for sharing your impressions!

BTW, I forgot to mention in my previous comment the seznam.cz bot which also visits my site a lot. This is a Czech search engine, whose deep interest in my site is also a mystery to me.

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Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Re:Another Google Alternative by allo · 2017-01-23 10:22 · Score: 1

yandex seems to cover the web like most other search engines do. Maybe you encounter some russian censorship, but on the other hand russia doesn't care much about stuff like dmca notes *hinthinthint*
Re:Another Google Alternative by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-23 10:53 · Score: 1

Thanks for the information. Perhaps a friend of a friend might eventually find this useful while performing a research about something (winkwink).

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Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Re:Another Google Alternative by RockDoctor · 2017-01-25 00:01 · Score: 1

2. Yandex (no idea why as far as all the contents are in English and Spanish).
My wife, who is Russian, also speaks English and Spanish. I find your surprise surprising.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:Another Google Alternative by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-25 01:53 · Score: 1

My wife, who is Russian, also speaks English and Spanish. I find your surprise surprising.
Now, everything makes sense! You wife is the reason why these bots keep coming to my site. Please, do something! LOL

As highlighted in one of my comments below, I wasn't aware about Yandex being a worldwide search-engine; I thought that it was mostly focused on Russia(n). So the reason for my surprise was my ignorance regarding this exact issue.

In any case, I still find kind of curious these bots being so interested in my site, which isn't related to Russia at all. The most logical situation would be English-speaking bots of major search engines (rather than Russian, Chinese and Czech, as commented below too). On the other hand, Yandex does provide a big proportion of the results for some English-speaking search engines like DDG, so perhaps this is the reason.

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Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Re:Another Google Alternative by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-25 02:10 · Score: 1

I meant "your wife" and "one of my comments above"

(Still not fully-adapted to the Slashdot no-editing peculiarities).

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Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Re:Another Google Alternative by RockDoctor · 2017-01-26 00:59 · Score: 1

Is there a search engine which isn't "global"?
No, seriously.
There probably isn't a person on Slashdot who doesn't have something like this model of how Google works : "read web page ; feed text into dictionary engine ; feed links into spider navigation engine ; feed count of links into popularity engine ; follow [next] link to [next] page". Hence "spidering" across "the web", as you use the memes.
That model doesn't contain a "parse link for TLD and reject TLDs [on list]" step. And if you're using "this page is linked to from another page" as your metric of popularity, why would you do that? Seriously - why?
OK, I know that Google uses many more inputs into it's popularity engine, And probably so does Yandax and DDG, and the presence of dynamic web pages changes everything. But still, why would you even start limiting your spidering by TLD? It's not as if TLD has much to do with location, after all. I have domains in .COM (non-geographic), .ORG (non-geographic, .NET (non-geographic), .CX (Christmas Island, not where I live. Or pay tax) and a couple under my TLD.
I'm going to guess that your domain is linked to from some Russian/ Czech domains - which could include posts on their social media sites. Maybe you've got a Russian-resident customer who really likes your product, and has it in his Yandax forums signature.
Maybe "CustomSolver" means something interesting with a Cyrillic keyboard typo (I make such typos all the time when I forget which keyboard I've enabled. But I have to look at my fingers when I type, since we were never taught typing at school. Why would you? Typing is a skill for unmarried women ; metal-bashing is what you teach boys.) But I can't think of what that typo might be.
Maybe - and this might be worth paying attention to - someone in has cracked some of your product and is re-selling it, resulting in you having a suspiciously high hit count from east of the Trieste-Stettin line.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:Another Google Alternative by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-26 01:39 · Score: 1

Is there a search engine which isn't "global"?
Baidu bots visit my site a lot. Not sure about your (or your wife's :)) knowledge of Chinese, but for me going there is pure gibberish. Also I assume that Baidu's results are mostly focused on China or on interests of Chinese people (at least, people speaking Chinese). For example, I assume that a Baidu user looking for software development companies (= what my site is about) expect to firstly find ones who speak Chinese (and, perhaps, even are only located in China). Equivalent assumptions hold for other language/country-specific search engines: although you might potentially find everything (= formally being global), the higher priority is usually given to local (country/language/area) results (= in practice not being global). As far as my website/company is very small and isn't even well positioned where it should be (i.e., English- and Spanish-speaking search engines/directories), it seems kind of weird to get so much interest from search engines which shouldn't rank it highly anyway. Bear in mind that the whole point of my (kind-of-kidding) concern (= its context = what allows anyone to adequately understand my point) is the relative relevance of these non-English bots with respect to the a-priori-most-logical English/Spanish ones (except the ones from Google which have always been there).

Regarding the rest of your post, it seems to me that you are trying to address my concerns, as if I would be asking for help or something like that (?!); what is extremely far from being true. Note that I am an experienced programmer, my company deals with custom software development and, on top of everything, I have developed myself a set of custom crawlers in the past (they got up to 3M domains and lots of information). And, in fact, I am currently running a new set (still just starting with no relevant info yet, but these are the first generation of new bots). So, my ideas about how crawlers work, how domains are distributed across internet, what to expect from a search engine (-> have used quite a few them too), etc. are quite clear. I merely shared a curious fact.

There are many possible reasons to explain these behaviours (what I have suggested or some of the issues you are pointing out). In any case, this isn't a problem at all (I can stop the bots via robots.txt file I want, but honestly I don't care); and, even in case of being a problem, I wouldn't certainly ask for help to understand/fix it for me. As said this was simply a curious issue which I thought that deserved to be included in my first comment as a nice-to-have farewell. I wasn't certainly expecting it to trigger this set of comments. Anyway, I hope that everything is clearer now.

--
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Re:Another Google Alternative by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-26 02:01 · Score: 1

PS: I get bots, but I don't visits/interest/people contacting me. Even though, the bots keep coming over and over anyway. And my product isn't such, but a service (my personal software-development work).

--
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Re:Another Google Alternative by RockDoctor · 2017-01-26 02:48 · Score: 1

I see fine and well that it's just a curiosity. When I looked at my weblogs, I wondered which bots were from which search engines, and what they were looking for, but similarly it was only a passing concern. Interesting that you mention Chinese-specific crawlers too. Just a couple of days ago I was on the third read-through of a job advert which sounded very much up my street. No mention of pay rates (but who puts pay rates in job adverts) or work rotas, but the job was based in Schenzhen (I didn't get as far as checking where that is - SE China somewhere), all the description was in English, with few grammatical errors, the job spec required fluency in English, but didn't make nay other linguistic constraints.
Like I said, I got to the third read-through before I noticed the bit about being required to be a citizen of China at the time of application. It didn't surprise me, but it was very much buried in the fine print, not given any degree of priority.
So, the assumptions I was making about the language requirements were very much off-centre from the assumptions that the person writing the advert was making. Oops - "my bad" (as I believe the vernacular is this century). But it did remind me that I need to check my assumptions too.
A week or three ago I came across a page describing Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names. (Actually, it looks as if it was Slashdotted a half-decade or so ago, but I don't recall it - I think I was in Canada. Or Korea.) That's got a depressingly long (non-exhaustive) list of things that the writer had encountered which people believed, but were wrong, concerning names. Delights like

Peopleâ(TM)s names are assigned at birth.
OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
Five years?
Youâ(TM)re kidding me, right?
I'm going to have to bookmark that, to remind me to check things.
The only time I've made money from programming, it was when trying to compare two sets of data from two different companies, describing the same set of events (each company blamed the failure of the other's tool for causing their tool to fail, costing the operation a million dollars or so ; one of the combatants asked me to see if I could do something with the data sets, for Monday, 07:00. This was Friday, 15:00.) Eventually I found each data set's internal clock - and of course they were in different formats. One was text strings, including the day name IIRC ; the other I eventually parsed as UNIX epoch seconds, but the operators hadn't corrected their clock for the fact that this was a leap year. Ever since then, I've been cautious about data formats. But it was a long weekend of learning how to write C++ (only tool I had) and accidentally overwriting my source code when I typed a compilation command incorrectly.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:Another Google Alternative by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-26 03:41 · Score: 1

Well, this has certainly been an unexpected answer, although it kind of addresses some of my previous doubts.

I don't want to extend this chat too much, but cannot refrain myself from commenting some of the items of the list you are linking:

"6. People’s names fit within a certain defined amount of space." -> True. There isn't a single string of characters which is big enough to not fit somewhere. So, on account of the language being considered, you can either set a big enough length or a reasonably-big one + truncating subsystem making sure that everything fits there.

"12. People’s names are case sensitive." -> Always false and nobody should assume otherwise. Names are usually capitalised, but such a fact has no influence in its definition (e.g., you should write Alvaro, my name; in any case, there is no intrinsic difference between alvaro and Alvaro, other than an eventual mistake). In this specific situation, I would always store all the strings as lower caps and, when using them, apply the grammatical rules of the given culture (upper caps or not).

"13. People’s names are case insensitive." -> Together with the previous one, it seems to confirm that there is a bug here ;)

"16. People’s names are not written in ALL CAPS." and "17. People’s names are not written in all lower case letters." -> The aforementioned approach of dealing with just one format (all small caps) + applying the rules of the corresponding culture when using this information is also fine here.

"24. My system will never have to deal with names from China." -> True. The input system is the supreme ruler which should only allow in whatever the remaining parts of the system can deal with. If your system isn't prepared to deal with Chinese (or whatever) names, these inputs shouldn't be allowed (and/or an error should be triggered). So, while working on a specific system to accomplish a certain goal, I can be sure that it will never get a given type of inputs. Same ideas apply to falsehoods 25, 26, 27 and 28.

"40. People have names." -> People certainly have names, but your information gathering subsystem might be faulty. Nulls/blank entries should always be either properly accounted for or knowledgeably rejected (= triggering an error because of being completely sure that this information is essential).

I mean... I get the point that you (and this site) are trying to make. But here is mine: generic truths are usually wrong (although helpful, informative, funny, etc.) and I do rarely rely on them. That's why I never saw my initial "concerns", adequately understood within the right context, as a sure problem (or error or conspiracy or whatever) but as a likely-indicative-although-perhaps-meaning-nothing curious fact, for which I would have accepted any sensible explanation (yours were sensible, but also blind guesses) without any problem.

It seems that both of us did misunderstand the other one (intention, knowledge, expectations, etc.), although it has been a nice chat :)

--
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Re:Another Google Alternative by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-26 21:07 · Score: 1

Within my efforts to slightly (I cannot do miracles) de-stupidify some extremely-ignorant-but-surprisingly-unaware-of-that-fact stupids likely to be reading this post (why? No idea. I plainly accept the reality), I will write some lines about the meaning of bot.

As everyone should know, this is the short form of robot and, in internet/software, refers to a wide variety of programs performing automated actions of different complexity. The expression crawling bots (or crawlers or spiders or search-engine bots, etc.) usually refers to the ones which navigate through internet retrieving information from a big number of websites for a search-engine or similar (e.g., domain ranking, list of domain backlinks, etc.). Usually, they are properly identified, respect sites' wishes (e.g., only retrieving information allowed by the given robots.txt file) and tend to focus on the public parts (e.g., HTML/CSS/JavaScript, documents, pictures, etc.). That is, the fake-account/captcha-solving/similar robots (the ones emulating real users for whatever reason) are also programs performing automated actions and also can be rightfully called robots, but have nothing to do with the aforementioned crawlers.

In any case and by bearing in mind that this post is addressed to a particularly-ignorant audience, I want to highlight that you can create a program to do whatever you want (at least, if you are an experienced enough programmer who is very used to develop virtually anything completely from scratch, what is the case with me), you can call that program whatever you wish (robot, application, program, virus, friend, etc.) and you can even hide its actions up to certain point (BTW, what I will never do, as far as I am honest and straightforward in both life and programming).

To finish this you-are-so-stupid-and-ignorant-that-I-have-no-idea-why-you-think-that-you-have-anything-to-with-me post, I want to highlight that the current version of the aforementioned varocarbas.com (my R&D-focused site) bots perform an extremely simple analysis and only collect domain names and count backlinks. There will be a second-stage set of bots which will perform a more complex analysis, but which will also store a minimum amount of information. Anyone interested in all this should visit that site in some weeks when I will write detailed explanations (yes, a bit of advertisement. What did you think? That I teach for free? Even my rants and stupids-get-away-from-me posts have a purpose :)).

--
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.

Re:And they're improving, too by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-23 04:50 · Score: 1

Fully agree with you.

DDG was my primary search engine for some months and, despite (kind of) getting used to its peculiarities, I kept seeing problems. For me, the deal breaker was when their literal string support (e.g., "I want to find exactly this chunk") stopped working during some days (apparently, now it works fine again). Also I have seen other issues which have made me somehow distrust it.

Currently, the position for being my primary search engine is vacant. Any interested applicants around? Please, bring references and a bribe (the references can be small).

--
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.

Re:And they're improving, too by vux984 · 2017-01-23 04:53 · Score: 2

"They can't NOT improve. It looks and behaves like a first-year CompSci student's summer project."

~shrug~ It looks like google did when it was still good.

Easy to Change Duck Duck Go to your Default by RumGunner · 2017-01-23 04:57 · Score: 1

If you are running Firefox, it is easy to change your default search engine to Duck Duck Go. They have made it one of the pull down search menu options.

I've been using it to search for months now, and I don't notice much difference. Highly recommend.

Re:Easy to Change Duck Duck Go to your Default by Sepulep · 2017-01-23 05:13 · Score: 1

same here, rarely use google now. in addition I like DDGs infinte scroll for the search results...
Re:Easy to Change Duck Duck Go to your Default by danomac · 2017-01-23 06:39 · Score: 1

Ditto, I switched perhaps six months ago. I will say sometimes DDG will give you daft results and you'll have to resort to Google, but out of that six months, I only recall having to use Google three times.

Yearning for Photoshop v1.0 by tomxor · 2017-01-23 04:57 · Score: 1

Sometimes Etch-A-Sketch is better, Photoshop has a multi GiB installation size, a growing hodgepodge of not very unified tools because they grew there and can't change cos user-base, requires a subscription service and insists on "managing" your media library and by extension you life... You yearn for the power and simplicity of Photoshop v1.0, but it's no longer available, enough is enough - you say fuck Photoshop and you settle for an Etch-A-Sketch, spend more time actually drawing things rather than being distracted by shit.

Of course sometimes you're still forced to use Photoshop because the Etch-A-Sketch doesn't have a fricking magic wand, although the overhead of going back and forth between AFF (Aluminium Fillings Format) and PSD is such a pain that sometimes you just grind through it manually with those primitive x y dials. I've considered at least patching multiaxis input device support (AKA a mouse) to make this easier... too far? what are we talking about?

Re:Great search engine by Kernel+Krumpit · 2017-01-23 04:59 · Score: 1

and even if/when more/different results are required then Bang G from FF's top right Search Box. Bangs rock! Errmmmm ya do all use DDG with FF right?

--
May the lies we live by make us strong, healthy, happy and wise - Kurt Vonnegut.

Re:Only heard of it after spyware by barbariccow · 2017-01-23 04:59 · Score: 1

Did he send you "JobDescription.exe" ?

Re:Great search engine by barbariccow · 2017-01-23 05:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

It depends how you search. I know how to search. Google used to let me search well. Then they changed that.

"Yeah, I know you put all 5 of those words on there, but how about just two of them, and a vague 3rd-level synonym for a third?"

or "Hey, I know you put that error message in quotes. But I didn't get any ad results related to that, so I just decided to remove 3/4 of the words and replace them with 'lose weight now'

If you need that, sure, use google. If you actually know what you're searching for, use ddg.

Re:But we have Trump now by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 05:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

100% better than a president lying to your face

Great for TPB by cen1 · 2017-01-23 05:12 · Score: 3, Informative

When I forget the latest domain TBP had to switch to I use DDG and it finds it. Can't say the same for Goo.. *CENSORSHIP* search engine.

Re:Great for TPB by cen1 · 2017-01-23 05:38 · Score: 2

I just typed "TPB" and "thepiratebay" and all I get is proxies. Official site is censored by Google.
Re:Great for TPB by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite · 2017-01-24 02:10 · Score: 1

Searching for "TPB" gives me thepiratebay.org as first hit on google, on ddg I get it as the eight search result behind a lot of proxies. With "thepiratebay" the table is turned and thepiratebay.org is now the ninth search result on google while it's the first one on ddg. This was done with google "safe search" turned off. I would be interested to know more in detail how your search results differs from mine.

Re:Great search engine by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · 2017-01-23 05:20 · Score: 1

I have never had the kind of experience you describe with Google. Not once.

I've never had a positive search experience with DDG.

Not once.

--
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump

Re:Maybe dumb questions but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 05:23 · Score: 1

When was the last time a duck lied to you? Or sold your personal information? Now a goose is a different story. They are evil bastards.

DDG == Google yet, but improving. by bjdevil66 · 2017-01-23 05:25 · Score: 4, Informative

I decided to give DDG a try full-time as my default in the browser a while back (year or two?). DDG wasn't getting it done, however, so I would just end up back on Google. It was easy to justify since my office still uses Google docs/spreadsheets and is deeply intertwined with their products and I can't 100% escape their "Big Google" ecosystem. Besides, their results were usually superior when it came to getting me the exact results I wanted (vs. just being close) QUICKLY - so I took advantage of the saved time I'd already paid for with my privacy already.

I'm finding that more recently, however, that DDG is "good enough" in most cases. I still go back and forth because I'm too impatient, but DDG always gets the first shot - and I don't go back very often.

So, if you tried DDG in the past and found their results wanting, you should give it another try.

Re:But we have Trump now by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 05:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

Trump will get rid of all the spying. Thank you Trump.

When Obama was campaigning in '07 he said he would end the spying on U.S. citizens. And have the most transparent government ever. And close Gitmo.

Two things there:
(1) Congress prevented him.
(2) Candidate Obama, once elected, adapted to fit the political reality. Candidate Trump seems so far to keep wanting to distort reality to conform to his fragile ego.

I actually heard the speech this morning on talk radio.

I don't even care what Trump's stance is on domestic spying, because the alternative was Hillary. And rules don't apply to a Clinton. Rules like the Constitution.

But the constitution does apply to Trump?

I prefer duckduckduckgo by MobyDisk · 2017-01-23 05:26 · Score: 2

Since I am concerned that duckduckgo might leak search information, I prefer duckduckduckgo, which uses duckduckgo internally, but hides my searches even better. Should we ever find that duckduckduckgo is also storing personal information, we could always create duckduckduckduckgo, which would solve the problem once and for all.

Re:I prefer duckduckduckgo by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 08:31 · Score: 1

WARNING: duckduckduckgo.com is a harmful site (probably serving malware). It was blocked by my proxy.
Re:I prefer duckduckduckgo by MobyDisk · 2017-01-23 10:11 · Score: 1

Well crap, I just gave them some traffic. Sorry!

Re:And they're improving, too by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 05:48 · Score: 1

DDG is rubbish. The results are extremely limited, and seem to be little more than a primed for certain demographics and scrapping of the same ol' place-holder sites.

There is no case where Etch-a-Sketch is the required tool for any job, unless it's to illustrate how not to do something. A far cheaper pencil and scrap of paper will shit all over that junk.

Re:Proof no one cares... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 06:09 · Score: 1

Your definition of useless is rather broad dont you think? Its quite useful for 14 Million people a day.

Re:Maybe dumb questions but... by JustNiz · 2017-01-23 06:43 · Score: 1

Well said. My mum used to keep geese. They're definately psycho.

Re:Maybe dumb questions but... by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2017-01-23 07:01 · Score: 1

For 1, I think they are audited by a third party. But yeah, at some point you have to trust. You can see that there are no ids on the cookies they send, but they could be browser fingerprinting.

For 2, they see ads, not tracking. That is, if you search for lawn mowers, they show ads for lawn mowers, and get a kickback if you go to sears from the DDG search results and buy a lawnmower. If you search for ice cream, you'll get ads for ice cream. What they do NOT do, is show you lawn mower ads when you're searching for ice cream, just because you searched for lawn mowers recently (I suppose they may show chocolate sauce ads with ice cream, because they go together)..

:

--
Your ad here. Ask me how!

Almost noble by Okian+Warrior · 2017-01-23 07:07 · Score: 2, Informative

When Obama was campaigning in '07 he said he would end the spying on U.S. citizens. And have the most transparent government ever. And close Gitmo.

Two things there:

(1) Congress prevented him.

(2) Candidate Obama, once elected, adapted to fit the political reality. Candidate Trump seems so far to keep wanting to distort reality to conform to his fragile ego.

About 6 months prior to Obama's first term election, he completely flip-flopped on telecom immunity.

As a result, Obama received greater telecom campaign donations, which helped him spend more money on his campaign.

That's an example of a politician "adapting to fit political reality", and the political climate was so corrupt that your candidate felt comfortable betraying a promise several months before the election!

Framing "betraying campaign promises" as "adapting to fit the political reality" makes it seem almost... noble.

Re:But we have Trump now by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 07:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

Even before being elected he called for his opponents to be hacked

No, he did not. He pointed out that if someone wants the 30k emails Hillary erased then ask Russia. Because Russia most certainly has them. And given that the emails she did hand over were enough to put a normal person in prison, Putin has some serious dirt on Hillary.

Spinning that into Trump calling for Russia to hack democrats is complete bullshit.

its awesome by citylivin · 2017-01-23 07:31 · Score: 1

Using it as primary search for years, do tens of searches a day and have rarely any problem. I still use !i for google image search which i find useful, but other than that I am 100% DDG user for years.

Only problem i ever had is that it constantly prompts you to install the search bar for ddg. But i blame this on not accepting permanent cookies or noscript usage or some combination of the two. Google is even worse at trying to get you using chrome and the toolbars and all that, its beyond intrusive with them...

If they get better image search, i would never have to use google.

--
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy

Re:Proof no one cares... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 07:41 · Score: 1

Today I learned that 14 million people is "nobody", and that "not the most popular" equals "useless".

Re:And they're improving, too by thegarbz · 2017-01-23 07:52 · Score: 1

That's a good analogy assuming that Google is cutting corners.

But just like trying to draw circles with an Etch-A-Sketch, quite often when you have a nail you'd prefer the multi-tool, especially when faced with something like this.

Re:And they're improving, too by lgw · 2017-01-23 07:52 · Score: 2

They can't NOT improve. It looks and behaves like a first-year CompSci student's summer project. I applaud the spirit behind what they are doing, but if Google is Photoshop, DDG is an Etch-A-Sketch.

I hear just complaint just often enough to suspect astroturfing. I've never had a problem with DDG search results - well, no more problem than I have with Google. Plus there's a lot of good bang commands that give me a better command line in my search box, starting with !wa to use the wonderful Wolfram Alpha site.

--
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.

duckduckgo vs startpage comparison by doug141 · 2017-01-23 07:59 · Score: 1

http://securityspread.com/2016...

Re:But we have Trump now by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 08:31 · Score: 1

Congress is incapable of preventing a President from ordering those Executive Branch agencies to stop doing whatever the President tells them to stop doing. The President can fire nearly everyone in the Executive branch for any reason or no reason, and does so often, starting at Inauguration Day. This is the point of Executive power, to have complete control over the Executive branch of government. Congress cannot stop the President from being chief Executive, it's illegal.

And even if they pass laws making the President do certain things - like they Constitutionally have over the ability to declare war, for exac=mple, the President can completely ignore congress - again, as with the right to declare war versus actually waging war.

Blaming Congress is a cop-out that ignores how the government actually works, and avoids placing blame on the single human being on the planet that can end illegal spying in one second with his own words alone and no cooperation from anyone else required, and no vote needed.

There are so many ways the President can end spying on Executive power alone that it's impossible to make up enough excuses to pretend he or she can't do it.

Google is CAPTCHAed by short · 2017-01-23 08:35 · Score: 1

I had to switch to a different search engine as I really do not have time for their CAPTCHA for each search. Moreover sometimes they even require multiple CAPTCHAs for one search. Google search was the best one but it is really not worth so much time of mine.

Re:But we have Trump now by harperska · 2017-01-23 08:39 · Score: 2

... given that the emails she did hand over were enough to put a normal person in prison ...

I keep hearing people repeat this (probably because they keep hearing it repeated on talk radio and such), but I have never actually heard any specifics. Can you please tell me what it was that she did exactly, and which law that action broke (please cite specific statute), the breaking of which would normally have lead to a conviction and incarceration?

Re:And they're improving, too by RobotRunAmok · 2017-01-23 08:41 · Score: 1

>>suspect astroturfing

OMG, You're Right! You nailed me! I'm a shill for Google, who is paying me and around 70 others to artfully denigrate DDG and other search engines every time they are mentioned favorably on various public forums because Eric Schmidt is terrified they're starting to eat into his market share! Gosh, now that I have been outed, I'll lose my job...! How will I ever provide for my family?!

...idiot...

Re:And they're improving, too by lgw · 2017-01-23 09:23 · Score: 1

Well, when you make hyperbolic claims with no supporting details or evidence, expect skepticism.

And Microsoft was in fact paying people to do the very same with Linux back in the day, when the term "astroturf" was invented and Linux had a similar market share on the desktop to DDG's. Also, Google does all evil things, so I'm sure they're doing this evil thing.

--
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.

Re:But we have Trump now by k6mfw · 2017-01-23 09:36 · Score: 1

Can you please tell me what it was that she did exactly

Me too, I always wondered what are these emails? What dirt do they contain? If Hillary is so bad, then how come her opponents never deliver the "goods." It's always generalizations and commentaries. How come Clinton never gives a brief concise answer without the need for a scripted choreographed answered subject to interpretation.

While they are at it, can they also find Jimmy Hoffa, Bigfoot, Nessie, and all the missing socks.

--
mfwright@batnet.com

Re:And they're improving, too by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-23 10:00 · Score: 2

Criticising Google's privacy, advertised content, etc. is very easy (and probably well deserved), but on the technical front there are still really good. I don't recall having ever seen a clear error, bug, bad-looking part, etc. when using Google. I have used Google a lot, exactly the same than all the people here (at least, at some point). I don't agree with some of their policies and this is the only reason why I am trying to not use it.

--
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.

WARNING potential malware site by Traf-O-Data-Hater · 2017-01-23 10:10 · Score: 1

As the other respondent has mentioned, d*ckd*ckd*ckgo is a possible malware site. Be careful.

Ecosia by Moochman · 2017-01-23 10:11 · Score: 1

Not sure about the privacy angle, but Ecosia plants trees for every search, and otherwise uses Google's engine. Also, I've noticed the results are not personalized, which I for one prefer.

Why you should actually use Duckduckgo by TheOuterLinux · 2017-01-23 10:20 · Score: 1

Its not really the spying stuff as much as I like searching for a subject and then getting objective information back rather than have Google show me what it thinks I want to see mingled in with a bunch of ads. What good is intelligence gathering if it can't be applied to the masses? But on that note, Duckduckgo also has a .onion version. TheOuterLinux.com

Re:Great search engine by barbariccow · 2017-01-23 10:42 · Score: 1

A search on google for "Google no longer respects quotes" shows that in April 2012 (first result) google stopped obeying quotes. So it's been longer than I thought.

Basically, you're probably searching for things like "Buy new tv" or "What good show now tv", and I'm looking more for obscure error messages, quotes, etc. Like I said, google is okay for some things, just not when you know exactly what you want, and don't want your result to be tailored toward a profile built from your browsing and other searching habits.

Re:But we have Trump now by HatofPig · 2017-01-23 11:28 · Score: 1

I was watching on YouTube.

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Silicon & Charybdis McLuhan Kildall Papert Kay

Re:I give the best chance to beat google to YacY by Paul+Fernhout · 2017-01-23 13:02 · Score: 1

Interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"YaCy (pronounced "ya see") is a free distributed search engine, built on principles of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.[1][2] Its core is a computer program written in Java distributed on several hundred computers, as of September 2006, so-called YaCy-peers. Each YaCy-peer independently crawls through the Internet, analyzes and indexes found web pages, and stores indexing results in a common database (so called index) which is shared with other YaCy-peers using principles of P2P networks. It is a free search engine that everyone can use to build a search portal for their intranet and to help search the public internet clearly.
Compared to semi-distributed search engines, the YaCy-network has a decentralised architecture. All YaCy-peers are equal and no central server exists. It can be run either in a crawling mode or as a local proxy server, indexing web pages visited by the person running YaCy on his or her computer. (Several mechanisms are provided to protect the user's privacy). Access to the search functions is made by a locally running web server which provides a search box to enter search terms, and returns search results in a similar format to other popular search engines.
YaCy is available on Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux. ..."

--
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Users getting tired of spying and censorship? by walterbyrd · 2017-01-23 13:07 · Score: 1

Would not be surprised to see people move away from youtube, facebook, and twitter, as well.

Re:But we have Trump now by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-23 13:11 · Score: 1

Unauthorized Removal And Retention Of Classified Documents Or Material

18 U.S.C. 1924

Class: A Misdemeanor

Possible Penalty: Imprisonment for 1 year and/or $100,000 fine

Text: “Knowingly removing materials containing classified information of the United States with the intent to retain said info at an unauthorized location without the authority to do so”

All classified or later classified emails retained on her personal email server and also Huma's Laptop violate this statute. Having a non sanctioned storage device is arguably a violation as well.

Gathering, Transmitting Or Losing Defense Information

18 U.S.C. 793

Class: Felony

Possible Penalty: Imprisonment for 10 years and/or $250,000 fine

Text: “Allowing [by means of gross negligence] any document relating to the national defense to be removed from its proper place of custody or destroyed –or- willfully retaining unauthorized documents relating to national defense and failing to deliver them to the United States employee entitled to receive them –or- failure to report that unauthorized documents relating to national defense were removed from their proper place of custody or destroyed”

Classified docs on the server and laptop violate this. Her forwarding them to Huma is also a violation as Weiner's personal laptop is not a secure device.

Concealment, Removal, Or Mutilation Generally

18 U.S.C. 2071

Class: Felony

Possible Penalty: Imprisonment of no more than 3 years, a fine, or both

Text: “Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same”

Destruction, Alteration, Or Falsification Of Records In Federal Investigations And Bankruptcy

18 U.S.C. 1519

Class: Felony

Possible Penalty: Imprisonment of no more than 20 years, a fine, or both

Text: “Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States”

Wiping the server after the subpoena violates both statutes.

To say you've never seen anything says you just never read past the tl,dr of any article you saw on it.

... but it never STAYS the default by SpammersAreScum · 2017-01-23 14:22 · Score: 1

The only problem is, Firefox changes the default back to Yahoo at the drop of the hat. Really pisses me off...

Re:... but it never STAYS the default by RockDoctor · 2017-01-25 00:03 · Score: 1

Never seen that. Probably some site you visit regularly, rather than Firefox.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:... but it never STAYS the default by SpammersAreScum · 2017-01-26 14:40 · Score: 1

Well, I know it happens every time I restart Firefox, and I think I've caught it other times but am not sure. I suppose you could argue that this mystery site changes a setting which doesn't take effect until restart. I'll have to try successive restarts with no sites opened to test, I guess. Or find the config setting(s) in question and keep an eye on them.
Re:... but it never STAYS the default by RockDoctor · 2017-01-31 17:12 · Score: 1

'll have to try successive restarts with no sites opened to test, I guess.
Will Firefox do that - as opposed to opening the home page?
Regardless, there's nothing (AFAIK) to stop you from setting a local file with no content as your home page, which would probably have the desired effect.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"

Re:But we have Trump now by harperska · 2017-01-23 14:54 · Score: 1

Unauthorized Removal And Retention Of Classified Documents Or Material

18 U.S.C. 1924

Class: A Misdemeanor

Possible Penalty: Imprisonment for 1 year and/or $100,000 fine

Text: “Knowingly removing materials containing classified information of the United States with the intent to retain said info at an unauthorized location without the authority to do so”

All classified or later classified emails retained on her personal email server and also Huma's Laptop violate this statute. Having a non sanctioned storage device is arguably a violation as well.

There are two issues. Clinton's server, and Abedin's laptop.

Regarding the server, I have bolded a very relevant part of the statute, namely "unauthorized location". It was the FBI's conclusion that as Clinton was the boss, if she directed information to be stored in a particular location, that location was by definition an authorized location. Comey's analysis was that the aforementioned authorized location was damn stupid, but as the law doesn't specifically forbid stupidity, there was nothing prosecutable.

Regarding Abedin's laptop, my understanding is that she was a top Clinton aide, and that therefore she as a person was authorized to receive the emails in question. Nobody seems to be complaining that Abedin was sent those emails, just that they turned up on her laptop. Therefore, I fail to see how their existence on a laptop that Clinton had no control over, or that she even knew existed in any way implicates her in wrongdoing. Also, even if the existence of the laptop emails constitutes a smoking gun that confidential emails went through the Clinton server, see point #1 regarding the fact that setting up the server itself was already not considered to be a prosecutable offense.

Gathering, Transmitting Or Losing Defense Information

18 U.S.C. 793

Class: Felony

Possible Penalty: Imprisonment for 10 years and/or $250,000 fine

Text: “Allowing [by means of gross negligence] any document relating to the national defense to be removed from its proper place of custody or destroyed –or- willfully retaining unauthorized documents relating to national defense and failing to deliver them to the United States employee entitled to receive them –or- failure to report that unauthorized documents relating to national defense were removed from their proper place of custody or destroyed”

Classified docs on the server and laptop violate this. Her forwarding them to Huma is also a violation as Weiner's personal laptop is not a secure device.

Again, server and laptop.

This one has a new twist for the server. Once again I have bolded the relevant part, with italics on the key phrase. As stated earlier, by definition, the place Clinton directed the emails to be stored was its proper place. Stupid, but not illegal. The twist is that stupidity is a hair's breadth away from negligence. So if by directing that the proper place for documents was a hackable server, and that server was hacked, then she would be guilty of gross negligence in allowing confidential information to be removed from its proper place. However, while there is evidence that there were attempts to hack the server, there is no evidence that anyone was successful. So Clinton was stupid but lucky, and therefore still not prosecutable.

Regarding the laptop, as Abedin was an authorized recipient of the emails, by accessing them on a laptop Weiner had access to, Abedin would be guilty of 18 U.S.C. 793 (had Weiner actually seen the emails), not Clinton.

Concealment, Removal, Or Mutilation Generally

18 U.S.C. 2071

Class: Felony

Possible Penalty: Imprisonment of no more than 3 years, a fine, or both

Text: “Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes

DuckyDuck by skovnymfe · 2017-01-23 20:24 · Score: 1

I don't understand how people are so unwilling to hand everything over to big ol' American Google, but when it comes to the big ol' Russian Google-clone Yandex there are no qualms what so ever. You dumbasses don't think they do the exact same thing, only with less oversight and antitrust litigation?

Re:And they're improving, too by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-23 21:10 · Score: 1

He thinks anyone who complains about DDG's interface is probably being dishonest.

This looks like a slightly modified version of my first statement; basically, you are elevating yourself to absolute authority and considering that anything against your opinion has to be intrinsically wrong and, consequently, people defending such heresies are liars. Additionally, you are talking about an issue which nobody here has mentioned. The interface? Who cares about that in a search engine? All of them look alike.

DDG is fast, simple and easy to use, gives useful results,

- Faster than Google? Or than any other search engine? Can you please provide some benchmarks?
- Simple and easy to use? Have you ever had problems to use any search engine? How long have you been using internet? 1/2 days?
- Gives useful results? Lots of people here seem to think differently. I will add one further issue which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere: non-US/English-speaking-countries searches are quite bad. For example, when I was using DDG 1 month back I wasn't able to perform a single worthy search in Spanish/about Spain (my mother tongue + the country I am currently living in).
I do recognise that they do fix their problems relatively quickly (my intention was including here a bug I found which isn't there anymore).

DDG certainly does NOT look amateurish as you claim

This was parent's claim, not main. Although I also kind of agree on this issue on account of the various problems I saw when recently using it (even though some of them are already fixed).

Maybe you profess to want bloatware?...

Please don't (mis)interpret my words/expectations. I plainly look for reliability and software behaving exactly as I want it to behave (its developers should have created it such that it exactly addresses all my expectations). I tested DDG and, without getting a completely bad impression, decided to stop using it. My global assessment (at the moment) is:
- On the technical front, DDG didn't show me anything relevant (if I have to blindly choose a search engine by ignoring everything except the results I get, this wouldn't be within my top 5 or even 10 picks; and only be bearing in mind the English results, for Spanish I wouldn't consider it at all).
- Their privacy policy is very appealing (actually, the only reason why I firstly tried it), but various issues transmitted me a vibe which is somehow incompatible with that approach (something very subjective); same thing with the idea of being a small company trying to grow through high-quality/hard work and honesty. Basically, I couldn't empathise with their non-technical aspects which seem to be their most relevant feature.

Perhaps I was unlucky to find more or less random issues or misinterpret them; perhaps the guy who wrote a post above the usual evolution of a company is right (in fact, I am quite sure that is right; at least, in +99% of cases) and the first psychopaths are already in; perhaps my opinion is completely and absolute unworthy and you are right. Who knows for sure? But one thing is certain though: all what I wrote (here or anywhere else; now or ever) is my honest, objective opinion, on which nobody/nothing has/will ever have the slightest (paid/unfair) influence. I am the most non-buyable guy I know (+ the one caring less about money or short-term/dishonest/subjective/egoist gains of any kind). So, please, don't insult me or make me waste time by over-explaining issues which should be evident to anyone with a minimum knowledge and a bit of decency.

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Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.

Re:But we have Trump now by ChrisMaple · 2017-01-24 03:40 · Score: 1

All Congress has to do is not appropriate money. Of course, that's not effective for growing or maintaining the size of government, but it works really well for shrinking government. Too bad it never happens.

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Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate

Re:But we have Trump now by ChrisMaple · 2017-01-24 03:51 · Score: 1

I'm not going to search through federal statutes for you. The overriding issue is having classified documents on an unsecured server, which in itself is criminal. Note that (not that it matters) this was deliberate, not an ignorant or accidental action.

--
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate

Re:I can't bring myself to use it by ChrisMaple · 2017-01-24 05:45 · Score: 1

There used to be alltheweb.com, before one of the majors ate it. Also ask.com.

--
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate

Re:And they're improving, too by doccus · 2017-01-24 07:34 · Score: 1

ixquick, aka "Startpage". Essentially, anonymous and non personalised google results. Read their blurb on the bottom of the page "How we protect you". I'm stumped as to why more folks haven't brought it up...

Re:And they're improving, too by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-24 07:57 · Score: 1

Thanks for the suggestion. In fact, I am already using it since some days ago (I read about it precisely in Slashdot). It is still too soon to have a solid opinion about it, but does seem promising.

The (kind of) problems which I have seen so far are that it doesn't show the exact same results than Google (usually a lower number); and something which might seem irrelevant, but bothers me a bit: it doesn't highlight the matched string in the shown excerpts.

There is something which it doesn't have (neither most of the other search engines), but that DDG do have and which I liked: showing the favicons of the sites in the search results; a nice and easy-to-implement feature.

--
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.

Re:But we have Trump now by Wild_dog! · 2017-01-24 14:44 · Score: 1

harperska

I hear this debate a lot and your points seem well thought out and logical.
I have yet to hear a cogent argument which would hold up in a court.
Most likely there has never been a case because of the easy to understand info you have laid out.

Re:But we have Trump now by Wild_dog! · 2017-01-24 14:48 · Score: 1

...as harperska presented above, the documents were on an authorized server and an authorized laptop.
Perhaps stupidly placed there, but under statute not illegal and thus not criminal since a law was not broken.

Re:And they're improving, too by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-24 20:55 · Score: 1

Honestly, I haven't seen that happening even once; at least, within the top results (Google plays a lot with the number of results. I have seen many cases where most of the additional pages are fake and disappear just after clicking on them; although I understood that as a crappy marketing technique rather than as a bug). Additionally and out of all the possible bugs in a search engine, I don't get why literal searches should be problematic, this is the easiest to implement and debug option.

As said, I see quite a few things wrong with Google and don't want to use it, but have no complain on the technical front (e.g., reliable, consistent performance/features, always very fast, no bugs/weirdly-looking anything, etc.).

Anyone (or anything) seriously interested in actually beating Google (not just saying that they beat them or buying/tricking users to use their alternative) will need to invest lots of money, hire the best of the best and never allow a quick-money-earning cancer to blow everything up. Another important issue would be thinking very carefully about the exact business model and always remain faithful to it; this is the weakest point of Google (too greedy, undefined and always ready to get money from every single issue) and the one which they should exploit. The prize for anyone bringing to the market a search-engine performing as well as Google (or similarly) and complementing that reliability with honesty and clarity will be very big. On the other hand, doing such a thing would take time, patience and always putting technical aspects first; what, as per my knowledge, is extremely difficult. There are certainly lots of knowledgeable people with the patience and will to do such a thing, but their work will always be conditioned by the money people (neither knowledgeable nor patient).

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Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.

Re:And they're improving, too by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-25 22:03 · Score: 1

"that"? Haven't seen WHAT happening exactly? What does anything I said have to do with top results?

I see that you have serious understanding limitations, so I will not read anything else you wrote + talk to you anymore. Bye, stupid coward.

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Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.

Re:And they're improving, too by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-25 22:25 · Score: 1

As far as I am highlighting all the problems which I see with search engines (Google and others in other comments), I will include another one which I have experienced right now: not accounting properly for symbols, sentence-separating ones or otherwise.

For example, when I search for "I want to find this", I am not interested in finding a sentence like ".... to find. This means..."; but most of search engines ignore periods, even despite their important syntactic meaning. Other times, the symbols are very important to find exactly what I want. For example, when searching for "c# code", I am not interested in finding c code results (clarification apparently required here too: C# and C are completely different programming languages), but this is what I get because # (like many other symbols) is plainly ignored.

Like in the case of literal searches, this seems extremely simple stuff to me (adequately understanding each character is one of the first steps when developing a parsing tool); that's why I don't quite understand why most of (or all) the search engines cannot deal with any of this. Are they perhaps too worried about growing via money(= hardware)/copying-pasting what once worked/blindly-outsourcing/accepting-clueless-people-decisions/etc.? Yes, this is (sadly) the most likely reason.

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Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.

Re:And they're improving, too by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-25 22:50 · Score: 1

Note that, despite not having any problem with ACs (and, as previously said, I am an AC myself, Alvaro Carballo is my name + first family name; although I never post anonymously), I might miss some of these comments because of how Slashdot works.

When a logged-in user writes a comment to one of my posts, I get a clear warning. When an AC does the same thing, I get nothing. So, the only way to know that an AC has written something is actually re-visiting my original post, what I might do or not.

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Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.

Re:And they're improving, too by CustomSolvers2 · 2017-01-30 01:26 · Score: 1

will be fully responsible for each single action you have ever performed based upon your distorted perception of reality

It seems that the actions of some dishonest, unfair and misinterpretation-prone fanatics have had a negative effect on me. I am looking forward to these “people” to realise about what they did + pay for it (if not fully-compensating me for their nonsense, at least be shown as what they truly are). If you have doubts about you being one of these fanatics, you should take a look at the relevant amount of information which I have been writing during the last months (i.e., anything about Custom Solvers 2.0 or varocarbas in both English and Spanish). If you have an idea about me which is somehow incompatible with all these references and you did something on account of such a wrong understanding which affected me in any way, you shouldn't have doubts about what I think of you (again: no hate or anger or similar; just looking for justice and for getting what you owe me. I can be extremely patient and will not forget anything). Bear in mind that all this information is extremely honest (I don't lie, tell half-truths, hide anything and currently am not even writing sarcastic/ironic/jokish references without a clear explanation) and that I (as clearly defined in the signature of this post or my bio here or anywhere else) am the sole author of all of them.

Hopefully, readers will understand the difference between the aforementioned rant-like posts (not too serious, because I will never take seriously the kind of extremely-nonsensical, coward "behaviours" being addressed/ridiculed by them) and my last posts about Trump, which (at least, IMHO) might potentially become a serious problem.

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Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.

Slashdot Mirror

More People Than Ever Are Using DuckDuckGo; Site Says It Observed 14M Searches in One Day This Month (betanews.com)

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