DuckDuckGo CEO says Google kills competition through phone deals that make it hard for users to switch search engines
DuckDuckGo CEO says Google kills competition through phone deals that make it hard for users to switch search engines: ‘It’s too many steps’
But Weinberg testified that getting users to switch from Google was complicated, requiring as many as 30 to 50 steps to change defaults on all their devices, whereas the process could be shortened to just one click on each device.
Full disclosure, been using Duck Duck Go for a while but...
30 to 50 steps? On a Samsung it's one click from the address bar to select a search engine and then another to select Duck, Google, yahoo, or bing.
The way it's worded they're adding steps for like 10 devices together.
And for it to be a single click, all the options would have to display every time you click the address bar, which would make it look like a 90s web browser.
I'm all about Duck, but that reeks of bullshit because they know most politicians don't know as much about the internet as a 9 year old does.
Step 1. Pickup the phone Step 2. Look at the screen Step 3. Power the phone on Step 4….
Step 0 put hand in pocket
My Samsung phone automatically reverts my favourite browser to the Samsung browser all the time without asking.
Yeah, what the fuck is that number? Are we just straight up lying in court now?
I decided to see how long it would take me to find out how to change it with no help. Took about 30 seconds. In mobile Chrome, it's basically the first setting on the settings page. So the steps are (1) open chrome, (2) hamburger menu, (3) settings, (4) search engine. Even if I have to count turning my phone on and opening Chrome if it wasn't on my home page, it still wouldn't even add up to 10 steps.
I checked Firefox and it has one extra step. There's still a search option literally at the top of the settings, just it goes to a page with multiple search related options (default search engine is still at the top). The fact that it worded it as "default" also made me immediately realize you can tap the Google icon in the address bar to choose another option, which must be what you used. 2 steps in that case.
For each browser on your phone* for the default on your phone*
I have 3 browsers on my phone for various stuff. If each is 5 steps, that’s 20 steps just to change them on my phone alone. People have multiple phones, multiple tablets, multiple computers…….
I have a phone with stock android 13, which would be the same experience as a Pixel or other stock android phone.
Here's the process for me:
Definitely not 30-50 steps on a phone setup by Google. Only real complaint is it can't be changed from the search field itself.
If I hold down the home button on my phone, it launches the stupid Google Voice Search thing. Try as I might, I can't find any way to remap that function.
Daily reminder that unregulated capitalism hurts all of us.
Daily reminder that capitalism hurts all of us.
Capitalism isn't about free markets, it's about private property and profit extraction.
Agreed!
Nice to -for once- see someone else who recognizes that capitalism in itself isn't a problem as long as it is very well regulated and doesn't immediately go "Communism is the answer!"
Capitalism in itself is very much the problem. There is no positive aspect to the extraction of surplus value ("profit"), hoarding the vast majority of it into the hands of the wealthiest "private" property owners.
Free markets don't have to be capitalist.
I always look at people who jump to "Communism is the answer" just have issues with properly articulating what they feel and just jump to a reactionary catch all comment.
I myself don't like a lot of flaws with the core tenants of capitalism, so I often find myself saying reactionary shit like "capitalism bad" sometimes too.
I think this goes for a lot of discussion on economic models. There's a lot of nuisance to it, and I think so many folks range somewhere between knowing nothing and knowing enough to be dangerous, but lack the energy, time, patience, or skill to really get it across online.
Often we see people posting about stuff so frequently because of a frustration with the current system, so unless it's like a bad faith argument I mostly just tune it out, or go "hell yeah" in my little monkey brain depending on if it's something I agree with slightly.
Laziness or not giving a damn is a choice
He's probably right, but from what I see, the reality is that like 95% of people simply don't care, and the rest will find an alternative.
Thing is, Google is also (still) just better.
I use DDG as my primary search engine, but I find myself repeating searches with Google so often, I wrote a userscript to add a "Search with Google" link to the top of the DDG search results.
I've seen a lot of chat recently about Google search quality tanking and it's made me realise that I haven't re-searched a DDG query in Google for a really, really long time. when I first started using DDG as my main a few years back, I would repeat searches in Google probably 25% of the time? but I honestly can't remember the last time I had to now. Been at least 6 months!
I agree. At least in my experience Google does a better job when it comes to search engine. I use DDG as well but when it comes to searching specific things Google beats it unfortunately.
Its the easiest thing in the world. I degoogled everything in my life in like 2-3 days after work. People aren't switching because the bulk of the world's populace likes the centralization and using the popular option. They just want to use what everyone else is.
I think if you were to ask "most people" about which search engine they prefer, they wouldn't really understand the question. I remember in highschool a teacher asked someone what operating system they have at home, and she replied "I think it's Microsoft Office".
Tech people tend to severely overestimate non-tech peoples' understanding of tech.
Counterpoint: tech literacy is irresponsibly low for a modern developed world that now requires it for everyday operation.
I am lucky my husband likes to learn about this sort of stuff. When we started dating he barely knew the difference between Mac and Windows. Now he uses Linux. Granted, I have to install it, but he keeps on top of maintenance.
Seriously, most people don't even know you can go into browser settings, let alone change your default browser there.
I made a list of the Google services I needed to replace, replaced a couple of them, but ultimately that list had dozens of items on it and I'm too tired already to complete it
It is not easy. This comment must be satire?
For example have you tried navigating in a car with a navigation app besides Maps? I don't have an iPhone and the ones I've tried so far suck. I mean, I think Waze isn't even all that good and Google owns even them now.
I tried Mapquest recently for the first time in 18 years. It was astonishing just how terrible their app and directions were.
I would gladly pay a few dollars a month for an alternative to Google Maps or Waze, but it's like no company even wants to try and compete with Google and Apple maps.
While I don't believe you can degoogle that quickly, because some of their services take quite some time to properly switch, such as email, in the end it's not too hard, but just takes time and some work.
Changing email is easy, if you don't mind it being a slow process. Just forward your google email, and start slowly replacing any service you notice in the following months/years to your new address.
Google Drive is harder to replace, I went for just running a NAS with Nextcloud, which takes care of most of Google Drive/Docs/Calendar stuff. If self-hosting isn't your cup of tea, Proton is slowly setting up usable google alternatives - they have Drive and Calendar IIRC.
Now for phone, that's the hardest task. You wouldn't help yourself by getting an IPhone. While it would de-google you, there's basically no point in switching google for apple. Getting android to be usable for stuff like banking, MFA and other bullshit you need your phone for while being degoogled is hard, due to the bullshit Google Services. The only solution I found is to either just go with dumb phone with an obscure OS, or just get a Google Pixel and run GrapheneOS.
Maps are another issue, but thankfully we have a local https://mapy.cz/ , which is a pretty OK alternative to Google maps for our country, and I guess they even work worldwide. I don't drive a car, so I don't really need it that often.
The only remaining Google service I use is GCloud VPS, because I have some websites running there on the free instances that I'm too lazy to move. But I'm slowly migrating it to Amazon. Not that it would help much, anyway. And also Youtube, but I'm trying to go through the alternative front-ends as much as possible.
And for browser, I'm using https://mullvad.net/en/browser. Fuck chromium.
Migrating email alone is a huge pain. To be truly independent you need your own domain in case whatever provider you choose goes to shit. Any decent one will cost money. Now, most people don't even know what a domain is, let alone where and how to buy it and use it for email. They also have to pay that mail provider, configure everything and migrate their old emails and forward their old mail. Oh and now they also have different logins everywhere, and because they probably don't have a password manager either they need to get one or just have different logins for different things.
That's ... a gargantuan task. for an average person - even if you provide them with a rough outline of what they'd need to do they probably wouldn't be able to do so without help.
Also, as a side note, what do you use for watching videos? What phone do you have? What maps do you use? It's not so easy to "de-google" completely.
Migrating emails isnt that hard if u dont set yourself a deadline. Some services like proton offer migration and forwarding from google and you can just slowly update them as you use it. I myself got tutanota and anonaddy and going through my bitwarden entries updating different alias for everything for the past couple days. Still gonna keep the gmail accounts around for emergency but will slowly disassociate from it.
Takes a while but you can just stick with updating them when you do use it if you dont have the time or feeling lazy. For an average person who doesnt value privacy, they have no reason to move out of google anyway so gmail will always be the popular one unfortunately.
I installed a custom launcher that's close to the stock one on my Pixel 3 specifically to make it possible to remove the Google Search widget. Now I have a Firefox widget that points to DDG.
If any are interested, the launcher is Lawn Chair, and it can be installed via F-droid.
F-droid relesae is 4 years old, you can get August 2022 releases on github
For more convenience, the newest version is also available via the IzzyOnDroid repo, you can enable it with one tap in Drod-ify.
If you have a Pixel, why not go all in with https://grapheneos.org/?
I e been debating switching the graphene for weeks weeks now. But I just know I'm gonna end up installing Google play services on it and completely defeat the whole point of the OS. I'm probably gonna buy the pixel 8 when it comes out so once I have that I'll put graphene on my current phone and see how I like it.
I like the 'ground up' approach they mention that doesn't rely on insecure 'adversaries'. I'll check it out soon.
this absolutely wouldn't happen if there were no regulations - a libertarian
DuckDuckGo CEO apparently is just another CEO. I've been an early adopter that's been using their search engine long before there were apps or a browser.
What's stopping people from using DDG isn't switching to DDG, it's getting absolutely dogshit results 90% of time. As an advanced user I know I can prefix my search with "!g phrase" to use Google instead of DDG. The sad fact is that despite the ad-ridden result page and tracking, Google is still lightyears ahead in providing relevant, and especially timely results for a user that is both tech-savvy and critical.
They need to improve their product, users will follow a good adfree search engine, that's a given. Only a fraction of users will put up with degraded results in order to search without tracking.
I sincerely hope they will get their tech up to par. And that their browser on mobile reaches feature parity soon. (as a Z Fold user, DDG browser doesn't have tabs. Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox does).
The new kid on the block needs humility and good tech, not shittalk. Fuck that CEO,. he's undermining something very promising and important.
I've never had a problem with DDGs search results that simply rephrasing my query didn't solve. What are you all searching for that Google's results are "light-years ahead" of DuckDuckGo's? (Honest question)
I agree. Honestly anytime I've resorted to having to use Google for something I feel the results are even worse than DDG.
Not OP, but I get completely trash results on a ton of technical questions no matter how I phrase it. Not a specific example, but if I'm having an issue with some niche distribution of Linux that requires a specific fix, it'll instead insist on showing me the massive pile of results for the normal distros instead of the couple of links containing the answer I want.
For as shitty as Google has gotten, it'll at least give you the one or two better hits before piling on the generic results.
It's like DDG changes the query to get more results whereas Google will just run the damn search even if they stuff the results with ads and tracking.
The only thing I goto Google for is when I'm looking for local attractions. With Google maps being native everything is just smoother. Also, Google reviews are much more relevant with whatever duckduckgo has integrated (yelp?). Just my 2 cents.
I offset any inconvenience with how Google is not much of a search engine but more of an ad company. Also, I disabled all Googles data scavenging shit and I can't even load the site without getting hit with a captcha. As someone who saw Google rise from the librarians favorite search engine, when a cable modem was life changing, it's devastating to see it become everything that's wrong with the internet.
In my recent experience Google still delivers better results for tech troubleshooting queries. "linux drivers for acer e15 card reader" at least points me to some semi-relevant pages on Google that could lead to a solution or more ideas where to look while ddg throws a lot of generic stuff that is only faintly related.
I often don't find what I want in DDG; and I then try !g to look for it with Google... and Google doesn't find it either.
In my experience it is very rare for Google to help me with a search that DDG failed with. As for the converse, I wouldn't know - because I never search Google first. Why wouldn't I? They're evil.
That said, I will point out that I don't use a google account, and I block most google-related cookies. I know that some people find Google gives better results due to its personalised results; and obviously I'm not 'benefiting' from that. So it is believable that you get better results from Google than I do, due to it knowing more about you, and thus guessing what you might want to see.
I used DDG as my main for about half a year recently (and also a few times in the past). I always eventually end up back with Google. Don't get me wrong the results aren't that much better; but they're definitely marginally better, at least for me. The personalization helps, too.
This time I had a brief detour using Neeva for a while and I was really happy with it; was kinda like a better DDG; but that got defunct so I ended up with Google again in the end and I just don't see a way out.
I always see people saying Google provides better results, but to me it's awful. I don't even use DDGO anymore, but Google only shows ads and SEO optimized results that look AI generated. Is this common or am I just an isolated case?
I only ever hear people say the opposite. The comment you're replying to is I think the first time I've seen someone say google is better than ddg in the wild. I keep feeling like I'm going crazy when people say ddg is better than google. Google is the only search engine capable of actually finding the results I'm looking for. Half the time it feels like it's reading my mind.
I genuinely don't know what people are searching for that yields better results on ddg than google. Every time I've gotten someone to give me an example, the thing they supposedly couldn't find was the first result.
My experience has been similar to yours. It's disheartening.
Google results are garbage compared to 10 years ago, but they're still miles ahead of ddg.
DDG isn't the only alternative to Google. I use Kagi and love it. The results IME are definitely better than Google's.
I just signed up for kagi and so far i like what i see. I am still in my 100 search trial though.
I've switched to DDG almost a year ago, and I never had issues with my search results. Quite the contrary, every time I tried using !g because I simply wasn't finding an answer, the Google was ad-ridden bullshit full of promoted pages without relevance to what I was looking for.
I guess I'm just used to DDG quality of results, but I never felt like it's as bad as you say.
That depends very heavily on what your searching for.
If you're a programmer or similar, like the poster you're replying to appears to be, then you absolutely will find DDG crap compared to Google.
I use DDG as my primary search engine, but if I have a tech question, I usually skip it and go straight to Google.
I am with you. I don't know what this guy's about about the search results of Google. A couple comments above people were complaining about the terrible results googles ad driven engine spews out. Also saying he's so tech savvy and needs the Google "quality", somehow not knowing !g just completely circumvents the benefits of DDG
I work in IT and use the search engine around 100 times a day in order to find specific answers to specific edge cases. DDG results are just too generic most of the time.
But once they get better, oh yeah.
Until recently I would have agreed 100%.
But Google's search has turned to dogshit since it's started trying to be smarter than it is, and DDG is now giving me results on par with old Google - that is, a list of exactly what I was searching for on the first try.
I made the switch a week ago. For two days at work, I always used Google, DDG and ecosia(uses bing) at the same time to compare the results. They are the same most of the time for the first 10 to 20 results. There's sometimes a blogpost that one engine shows that the other doesn't, but that post never made a difference.
When DDG does not get me helpful results, I can still ask Google to help out.
ecosia(uses bing)
Ecosia is a fucking scam. They claim that "every search plants a tree", except the monetary contribution towards their "tree-planting" stuff comes from clicking ads -- therefore if you are a knowledgeable user who purposefully skips over ads (or just use an ad-blocker) then Ecosia makes exactly $0 off of your traffic.
Yeah, I e had worsening search results from DDG over the past 6+ months. I've set it to my default browser, but I often have to switch because the results are not specific enough compared to Google.
And now Googles AI results are a huge time saver.
DDG rules
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The U.S. Department of Justice argues that Google has smothered competition by paying companies such as Apple and Verizon to lock in its search engine as the default choice — the first one users see — on many laptops and smartphones.
Even when it holds the default spot on smartphones and other devices, Google argues, users can switch to rival search engines with a couple of clicks.
DuckDuckGo still sells ads, but bases them on what people are asking its search engine in the moment, a technique known as “contextual advertising.” That focus on privacy helped the company attract more users after the Edward Snowden saga raised awareness about the pervasiveness of online surveillance.
It gained even more customers after Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal opened a window into how personal information extracted from digital services can be passed around to other data brokers.
But Lehman said machine learning has improved rapidly in recent years, to the point that computers can evaluate text on their own without needing to analyze data from user clicks.
During the exchange, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta drew a laugh by asking how internet searches would answer one of pop culture’s most pressing questions this week: whether superstar singer Taylor Swift is dating NFL tight end Travis Kelce.
The original article contains 637 words, the summary contains 212 words. Saved 67%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Good bot
Im just here to watch the slimeballs duke it out.
Bullshit. It's not that hard in the least bit to change search.
Agreed, but the plebs don't know or care.
But on Google Pixel for example, you have no trivial way to get rid of the google search bar on every pagw on your home screen, and the global phone search also always uses google for the web results. This can only be changed by replacing the launcher or OS. this is not a fair competition. Google are abaolutely abusing their ability to control the platform.
I could switch but I don't see any need to. The lockin from apple apps and google play apps is far stronger.
Okay, sure. I agree that this is an unfair advantage. But like, I've been using DuckDuckGo for a while and the best thing about it is the ability to easily search other search engines. Their own actual search engine isn't exactly great.
Mostly using it makes me realize how much time Google saves me by already having my location and search history. I still don't trust them and it isn't what it was a few years ago, but it's the actual quality of their search that's keeping them on top.
Also like, why does clicking a thumbnail in video search not take me to the video? Dumb.
Bing says what?
Ker-ching! 🤑
that’s DuckDuckGo and “Names Database” CEO*, folks. PLEASE do not look to this man as a beacon for anything privacy-related, even when he says something true.
ok ill try using duckduckgo again
I've been using freeadblocker browser after stumbling on it (with DDG as a search engine). Does it have anything to do with Google/chrome? I'm confused, because I've been using it for so long and it blocks all ads so I guess I don't know why no one is using it unless it's some Google stepchild I don't know about and I'm still googled without knowing it.
Seems really fishy.
Quite a few trackers: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.hsv.freeadblockerbrowser/latest/
And so many red flags like a free VPN (so they route all your traffic), "powered with AI technology" (what for?), not open source…
A browser is a very sensitive piece of software, you trust it with a lot of personal data. Don't use a random one like this one.
Is that iOS, Android or PC? Do you have a link?
Android. It seems to be available on Google play ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hsv.freeadblockerbrowser) now but I remember having to find the APK elsewhere when I first got it.
Because I can use Firefox.
Maybe if they made DDG give better results, I wouldn't use Google quite as much
DDG does have better results than Google. I've not used the latter for years and was surprised by the bad quality of results when I used it once accidentally last week.
It depends and that’s why both your answers aren’t quite the full truth.
If you are a deep resident of the Google ecosystem (maps, Mail, android etc.) Google’s results are second to none. That’s because Google knows exactly what you care about and what is relevant to you. They know where you work, where you are, what you talk about etc etc.
With all that knowledge google can optimise both ads and answers to you almost perfectly.
If you’re not a deep resident, ddg is better - their results have to work harder, so to speak, because they don’t have your every waking thought to hand as a relevancy scale.
So, yeah, if you give Google everything they make money off it and keep you dependent on them.
Sounds like a dealer, right?
Exactly my thoughts as well. You need enable your country, though.
No, I mean that DDG doesn't provide summaries or skip to the section of video Tha answers your questions. Google has some great features
I am a regular DDG user but it depends what I'm searching for. I also use Qwant
Do you use DDG China™ or something? This all comes up when I search for it, no censorship
I've just tried to search for 'tank man' and also 'tiananmen square' with DuckDuckGo's image search, and both of them returned the picture we all know, that dictator Winnie the Poop doesn't wanna see...
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Brave is malware made by a company run by a fucking bigot who used his millions to try to strip people of their human rights. They are not your friend
Source on that?
But I mean, if you prefer anything Brave does, sure.
Brave browser CEO apologizes for automatically adding affiliate links to cryptocurrency URLs
Brave might not be better.
DuckDuckGo just sounds so stupid. I refuse to use it
I assume you’re not using, and have never used, Google (a silly sounding, misspelled math term that sounds like a sound a baby would make), Bing (sillier yet), Yahoo (it sounds almost as ridiculous as “Google” and their early advertising only made it worse), Yandex (what is it, a cleaning product or a search engine?), Baidu (sounds like a name from a children’s show), Seznam (sounds like a sauce), Brave (literally the same name as a children’s movie), Searx (someone tried to be cool by replacing “ch” with “x”… c’mon), or Qwant (bless you!). I’m curious, though… which search engine do you use?
It's worth the weird name if you care about maintaining privacy rights.
Oh no theyre lost the business of those distracted by tinfoil. Whatever will they do?
I personally use DuckDuckGo, but if you're just after avoiding handing your searches over to Google there are other more "palatably-named" alternatives like Startpage, OneSearch, Ecosia etc.
Google’s search results are absolute garbage lately. It pushes the most advert-heavy spam sites first.
DuckDuckGo has more reliably been giving me the technical documentation I was looking for in the past year.
I can't find shit anymore, always spam sites angry at my ad blocker or YouTube videos, which are angry at my ad blocker.
The first half of the first page is all ads now on Google. It's utter shit - the things it's a lot better at than DDG is NLP, being able to understand questions, and anything news related. If you know exactly what you're searching for though, using the old style of search words works great on DDG
Search engines are about to be replaced by AI anyway.
If you want good results, use something like perplexity.ai.
It is slow, so it isn't my main engine. But those results are amazing. You can be very specific in what you are searching and keep refining your search since it remembers your previous results, it tells you why the result is relevant and it also gives summaries of the website so you can know what it says before you click on it.
It truly is artificial intelligent searching.
I used to be able to search for a tracking number by Google and it would link to the correct delivery tracking service. About 1-2 months ago Google stopped doing this and just gives no results. Why would they stop linking you to FedEx or UPS? Who knows, but my wild ass guess is since Google was not able to link "related" sponsored links along with it they just removed the functionality. They are just actively making their service shittier anytime something minor doesn't dish out a shitty ad along with it.
I've gone on to using Kagi and DDG. Rarely do I miss Google search.
I do this all the time for work. It still works for me when I put a FDX trk # in
Kagi looks neat but they'd have to have absolutely amazing results if they want me to pay for them, which I doubt they have... And sorry, but paying $10/month for a fucking search engine (where the actual cost per user is negligible and profit scales with number of users extremely nicely) is just insane.
I guess Google would make at most about $1/month off of ads from me... if I didn't block them. I'd be willing to pay that, maybe up to $3 for a really good service. But this is just insane, and continues the trend of "oh you like a service that's not complete crap? I guess you should pay an order of magnitude (or several) more than what's necessary to provide that service, because fuck you, what can you do?"
If I had to pay for every service like that I'd probably spend $500/month just for that and then they'd still figure out that hey, we can still put ads in and make a little bit more cuz why not, what are they gonna do?
Google search is less than useful nowadays. Google assistant seems to be Google's inbred idiot cousin. DDG doesn't seem to be any better. Most of my searches give the same clickbait results that google does.
Honestly, outside of Google Maps, is there any legitimate value to any google product? Is there a single search engine that is brave enough to give 0 results and also literally parses what you're asking instead of valuating against what the advertisers want you to see?
I dream daily of Google imploding, and every single investor at that useless company going immediately bankrupt and destitute for the disgusting, addled, brain-malware they push.
I love searching for something on Google and have the entirety of the above the fold be sponsored results
Ublock Origin
My favorite is when I ask how to do something in Google Slides and Google gives me answers on how to do it in Google Docs. So helpful. Not at all frustrating.
If I recall correctly, DuckDuckGo uses Bing's search database (not search itself, just the database).
When I built my PC last year I decided to just let Edge and Bing go for a bit instead of immediately downloading another browser or changing the search engine. I can count on one hand the number of times I needed to enter in Google.com to get a different or better result. And almost every one of those was because I wanted a google maps results and not whatever weird maps MS has.
I miss the 2000s/2010s Google. Now I need to endlessly scroll down the page in an attempt to find something barely useful.
Weird, I stopped using DDG because it was useless for troubleshooting IT stuff.
Depends on what you’re doing. I look up Linux admin stuff. DDG points to the Arch Linux wiki which is solid, even for non-Arch Linux stuff. Google points to random sponsored blog tutorials that are sometimes outdated or the author doesn’t have a full understanding of what their copy-paste terminal commands do.
Recently I used google to look up a Kotlin coding thing. It pointed to every source except the official Kotlin documentation.
Good thing about DDG is you can just add a simple bang to search another site right from the results
DuckDuckGo has been giving me poor results lately - especially when I look for news, everything is a redirect to Bing now - so I instead use Brave Search. It’s kind of disappointing since DDG had always worked great for me