Re: Google vs. DDG

[Stefan Monnier]

deloptes [2021-05-02 17:44:42] wrote:
> Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> For these kinds of searches, I tend to go to Wikipedia first.
>> One of the reasons is that I can do that via the Wikipedia app which is
>> much more snappy than my browser on my smartphone.
>> Another is that I have much more confidence in the Wikimedia foundation
>> when it comes to treating me as a product.
> What confidence? Anonymous people correcting each other posts. You can't
> trust scientists anymore not to speak of Wikipedia

Please re-read what I wrote.  I did not talk about confidence in the contents.


Stefan

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Sun, May 02, 2021 at 05:54:05PM +0200, deloptes wrote:
> to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> 
> > As others say in this thread, you have to use your brain a bit more
> > to be happy with DDG.
> > 
> 
> Don't try to insult.

Me? How so?

> If you speak/use 1-2 languages it might be OK

Always so competitive?

> > To me, honestly, this is a feature, not a bug.
> 
> I don't care

Nor do I. I think this conversation has reached
a dead point. We are boring to all the rest. I
apologise and bow out. This thread ended for me.

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[deloptes]

to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> As others say in this thread, you have to use your brain a bit more
> to be happy with DDG.
> 

Don't try to insult. If you speak/use 1-2 languages it might be OK

> To me, honestly, this is a feature, not a bug.
> 

I don't care - it does not delivery good search results, does it?

>> I'm sorry guys, but DDG is another joke.
> 
> I don't know whether that wants to sound cool or what.

No, it wants to sound exactly as it was meant - a joke that you want to
convince me is useful. Well some kind of useful it is, but not much.

To sum up: neither Google nor DDG are satisfactory for different reasons.
Google for their policy of spying on you and DDG for the lack of better
algorithms.
Meanwhile I search in both :D
In the past 5-6 years things changed a lot. Censorship, algorithm
modifications, fake news flooding the web from left and right. I don't know
if it was D. Trump the reason for that, but the result is here to stay with
us. There is too much BS on the internet already. I've been thinking
starting over fresh might be the best choice.

Re: Google vs. DDG

[deloptes]

Stefan Monnier wrote:

> For these kinds of searches, I tend to go to Wikipedia first.
> One of the reasons is that I can do that via the Wikipedia app which is
> much more snappy than my browser on my smartphone.
> Another is that I have much more confidence in the Wikimedia foundation
> when it comes to treating me as a product.

What confidence? Anonymous people correcting each other posts. You can't
trust scientists anymore not to speak of Wikipedia

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Curt]

On 2021-05-02, Thomas Schmitt  wrote:
>
> Google on the other hand knows where i am and that i understand german
> and english language.

Ich spreche kein deutsch.

Here in France I got mainly Alfred from both search engines, with a few
birds peeping through further down.

> Have a nice day :)
>
> Thomas


-- 

Re: Google vs. DDG

[Stefan Monnier]

>> when I just try to search for "language:en stieglitz" (without the
>> quotes)
> YES! That's what I was looking for. I wasn't sure DDG had this
> feature (although I hoped for it).

Sadly, it doesn't work when combined with `!w`.
[ and I think it'd make sense to allow the shorter `lang:de`.  ]

And of course, the term `language` is an obvious English bias.


Stefan

Re: Google vs. DDG

[tomas]

On Sun, May 02, 2021 at 09:05:18AM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > For example I wanted to know what is Stieglitz in German - it is kind
> > of bird, but I wanted to know how it looks like.  DDG results did not
> > even come close to a bird.
> 
> For these kinds of searches, I tend to go to Wikipedia first.

Me too :)

Sometimes I combine, e.g. DDG search and site:es.wikipedia.org, if I'm
interested in Spanish Wikipedia results.

> One of the reasons is that I can do that via the Wikipedia app which is
> much more snappy than my browser on my smartphone.
> Another is that I have much more confidence in the Wikimedia foundation
> when it comes to treating me as a product.

Agreed.

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Sun, May 02, 2021 at 02:47:17PM +0200, Michael Lange wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Sun, 2 May 2021 14:29:06 +0200
>  wrote:
> 
> (...)
> > If you set your browser's primary "web page" language it works,
> > too. That's probably what goes into the "Accept-Language" HTTP
> > request header. Would be nice if there were a way to set that
> > per-request...
> 
> when I just try to search for "language:en stieglitz" (without the
> quotes)

YES! That's what I was looking for. I wasn't sure DDG had this
feature (although I hoped for it).

Thanks
-- t


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Re: Google vs. DDG

[Stefan Monnier]

> For example I wanted to know what is Stieglitz in German - it is kind
> of bird, but I wanted to know how it looks like.  DDG results did not
> even come close to a bird.

For these kinds of searches, I tend to go to Wikipedia first.
One of the reasons is that I can do that via the Wikipedia app which is
much more snappy than my browser on my smartphone.
Another is that I have much more confidence in the Wikimedia foundation
when it comes to treating me as a product.


Stefan

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Michael Lange]

Hi,

On Sun, 2 May 2021 14:29:06 +0200
 wrote:

(...)
> If you set your browser's primary "web page" language it works,
> too. That's probably what goes into the "Accept-Language" HTTP
> request header. Would be nice if there were a way to set that
> per-request...

when I just try to search for "language:en stieglitz" (without the
quotes) I get search results only in English (first Alfred Stieglitz, next
Victoria Stieglitz, followed by more of Alfred). The same happens when I
prefix my search with language:fr instead, all French search results. It
almost seems to me like this is an undocumented feature, at least it is
not mentioned at
https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax/

Regards

Michael

.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

Do you know the one -- "All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer
her by ..."  You could feel the wind at your back, about you ...  the
sounds of the sea beneath you.  And even if you take away the wind and
the water, it's still the same.  The ship is yours ... you can feel her
... and the stars are still there.
-- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Sun, May 02, 2021 at 02:20:25PM +0200, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > Searching for "Stieglitz" DDG shows
> 
> With Javascript off:
> 1st try: Alfred Stieglitz
> 2nd try: Alfred Stieglitz, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Focke-Wulf Fw 44 Stieglitz
> 3rd try: Joseph E. Stiglitz, Alfred Stieglitz, Stieglitz Snyder Architecture,
>  Christine Stieglitz
> Quite random choice, but no birds.
> 
> "Stieglitz Vogel", too, yields no birds.
> 
> If i set the "All Regions" menu to "Germany" i get the bird as first
> match, then the people and the Fw 44 air plane.

If you set your browser's primary "web page" language it works,
too. That's probably what goes into the "Accept-Language" HTTP
request header. Would be nice if there were a way to set that
per-request...

> Google on the other hand knows where i am and that i understand german
> and english language.

:-)

> Have a nice day :)

Same to you :)

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

> Searching for "Stieglitz" DDG shows

With Javascript off:
1st try: Alfred Stieglitz
2nd try: Alfred Stieglitz, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Focke-Wulf Fw 44 Stieglitz
3rd try: Joseph E. Stiglitz, Alfred Stieglitz, Stieglitz Snyder Architecture,
 Christine Stieglitz
Quite random choice, but no birds.

"Stieglitz Vogel", too, yields no birds.

If i set the "All Regions" menu to "Germany" i get the bird as first
match, then the people and the Fw 44 air plane.

Google on the other hand knows where i am and that i understand german
and english language.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Sun, May 02, 2021 at 01:20:03PM +0200, Michael Lange wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Sun, 02 May 2021 12:57:59 +0200
> deloptes  wrote:
> 
> (...)
> > I'm sorry guys, but DDG is another joke. For example I wanted to know
> > what is Stieglitz in German - it is kind of bird, but I wanted to know
> > how it looks like. DDG results did not even come close to a bird.
> 
> this I cannot reproduce here. Searching for "Stieglitz" DDG shows me as
> the first result https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stieglitz , followed by
> other bird-related pages in German. Switching to DDG's image search I get
> a whole page with photos of these cute beasts.

You have to set your preferred language to German (not the UI language,
but the language your browser negotiates with web pages: in Firefox
it is "Choose your preferred language for displaying pages") to
German.

As others say in this thread, you have to use your brain a bit more
to be happy with DDG.

To me, honestly, this is a feature, not a bug.

> I'm sorry guys, but DDG is another joke.

I don't know whether that wants to sound cool or what.

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Eike Lantzsch ZP6CGE]

On Sonntag, 2. Mai 2021 07:20:03 -04 Michael Lange wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sun, 02 May 2021 12:57:59 +0200
> deloptes  wrote:
>
> (...)
>
> > I'm sorry guys, but DDG is another joke. For example I wanted to
> > know
> > what is Stieglitz in German - it is kind of bird, but I wanted to
> > know how it looks like. DDG results did not even come close to a
> > bird.
> this I cannot reproduce here. Searching for "Stieglitz" DDG shows me
> as the first result https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stieglitz ,
> followed by other bird-related pages in German. Switching to DDG's
> image search I get a whole page with photos of these cute beasts.
>
> Regards
>
> Michael
>
same here and "Stieglitz bird" brings up photos of the bird, the
translation into "European Goldfinch" and the link to "European Goldfinch
- Wikipedia".
It all seems to require a little bit more effort to put into the search
to get what I want from DDG while I usually have to put more effort into
Google-searches to tell Google that I don't want what it "thinks" that I
want - e.g. it "thinks" that I want everything in Spanish and seems to
ignore completely that the country of my residence is a multilingual
country with at least 4 main languages and many others, which are
natively spoken by significant parts of the population.
But as soon as I succeed convincing Google that I want English or Dutch
or German or Portuguese then I am able to extract what I want.
In this line National Geographic is far worse than Google.
Just for once try to get an English edition subscription in a country
which NatGeo considers Spanish-speaking.

Cheers
Eike

--
Eike Lantzsch ZP6CGE
01726 Asuncion / Paraguay

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Michael Lange]

Hi,

On Sun, 02 May 2021 12:57:59 +0200
deloptes  wrote:

(...)
> I'm sorry guys, but DDG is another joke. For example I wanted to know
> what is Stieglitz in German - it is kind of bird, but I wanted to know
> how it looks like. DDG results did not even come close to a bird.

this I cannot reproduce here. Searching for "Stieglitz" DDG shows me as
the first result https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stieglitz , followed by
other bird-related pages in German. Switching to DDG's image search I get
a whole page with photos of these cute beasts.

Regards

Michael


.-.. .. ...- .   .-.. --- -. --.   .- -. -..   .--. .-. --- ... .--. . .-.

... The things love can drive a man to -- the ecstasies, the
the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious
failures and the glorious victories.
-- McCoy, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5843.7

Re: Google vs. DDG

[mick crane]

On 2021-04-28 20:49, davidson wrote:

On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 mick crane wrote:


I think Google tailors results according to what they know about you.
Even if you reset the router to a new IP and clear all the cookies 
they still seem to know. I've wondered if the browser has an 
identifying number.


Supplementing the observations made here by others, I suggest this
introductory reference on the topic:

 https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/about

  Cover Your Tracks is two things: a tool for users to understand how
  unique and identifiable their browser makes them online, and a
  research project to uncover the tools and techniques of online
  trackers and test the efficacy of privacy add-ons. Running tests on
  Cover Your Tracks gives you information about your own browser’s
  privacy protections, and also helps EFF use statistical methods to
  evaluate the capabilities of third-party trackers and the best forms
  of protection against them.


checking that website with windows and chrome canary says unique out of 
136 thousand.
booting Buster on same machine and firefox esr that website says 2 out 
of 136 thousand which indicates very likely the browser isn't sending 
any identifier.


mick
--
Key ID4BFEBB31

Re: Google vs. DDG

[mick crane]

On 2021-04-28 20:49, davidson wrote:

On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 mick crane wrote:


I think Google tailors results according to what they know about you.
Even if you reset the router to a new IP and clear all the cookies 
they still seem to know. I've wondered if the browser has an 
identifying number.


Supplementing the observations made here by others, I suggest this
introductory reference on the topic:

 https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/about

  Cover Your Tracks is two things: a tool for users to understand how
  unique and identifiable their browser makes them online, and a
  research project to uncover the tools and techniques of online
  trackers and test the efficacy of privacy add-ons. Running tests on
  Cover Your Tracks gives you information about your own browser’s
  privacy protections, and also helps EFF use statistical methods to
  evaluate the capabilities of third-party trackers and the best forms
  of protection against them.


thanks
unique out of 136 thousand browsers which in itself is possibly 
identifying.


cheers
mick
--
Key ID4BFEBB31

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 10:03:04AM -0400, Celejar wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Apr 2021 09:25:26 +0200
>  wrote:

> > [...no javaxcript]
> 
> I certainly agree with that goal, but I currently disable analytics via
> uBlock Origin, pi-hole, etc.) Disabling JS breaks a lot of (useful)
> stuff as collateral damage [...]

Yes, I do it as a kind of self-experiment. The way I go about it
is: my default browser profile has no javascript enabled (and no
cookies, BTW). For some (roughly 10) pages, I have a separate
profile. Two or three I care enough about, the rest is work-related.

When I'm curious about a page, sometimes I see "oh, it's a black
(or white) hole" -- the psychological interesting part is: is my
urge strong enough to set up a profile for that?

Most of the time, the answer is, luckily "No" :-)

Sometimes I get some quaint whining from the page "Ooooh, your
poor little browser does not support blah blah" with instructions
on how to enable javascript (which is even quainter, since these
days you have to be *very* determinate to disable javascript in
any browser, nearly criminally determinate ;-P

In the grand scheme of things. I'm trying to push out a bit
that date where web "designers" can count on everyone having
javascript. Tilting at windmills, but with pride :-)

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Celejar]

On Thu, 29 Apr 2021 09:25:26 +0200
 wrote:

...

> Thetis seems to be paying for Google, in one currency or another. For
> one, fonts and jquery get downloaded directly from googleapis.com, so
> Big G gets a tug each time someone hits their page. Then, they embed
> Google analytics scripts in their page (one reason, BTW, why I insist
> in disabling javascript in my browser).

I certainly agree with that goal, but I currently disable analytics via
uBlock Origin, pi-hole, etc.) Disabling JS breaks a lot of (useful)
stuff as collateral damage (but you can always enable it on a
site-by-site basis, which I have to do with uBlock Origin anyway, since
it also breaks (in medium mode) a fair amount of the web).

Celejar

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 10:05:22PM -0400, Yitzhak Grossman wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 20:49:56 -0300
> riveravaldez  wrote:

[...]

> > I have no idea if this Thetis business is pretty popular or well-know (first
> > time I heard about them), but: couldn't be maybe that Thetis paid for some
> > Google Ads (and no DDG Ads, let's say) and that "put them in the (G)map?
> >
> > Just something that came to my mind - to be rigorous: a fully *uneducated*
> > guess...
> 
> A worthy guess, but it doesn't work:

It isn't as easily dismissible, though...

> 1) Thetis is a pretty well known brand in this area

It seems so, yes.

> 2) The DDG results *are for Thetis products* - but only Amazon listings
> and reviews and roundups of Thetis and similar products, rather than
> the company's website.

Thetis seems to be paying for Google, in one currency or another. For
one, fonts and jquery get downloaded directly from googleapis.com, so
Big G gets a tug each time someone hits their page. Then, they embed
Google analytics scripts in their page (one reason, BTW, why I insist
in disabling javascript in my browser).

Probably this is the kind of thing you learn when attending to a SEO
workshop.

In other words, people learn how to be listed by Google at the top,
and customers pay those people to do so. Or would you think that whole
industry called SEO is about DDG? No, it's Google, then, perhaps,
as a far second, Binge.

One might think that, e.g. DDG could try to leverage the same SEO
mechanisms, but, in my examples above, it's a Google site which gets
hits for fonts and other assets: why shouldn't Google use that signal
to prime their crawler?

It's the subtle network effects what's interesting :-)

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG

[Joe]

On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 12:42:23 -0400
Celejar  wrote:

> On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 12:20:58 -0400
> Stefan Monnier  wrote:
> 
> > >> FWIW, I'm pretty sure that such anectodal evidence is of no
> > >> importance because you can also come up with examples where the
> > >> situation is reversed.  
> > > Can you?  
> > 
> > I meant "you" in a very general sense: I'm pretty sure it's
> > possible, but no, I haven't done the necessary work (and I'm not
> > very interested in doing it either).  
> 
> That's fine, of course, but I'm just pointing out that your logic is a
> bit circular: you dismiss my anecdote in support of Google's
> superiority with the assumption that there exist counter-anecdotes as
> well, but your only basis for this assumption seems to be the
> assumption that Google isn't objectively superior ;)
> 
> Of course, anecdotes are not data. And just to be clear, I really like
> DDG, certainly for its attitude and track record of taking privacy
> seriously, as well as for doing remarkably well as a competitor to
> Google with what I assume is a tiny fraction of its resources.
> 

I tend to treat Google as I do Wikipedia: unparalleled for information
which is not the slightest bit politically controversial, a complete
waste of time for anything that is.

Not that there's all that much left in the first category now, but on
things like the sizes of surface-mount electronic components, Wiki is
pretty sound.

-- 
Joe

Re: Google vs. DDG

[davidson]

On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 mick crane wrote:


I think Google tailors results according to what they know about you.
Even if you reset the router to a new IP and clear all the cookies they still 
seem to know. I've wondered if the browser has an identifying number.


Supplementing the observations made here by others, I suggest this
introductory reference on the topic:

 https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/about

  Cover Your Tracks is two things: a tool for users to understand how
  unique and identifiable their browser makes them online, and a
  research project to uncover the tools and techniques of online
  trackers and test the efficacy of privacy add-ons. Running tests on
  Cover Your Tracks gives you information about your own browser’s
  privacy protections, and also helps EFF use statistical methods to
  evaluate the capabilities of third-party trackers and the best forms
  of protection against them.

--
Ce qui est important est rarement urgent
et ce qui est urgent est rarement important
-- Dwight David Eisenhower

Re: Google vs. DDG

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Mi, 28 apr 21, 17:07:42, mick crane wrote:
> 
> I think Google tailors results according to what they know about you.
> Even if you reset the router to a new IP and clear all the cookies they
> still seem to know. I've wondered if the browser has an identifying number.
> mick

If you're using Google Chrome, it just might:

https://amifloced.org/

As far as I understand from various articles and following discussions 
(e.g. the one I quote below) browsers send various other data (like your 
screen resolution) that can be combined to be used for fingerprinting. 

Apparently Google intends to take this to another level:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/04/everybody-hates-floc-googles-tracking-plan-for-chrome-ads

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: Google vs. DDG

[Celejar]

On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 17:07:42 +0100
mick crane  wrote:

> On 2021-04-28 16:05, Celejar wrote:
> > On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 15:02:19 +0100
> >  wrote:
> > 
> >> On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 09:46:53AM -0400, Celejar wrote:
> >> 
> >> [...]
> >> 
> >> > You've been making some very interesting points here about the key
> >> > being context, but I'm not sure I totally buy it. DDG simply doesn't
> >> > work well for me in certain areas of interest to me. Perhaps I'm simply
> >> > not sufficiently skilled at disambiguation (my "DDG fu" needs
> >> > improvement?), but I'm simply much less productive with DDG than with
> >> > Google. And I do usually access Google without being logged in, with
> >> > most cookies blocked, NoScript, etc., so in general it has much less
> >> > (not zero, of course) "context" with regard to me than it does in
> >> > general.
> >> 
> >> Hm. Good point. Of course, Google has a lot more resources than DDG.
> >> My hypothesis is that the advantage from that is rather marginal and
> >> that they get most of their advantage from search context. Of course,
> >> I may be wrong (as nearly always ;-)
> >> 
> >> Could you give an example where DDG fails and Google succeeds?
> > 
> > Here's a sort of example I just ran into. When trying to find
> > information about Thetis hardware security keys, DDG simply couldn't
> > find the company's website: searching DDG for "thetis key" turns up (in
> > the first page of hits) a bunch of Amazon listings, and a bunch of
> > reviews of, and articles about, security keys that mention Thetis.
> > Searching for the same thing on Google, OTOH, returns the company's
> > website (https://thetis.io) as the first hit (along with a convenient
> > list of pages on the site).
> > 
> > At least, this is what I get here. Who knows what you'll see ...
> > 
> > Celejar
> 
> I think Google tailors results according to what they know about you.
> Even if you reset the router to a new IP and clear all the cookies they 
> still seem to know. I've wondered if the browser has an identifying 
> number.

I can't speak for all browsers, of course, but I'm pretty sure Firefox
has no (public) unique ID:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1123927

Celejar

Re: Google vs. DDG

[Celejar]

On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 12:20:58 -0400
Stefan Monnier  wrote:

> >> FWIW, I'm pretty sure that such anectodal evidence is of no importance
> >> because you can also come up with examples where the situation
> >> is reversed.
> > Can you?
> 
> I meant "you" in a very general sense: I'm pretty sure it's possible,
> but no, I haven't done the necessary work (and I'm not very interested
> in doing it either).

That's fine, of course, but I'm just pointing out that your logic is a
bit circular: you dismiss my anecdote in support of Google's
superiority with the assumption that there exist counter-anecdotes as
well, but your only basis for this assumption seems to be the
assumption that Google isn't objectively superior ;)

Of course, anecdotes are not data. And just to be clear, I really like
DDG, certainly for its attitude and track record of taking privacy
seriously, as well as for doing remarkably well as a competitor to
Google with what I assume is a tiny fraction of its resources.

Celejar

Re: Google vs. DDG

[Stefan Monnier]

>> FWIW, I'm pretty sure that such anectodal evidence is of no importance
>> because you can also come up with examples where the situation
>> is reversed.
> Can you?

I meant "you" in a very general sense: I'm pretty sure it's possible,
but no, I haven't done the necessary work (and I'm not very interested
in doing it either).

> I'm interested in examples of such cases.

I suspect that a good way to find such an example might start by trying
to think of websites which Google would specifically want to avoid
(e.g. for legal or political reasons) while Microsoft wouldn't.
This might be because it's related to a country which kicked out one of
the two while the other managed to sign some kind of agreement or
something like that.

> Incorrect (or at least outdated):
>
> DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These
> include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers,
> DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia,
> stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional
> links in the search results, which we also source from multiple
> partners, though most commonly from Bing (and none from Google).
>
> https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/

Thanks for the precisions.


Stefan

Re: Google vs. DDG

[tomas]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 05:07:42PM +0100, mick crane wrote:

> I think Google tailors results according to what they know about you.

Of course they do. That's a selling point (from their POV, at least).

> Even if you reset the router to a new IP and clear all the cookies
> they still seem to know. I've wondered if the browser has an
> identifying number.

What about the cache? There are lots of ways to track an individual
browser. More so if javascript is enabled.

Cheers
 - t


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Description: Digital signature

Re: Google vs. DDG

[mick crane]

On 2021-04-28 16:05, Celejar wrote:

On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 15:02:19 +0100
 wrote:


On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 09:46:53AM -0400, Celejar wrote:

[...]

> You've been making some very interesting points here about the key
> being context, but I'm not sure I totally buy it. DDG simply doesn't
> work well for me in certain areas of interest to me. Perhaps I'm simply
> not sufficiently skilled at disambiguation (my "DDG fu" needs
> improvement?), but I'm simply much less productive with DDG than with
> Google. And I do usually access Google without being logged in, with
> most cookies blocked, NoScript, etc., so in general it has much less
> (not zero, of course) "context" with regard to me than it does in
> general.

Hm. Good point. Of course, Google has a lot more resources than DDG.
My hypothesis is that the advantage from that is rather marginal and
that they get most of their advantage from search context. Of course,
I may be wrong (as nearly always ;-)

Could you give an example where DDG fails and Google succeeds?


Here's a sort of example I just ran into. When trying to find
information about Thetis hardware security keys, DDG simply couldn't
find the company's website: searching DDG for "thetis key" turns up (in
the first page of hits) a bunch of Amazon listings, and a bunch of
reviews of, and articles about, security keys that mention Thetis.
Searching for the same thing on Google, OTOH, returns the company's
website (https://thetis.io) as the first hit (along with a convenient
list of pages on the site).

At least, this is what I get here. Who knows what you'll see ...

Celejar


I think Google tailors results according to what they know about you.
Even if you reset the router to a new IP and clear all the cookies they 
still seem to know. I've wondered if the browser has an identifying 
number.

mick

--
Key ID4BFEBB31

Re: Google vs. DDG

[Celejar]

On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 11:45:59 -0400
Stefan Monnier  wrote:

> > Here's a sort of example I just ran into. When trying to find
> > information about Thetis hardware security keys, DDG simply couldn't
> > find the company's website: searching DDG for "thetis key" turns up (in
> > the first page of hits) a bunch of Amazon listings, and a bunch of
> > reviews of, and articles about, security keys that mention Thetis.
> > Searching for the same thing on Google, OTOH, returns the company's
> > website (https://thetis.io) as the first hit (along with a convenient
> > list of pages on the site).
> 
> FWIW, I'm pretty sure that such anectodal evidence is of no importance
> because you can also come up with examples where the situation
> is reversed.

Can you? I'm interested in examples of such cases.

> This is simply because the subset of the internet that is indexed by the
> two search engines is not simply in a subset relation.  So the question
> is not whether such things happen, but how often they happen for your
> use-case one way compared to how it happens for your use-case the
> other way.
> 
> And of course this question is only relevant as one of the properties
> distinguishing the two search engines.  Obviously, the purpose of DDG is
> not to give better search results.
> 
> BTW, as far as I know, DDB doesn't do its own indexing but it relies
> internally on Bing, so in the above is explained by the difference

Incorrect (or at least outdated):

DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These
include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers,
DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia,
stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional
links in the search results, which we also source from multiple
partners, though most commonly from Bing (and none from Google).

https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/

> between Bing and Google.  Technically they could probably just as
> well rely on Google (or on both).

FWIW, Bing doesn't find the Thetis homepage either, so that supports
your point.

Celejar

Re: Google vs. DDG

[tomas]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 11:45:59AM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > Here's a sort of example I just ran into [...]

> FWIW, I'm pretty sure that such anectodal evidence is of no importance
> because you can also come up with examples where the situation
> is reversed.

Still it might tell us something by "backscatter" :)

For example, I forced now DDG's hand by doing some "foo site:blah.blah".
Tomorrow I'll check again and see whether that site is in the index.

> This is simply because the subset of the internet that is indexed by the
> two search engines is not simply in a subset relation.  So the question
> is not whether such things happen, but how often they happen for your
> use-case one way compared to how it happens for your use-case the
> other way.

Yes, of course. Nobody can index the whole Internet these days ;-)

> BTW, as far as I know, DDB doesn't do its own indexing but it relies
> internally on Bing, so in the above is explained by the difference
> between Bing and Google.  Technically they could probably just as
> well rely on Google (or on both).

They do have an own crawler [1]. No idea of how much it contributes
to their data set, though.

Cheers

[1] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/duckduckbot/

 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG

[Stefan Monnier]

> Here's a sort of example I just ran into. When trying to find
> information about Thetis hardware security keys, DDG simply couldn't
> find the company's website: searching DDG for "thetis key" turns up (in
> the first page of hits) a bunch of Amazon listings, and a bunch of
> reviews of, and articles about, security keys that mention Thetis.
> Searching for the same thing on Google, OTOH, returns the company's
> website (https://thetis.io) as the first hit (along with a convenient
> list of pages on the site).

FWIW, I'm pretty sure that such anectodal evidence is of no importance
because you can also come up with examples where the situation
is reversed.

This is simply because the subset of the internet that is indexed by the
two search engines is not simply in a subset relation.  So the question
is not whether such things happen, but how often they happen for your
use-case one way compared to how it happens for your use-case the
other way.

And of course this question is only relevant as one of the properties
distinguishing the two search engines.  Obviously, the purpose of DDG is
not to give better search results.

BTW, as far as I know, DDB doesn't do its own indexing but it relies
internally on Bing, so in the above is explained by the difference
between Bing and Google.  Technically they could probably just as
well rely on Google (or on both).


Stefan

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 11:05:54AM -0400, Celejar wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 15:02:19 +0100
>  wrote:

[...]

> > Could you give an example where DDG fails and Google succeeds?
> 
> Here's a sort of example I just ran into. When trying to find
> information about Thetis hardware security keys, DDG simply couldn't
> find the company's website: searching DDG for "thetis key" turns up (in
> the first page of hits) a bunch of Amazon listings, and a bunch of
> reviews of, and articles about, security keys that mention Thetis.
> Searching for the same thing on Google, OTOH, returns the company's
> website (https://thetis.io) as the first hit (along with a convenient
> list of pages on the site).
> 
> At least, this is what I get here. Who knows what you'll see ...

Interesting example indeed. Thanks

Cheers
 - t


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Description: Digital signature

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Celejar]

On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 15:02:19 +0100
 wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 09:46:53AM -0400, Celejar wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > You've been making some very interesting points here about the key
> > being context, but I'm not sure I totally buy it. DDG simply doesn't
> > work well for me in certain areas of interest to me. Perhaps I'm simply
> > not sufficiently skilled at disambiguation (my "DDG fu" needs
> > improvement?), but I'm simply much less productive with DDG than with
> > Google. And I do usually access Google without being logged in, with
> > most cookies blocked, NoScript, etc., so in general it has much less
> > (not zero, of course) "context" with regard to me than it does in
> > general.
> 
> Hm. Good point. Of course, Google has a lot more resources than DDG.
> My hypothesis is that the advantage from that is rather marginal and
> that they get most of their advantage from search context. Of course,
> I may be wrong (as nearly always ;-)
> 
> Could you give an example where DDG fails and Google succeeds?

Here's a sort of example I just ran into. When trying to find
information about Thetis hardware security keys, DDG simply couldn't
find the company's website: searching DDG for "thetis key" turns up (in
the first page of hits) a bunch of Amazon listings, and a bunch of
reviews of, and articles about, security keys that mention Thetis.
Searching for the same thing on Google, OTOH, returns the company's
website (https://thetis.io) as the first hit (along with a convenient
list of pages on the site).

At least, this is what I get here. Who knows what you'll see ...

Celejar

Re: Google vs. DDG

[mick crane]

On 2021-03-17 08:10, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 12:09:54AM +0100, deloptes wrote:

[...]

Things I found yesterday in Google, I can not find today and DDG 
anyway :)


Pics or it didn't happen ;-)


They never sent my DDG car sticker.

mick
--
Key ID4BFEBB31

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 12:09:54AM +0100, deloptes wrote:

[...]

> Things I found yesterday in Google, I can not find today and DDG anyway :)

Pics or it didn't happen ;-)

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[deloptes]

Joe wrote:

> It may not be long before vendors are ranked or even excluded according
> to their virtue-signalling activities rather than their products.

Yes, I also think this might be the next step ... cause no one is biting on
the adds anyway and there are also too many people trying to manipulate
Googles ranking.

There are some "trust" initiatives and hopefully one of them will succeed.

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[deloptes]

ghe2001 wrote:

> How about DDG as the default, and Google when necessary.

yes - this is the present setting here

Things I found yesterday in Google, I can not find today and DDG anyway :)

I guess Google has already lost track of the data and may be algorithm long
time ago, but it's still working better.

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[ghe2001]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256



‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
On Tuesday, March 16, 2021 2:42 PM, deloptes  wrote:

> This was in the beginning. Then it became business and now it is political
> and I am not sure anymore if this is exactly what I want, but as said
> technical stuff is more or less neutral and in this case acceptable.

How about DDG as the default, and Google when necessary.

And when hitting Google, use TorBrowser -- when I was using Gmail, they thought 
I was a Windows box in Paris.  Suck info to your heart's content.  And sell it 
to FaceBook.

--
Glenn English


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Joe]

On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 21:42:48 +0100
deloptes  wrote:

> Celejar wrote:
> 
> >> Hm. Good point. Of course, Google has a lot more resources than
> >> DDG. My hypothesis is that the advantage from that is rather
> >> marginal and that they get most of their advantage from search
> >> context. Of course, I may be wrong (as nearly always ;-)  
> > 
> > It's certainly hard to know how the search engine black boxes really
> > work inside, but it's also possible that all the money / engineers
> > that Google has to throw at the problem of search actually add
> > value to its solutions ;)  
> 
> It is not only resources, it is the algorithm and the personal data in
> question. They link and rate and provide (personalized) results. This
> way it is unlikely two different persons searching the same string
> would get same results.
> This was in the beginning. Then it became business and now it is
> political and I am not sure anymore if this is exactly what I want,
> but as said technical stuff is more or less neutral and in this case
> acceptable.
> 

It may not be long before vendors are ranked or even excluded according
to their virtue-signalling activities rather than their products.

-- 
Joe

Re: Google vs. DDG

[ellanios82]

On 3/16/21 10:42 PM, deloptes wrote:

It is not only resources, it is the algorithm and the personal data in question



 - today's news included reference to "privacy labels" :


"DuckDuckGo uses App Store privacy labels to call out Google for 
‘spying’ on users"



 


.

 regards

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[deloptes]

Celejar wrote:

>> Hm. Good point. Of course, Google has a lot more resources than DDG.
>> My hypothesis is that the advantage from that is rather marginal and
>> that they get most of their advantage from search context. Of course,
>> I may be wrong (as nearly always ;-)
> 
> It's certainly hard to know how the search engine black boxes really
> work inside, but it's also possible that all the money / engineers that
> Google has to throw at the problem of search actually add value to its
> solutions ;)

It is not only resources, it is the algorithm and the personal data in
question. They link and rate and provide (personalized) results. This way
it is unlikely two different persons searching the same string would get
same results.
This was in the beginning. Then it became business and now it is political
and I am not sure anymore if this is exactly what I want, but as said
technical stuff is more or less neutral and in this case acceptable.

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 10:49:10AM -0400, Celejar wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 15:02:19 +0100
>  wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 09:46:53AM -0400, Celejar wrote:
> > > [...] And I do usually access Google without being logged in, with
> > > most cookies blocked, NoScript, etc., so in general it has much less
> > > (not zero, of course) "context" with regard to me than it does in
> > > general.
> > 
> > Hm. Good point [...]

> It's certainly hard to know how the search engine black boxes really
> work inside, but it's also possible that all the money / engineers that
> Google has to throw at the problem of search actually add value to its
> solutions ;)
> 
> > Could you give an example where DDG fails and Google succeeds?
> 
> I'll keep an eye out. My primary issue was with certain foreign language
> content - and not one of the top thirty on this list:
> 
> https://www.vistawide.com/languages/top_30_languages.htm

I see. Unfortunately, all the languages I know a bit about are
in there :-(

> I just checked my browser settings, and I discovered that somehow my
> privacy settings have slipped and gotten much laxer. I've just
> corrected that, though, so we'll see how things go going forward.

Browsers do that. They are like this :-/

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Celejar]

On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 15:02:19 +0100
 wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 09:46:53AM -0400, Celejar wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > You've been making some very interesting points here about the key
> > being context, but I'm not sure I totally buy it. DDG simply doesn't
> > work well for me in certain areas of interest to me. Perhaps I'm simply
> > not sufficiently skilled at disambiguation (my "DDG fu" needs
> > improvement?), but I'm simply much less productive with DDG than with
> > Google. And I do usually access Google without being logged in, with
> > most cookies blocked, NoScript, etc., so in general it has much less
> > (not zero, of course) "context" with regard to me than it does in
> > general.
> 
> Hm. Good point. Of course, Google has a lot more resources than DDG.
> My hypothesis is that the advantage from that is rather marginal and
> that they get most of their advantage from search context. Of course,
> I may be wrong (as nearly always ;-)

It's certainly hard to know how the search engine black boxes really
work inside, but it's also possible that all the money / engineers that
Google has to throw at the problem of search actually add value to its
solutions ;)

> Could you give an example where DDG fails and Google succeeds?

I'll keep an eye out. My primary issue was with certain foreign language
content - and not one of the top thirty on this list:

https://www.vistawide.com/languages/top_30_languages.htm

I just checked my browser settings, and I discovered that somehow my
privacy settings have slipped and gotten much laxer. I've just
corrected that, though, so we'll see how things go going forward.

Celejar

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 09:46:53AM -0400, Celejar wrote:

[...]

> You've been making some very interesting points here about the key
> being context, but I'm not sure I totally buy it. DDG simply doesn't
> work well for me in certain areas of interest to me. Perhaps I'm simply
> not sufficiently skilled at disambiguation (my "DDG fu" needs
> improvement?), but I'm simply much less productive with DDG than with
> Google. And I do usually access Google without being logged in, with
> most cookies blocked, NoScript, etc., so in general it has much less
> (not zero, of course) "context" with regard to me than it does in
> general.

Hm. Good point. Of course, Google has a lot more resources than DDG.
My hypothesis is that the advantage from that is rather marginal and
that they get most of their advantage from search context. Of course,
I may be wrong (as nearly always ;-)

Could you give an example where DDG fails and Google succeeds?

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Celejar]

On Sun, 14 Mar 2021 15:05:44 +0100
 wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 02:47:23PM +0100, deloptes wrote:
> > to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > 
> > > This is nonsense. "The best" without any context is just meaningless.
> > > 
> > 
> > Come on, you yourself write below why.
> 
> [...]
> 
> > Me too - doing the same - but as you say "more or less as good as
> > Google's" - it is not as good, because of the metadata.
> 
> Again, context. If you learn to provide the necessary context (e.g.
> by adding in disambiguating search terms, etc.), your DDG results
> will be as satisfactory as those with Google.
> 
> Bonus point: you learn something in the process, instead of Google
> learning something "for you".

You've been making some very interesting points here about the key
being context, but I'm not sure I totally buy it. DDG simply doesn't
work well for me in certain areas of interest to me. Perhaps I'm simply
not sufficiently skilled at disambiguation (my "DDG fu" needs
improvement?), but I'm simply much less productive with DDG than with
Google. And I do usually access Google without being logged in, with
most cookies blocked, NoScript, etc., so in general it has much less
(not zero, of course) "context" with regard to me than it does in
general.

Celejar

Re: Google vs. DDG

[Felix Miata]

deloptes composed on 2021-03-14 14:49 (UTC+0100):

> Felix Miata wrote:
 
>> https://www.newtube.app/
 
> Is it a parody?

I think not:

-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 02:47:23PM +0100, deloptes wrote:
> to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> 
> > This is nonsense. "The best" without any context is just meaningless.
> > 
> 
> Come on, you yourself write below why.

[...]

> Me too - doing the same - but as you say "more or less as good as
> Google's" - it is not as good, because of the metadata.

Again, context. If you learn to provide the necessary context (e.g.
by adding in disambiguating search terms, etc.), your DDG results
will be as satisfactory as those with Google.

Bonus point: you learn something in the process, instead of Google
learning something "for you".

> Now, I wouldn't even think of using DDG, if I was not suspecting Google
> abusing privacy. Here DDG comes very handy.
> Everything that has to do with technical stuff - goes through Google. The
> stuff is neutral. The rest through DDG.
> I guess in Google's eyes I will be becoming a geek soon

To each his/her own. After a transition period (where I double-checked
the results with google.ca [1]), I didn't miss Google anymore -- technical
or not.

Cheers

[1] Funnily enough, it's the only one which didn't redirect me to
   my local language, based on (possibly) my IP geolocation. Perhaps
   some canadian local law, I don't know.

 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG

[deloptes]

Felix Miata wrote:

> 
> https://www.newtube.app/

Is it a parody?

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[deloptes]

to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> This is nonsense. "The best" without any context is just meaningless.
> 

Come on, you yourself write below why.

> Let me put an example: a friend of mine is doing biological research
> (mRNA and that kind of stuff).
> 
> She relies totally on Google to keep the research papers she's reading
> in order. Whenever she needs a paper, Google is the entry point. One
> or two words, and presto, the paper she needs is whithin the first
> three hits.
> 
> Once she was working at home and tried the same. No luck. Cooking recipes,
> whatever you want, no bio research papers.
> 
> I think by now every avid reader will have an idea of what's going on.
> The whole fuzzball of metadata you share with Google (your IP address,
> your browser version, the whole compost heap of cookies, browser metrics
> prior search history with Google and affiliates -- all of that kaboodle
> is part of your search query, without you knowing it.
> 

Exactly - this is the best in case you want to get advantage of the metadata
collected.
I am not expert on Google, but AFAIR you better use your account - this way
it doesn't matter what is the IP.
The IP would matter if you are not logged in.

> If you /want/ to get back part of that control, you have to understand
> that. When you search with DDG, you have to ask yourself: "since they
> don't know, how can I narrow the search context?".
> 
> After a while, this becomes second nature, and DDG results start being
> more or less as good as Google's.
> 
> I know because I tried.

Me too - doing the same - but as you say "more or less as good as
Google's" - it is not as good, because of the metadata.

Now, I wouldn't even think of using DDG, if I was not suspecting Google
abusing privacy. Here DDG comes very handy.
Everything that has to do with technical stuff - goes through Google. The
stuff is neutral. The rest through DDG.
I guess in Google's eyes I will be becoming a geek soon

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 01:16:02PM +0200, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Du, 14 mar 21, 11:11:25, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 11:58:32AM +0200, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> > > 
> > > With DDG I can easily specify whether I want "local" results and for 
> > > which country.
> > 
> > Ruoghly yes, but what I was aiming at is slightly more subtle.
> 
> And I was adding another use case ;)

Thanks, got it now.

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Du, 14 mar 21, 11:11:25, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 11:58:32AM +0200, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> > 
> > With DDG I can easily specify whether I want "local" results and for 
> > which country.
> 
> Ruoghly yes, but what I was aiming at is slightly more subtle.

And I was adding another use case ;)

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 11:58:32AM +0200, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Du, 14 mar 21, 10:03:44, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > 
> > I think by now every avid reader will have an idea of what's going on.
> > The whole fuzzball of metadata you share with Google (your IP address,
> > your browser version, the whole compost heap of cookies, browser metrics
> > prior search history with Google and affiliates -- all of that kaboodle
> > is part of your search query, without you knowing it.
> 
> In my case the company laptop connects to the internet via a VPN to the 
> head office in a different country, so it tends to show me results from 
> that country instead, whereas I prefer global results in most cases.
> 
> For searches from my private device I often want results from yet 
> another country.
>  
> > If you /want/ to get back part of that control, you have to understand
> > that. When you search with DDG, you have to ask yourself: "since they
> > don't know, how can I narrow the search context?".
> > 
> > After a while, this becomes second nature, and DDG results start being
> > more or less as good as Google's.
> 
> With DDG I can easily specify whether I want "local" results and for 
> which country.

Ruoghly yes, but what I was aiming at is slightly more subtle.

To take some egregious example, let's assume you are looking for "base".

If you're thinking molecular biology, what you are looking for [1]
might be very different from what you are looking for as a maths
person [2]. Here[3]'s an overview of how the whole array might look
like.

My point is that Google takes this "burden" off you. A search engine
which doesn't track you can't -- *but* you can compensate for that
by gaining some awareness wrt the context you have to provide to
refine your searches.

My experience (I changed from Google to DDG some years ago) is that
this happens in a feedback loop.

Cheers

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleobase
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_(group_theory)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base

 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Du, 14 mar 21, 10:03:44, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> 
> I think by now every avid reader will have an idea of what's going on.
> The whole fuzzball of metadata you share with Google (your IP address,
> your browser version, the whole compost heap of cookies, browser metrics
> prior search history with Google and affiliates -- all of that kaboodle
> is part of your search query, without you knowing it.

In my case the company laptop connects to the internet via a VPN to the 
head office in a different country, so it tends to show me results from 
that country instead, whereas I prefer global results in most cases.

For searches from my private device I often want results from yet 
another country.
 
> If you /want/ to get back part of that control, you have to understand
> that. When you search with DDG, you have to ask yourself: "since they
> don't know, how can I narrow the search context?".
> 
> After a while, this becomes second nature, and DDG results start being
> more or less as good as Google's.

With DDG I can easily specify whether I want "local" results and for 
which country.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: Google vs. DDG

[Felix Miata]

deloptes composed on 2021-03-14 09:59 (UTC+0100):

> Absolutely true - they also changed Youtube few years ago and now it
> suppresses information.
> It became hard to find things that were popping up before, because you have
> viewed similar before. They slipped into USSR v2.0 game. I'm sure they'll
> end the same way sooner or later.
> We need alternatives.

https://www.newtube.app/
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[tomas]

On Sat, Mar 13, 2021 at 11:47:27PM +0100, deloptes wrote:
> Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> 
> > Interestingly, for my searches recently I've seldom got really better
> > hits on Google.
> 
> I'm trying DuckDuckGo for 2 weeks now - it's not bad, but Google is (still)
> the best

This is nonsense. "The best" without any context is just meaningless.

Let me put an example: a friend of mine is doing biological research
(mRNA and that kind of stuff).

She relies totally on Google to keep the research papers she's reading
in order. Whenever she needs a paper, Google is the entry point. One
or two words, and presto, the paper she needs is whithin the first
three hits.

Once she was working at home and tried the same. No luck. Cooking recipes,
whatever you want, no bio research papers.

I think by now every avid reader will have an idea of what's going on.
The whole fuzzball of metadata you share with Google (your IP address,
your browser version, the whole compost heap of cookies, browser metrics
prior search history with Google and affiliates -- all of that kaboodle
is part of your search query, without you knowing it.

If you /want/ to get back part of that control, you have to understand
that. When you search with DDG, you have to ask yourself: "since they
don't know, how can I narrow the search context?".

After a while, this becomes second nature, and DDG results start being
more or less as good as Google's.

I know because I tried.

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG

[deloptes]

Jeremy Ardley wrote:

> I find that Google has bias and censorhip in some topics, particularly
> those where Google has a certain point of view, or the US government
> does (and this is in areas unrelated to current medical topics).
> 
> When I suspect I'm not getting the full results I also check using Yandex.

Absolutely true - they also changed Youtube few years ago and now it
suppresses information.
It became hard to find things that were popping up before, because you have
viewed similar before. They slipped into USSR v2.0 game. I'm sure they'll
end the same way sooner or later.
We need alternatives.

Re: Google vs. DDG

[tomas]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 01:51:09AM +0200, ellanios82 wrote:
> On 3/14/21 1:41 AM, Weaver wrote:
> >>russian search-engine   helpful
> >Yes, I use that for it's local focus, especially, and a few others.
> >One doesn't cover it all.
> >I just don't use Google.
> >Cheers!
> 
> 
>  - believe that  can anonymize
> 
>  ones google search?

Yes, but you must be aware that "anonymizing the search" has an
effect on search results (and thus perceived search engine quality).

Knowing *you* gives a lot of context to your search query. Google
leverages this to your (and of course much more to their) benefit.

If you want to make alternatives viable for you, you've to take
this effect into account and tune your query behaviour.

Otherwise, you're going to go around telling "meh, Google is better",
although it isn't strictly true (see other posts in this thread
to see what I mean).

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG

[ellanios82]

On 3/14/21 1:41 AM, Weaver wrote:

russian search-engine   helpful

Yes, I use that for it's local focus, especially, and a few others.
One doesn't cover it all.
I just don't use Google.
Cheers!



 - believe that  can anonymize

 ones google search?




 regards

Re: Google vs. DDG

[Weaver]

On 14-03-2021 08:59, ellanios82 wrote:
> On 3/14/21 12:20 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
>> Still, the quality of the results isn't an absolute measure depending only 
>> on the search engine
> 
> 
>  - sometimes, find russian search-engine   helpful

Yes, I use that for it's local focus, especially, and a few others.
One doesn't cover it all.
I just don't use Google.
Cheers!

Harry.

-- 
`The World is not dangerous because of those who do harm but
 because of those who look on without doing anything'.
 -- Albert Einstein

Re: Google vs. DDG

[Jeremy Ardley]

On 14/3/21 6:59 am, ellanios82 wrote:

On 3/14/21 12:20 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
Still, the quality of the results isn't an absolute measure depending 
only on the search engine


 - sometimes, find russian search-engine   helpful



I find that Google has bias and censorhip in some topics, particularly 
those where Google has a certain point of view, or the US government 
does (and this is in areas unrelated to current medical topics).


When I suspect I'm not getting the full results I also check using Yandex.

--
Jeremy



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Re: Google vs. DDG

[ellanios82]

On 3/14/21 12:20 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

Still, the quality of the results isn't an absolute measure depending only on 
the search engine



 - sometimes, find russian search-engine   helpful


.

 regards

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[deloptes]

Andrei POPESCU wrote:

> Interestingly, for my searches recently I've seldom got really better
> hits on Google.

I'm trying DuckDuckGo for 2 weeks now - it's not bad, but Google is (still)
the best

Re: Google vs. DDG

[tomas]

On Sat, Mar 13, 2021 at 03:58:48PM -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> Felix Miata [2021-03-13 15:44:50] wrote:
> > Charlie Gibbs composed on 2021-03-13 11:04 (UTC-0800):
> >> (DuckDuckGo works fine for searches.)
> > I use Google and DDG.  It's not unusual here to have DDG to return 0 hits, 
> > and the
> > exact same search repeated in Google return multiple good hits.
> 
> The choice of DuckDuckGo is usually not based on the quality of the
> results it offers ;-)

Still, the quality of the results isn't an absolute measure depending
only on the search engine.

With DDG you have to take into account that it doesn't know very
much about you (contrary to Google). So you have to learn to provide
more context in your search terms.

It took me a while to get the hang of it when I changed from Google
to DDG, roughly about 6-7 years ago.

It's an "interesting" experience, to say the least. It reminds you
that the whole system is "user + computer" :-)

Cheers
 - t


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Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Sb, 13 mar 21, 15:44:50, Felix Miata wrote:
> Charlie Gibbs composed on 2021-03-13 11:04 (UTC-0800):
> 
> > (DuckDuckGo works fine for searches.)
>   
> I use Google and DDG. It's not unusual here to have DDG to return 0 hits, and 
> the
> exact same search repeated in Google return multiple good hits.

Interestingly, for my searches recently I've seldom got really better 
hits on Google.

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: Google vs. DDG

[Weaver]

On 14-03-2021 06:58, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> Felix Miata [2021-03-13 15:44:50] wrote:
>> Charlie Gibbs composed on 2021-03-13 11:04 (UTC-0800):
>>> (DuckDuckGo works fine for searches.)
>> I use Google and DDG.  It's not unusual here to have DDG to return 0 hits, 
>> and the
>> exact same search repeated in Google return multiple good hits.
> 
> The choice of DuckDuckGo is usually not based on the quality of the
> results it offers ;-)

It wasn't my initial priority for switching, some years ago now, but
from somebody who does a lot of research, it's all I need.
I only use things like Google scholar for bibliography references, along
with other sources.
Any organisation who participates in dinner parties with the President
(from whichever party) doesn't dine with me.

http://www.financetwitter.com/2011/02/obama-dinner-steve-jobs-mark-zuckerberg-are-vvip.html

Cheers!

Harry

-- 
`The World is not dangerous because of those who do harm but
 because of those who look on without doing anything'.
 -- Albert Einstein

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Karen Lewellen]

On Sat, 13 Mar 2021, Felix Miata wrote:


Charlie Gibbs composed on 2021-03-13 11:04 (UTC-0800):


(DuckDuckGo works fine for searches.)


I use Google and DDG. It's not unusual here to have DDG to return 0 hits, and 
the
exact same search repeated in Google return multiple good hits.
--



I must concur. while both tools are very useful indeed, one is not 
necessarily better or worse than the other for searches.  It depends on 
what  you are seeking.

Which brings up the question, why that happens?
Both tools should, save for google specific items, bring up comparative 
results. ddg may be better from a low graphics standpoint, depending on 
your platform, but results should mirror  correct?

Kare

Re: Google vs. DDG

[Stefan Monnier]

Felix Miata [2021-03-13 15:44:50] wrote:
> Charlie Gibbs composed on 2021-03-13 11:04 (UTC-0800):
>> (DuckDuckGo works fine for searches.)
> I use Google and DDG.  It's not unusual here to have DDG to return 0 hits, 
> and the
> exact same search repeated in Google return multiple good hits.

The choice of DuckDuckGo is usually not based on the quality of the
results it offers ;-)


Stefan

Re: Google vs. DDG (was: Social-media antipathy)

[Felix Miata]

Charlie Gibbs composed on 2021-03-13 11:04 (UTC-0800):

> (DuckDuckGo works fine for searches.)

I use Google and DDG. It's not unusual here to have DDG to return 0 hits, and 
the
exact same search repeated in Google return multiple good hits.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
is based on faith, not on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/