Google Quietly Adds DuckDuckGo as a Search Engine Option for Chrome Users in About 60 Markets (techcrunch.com) 73
An anonymous reader shares a report: In an update to the chromium engine, which underpins Google's popular Chrome browser, the search giant has quietly updated the lists of default search engines it offers per market -- expanding the choice of search product users can pick from in markets around the world. Most notably it's expanded search engine lists to include pro-privacy rivals in more than 60 markets globally. The changes, which appear to have been pushed out with the Chromium 73 stable release yesterday, come at a time when Google is facing rising privacy and antitrust scrutiny and accusations of market distorting behavior at home and abroad.
It's not that surprising (Score:2)
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Re:It's not that surprising (Score:4, Informative)
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The advantage is anonymity and disabling of tracking.
Re:It's not that surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
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I use DuckDuckGo because they don't share my information with their partners.
How do you know that?
This is a very welcome move by Google (Score:1)
I'm under the impression that there are people within Google connected to the Do no Evil policy which Google as a corporate long forgot. Small things like these, or the internal opposition related to Chinese Google and Pentagon AI fiasco makes me want to believe there is hope.
I use it nearly 100% of the time (Score:5, Informative)
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It takes one programmer to write a search as good as Google's.
It takes dozens of staff and hundreds of managers, PR reps, lawyers, etc. to incessantly tweak, alter, game, and censor the results in order to deliver an end result as bad and politically-gamed as Google's.
Re: I use it nearly 100% of the time (Score:2)
How many programmers does it take to develop Google Search?
Two of them, apparently.
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DDG have their own index for specialized sites and use Bing for regular web results.
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If they are not sharing your info with google, what does it matter? Seems like a win win.
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That's because DuckDuckGo is basically a frontend or wrapper for Google.
They've never been a frontend for Google. They started as an anonymizing frontend for Bing. They've grown a lot since then, though Bing is still a big part of results.
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Agreed. I suspect many times people will try an alternative once or twice - often early in that alternative’s life - and then hold that impression for the rest of their lives. Or they won’t even try it and just parrot what their “tech friend” said on the matter.
It’s similar to how, just the other day, I heard some dude railing against MySQL because it didn’t support transactions. He’d apparently heard that 10-15 years ago, and it was still his go-to argument against
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MyISAM still doesn't support transactions.
Re: I use it nearly 100% of the time (Score:2)
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People often complain Duckduckgo.com doesn't return the same number or quality of search results as Google; That's simply not true. The vast majority of the time I use it, I find the information I'm searching for on the first try.
You mean it's simply not true for you. I try using it every so often and the information I want has literally never been on the first page, and usually isn't on the second or third either.
Anyone who cares about their privacy should be supporting organizations that respect it and refuse to use technology that tracks you for marketing and other purposes.
Trust? How cute.
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Agreed. Several years back I found it lacking and switched back to Google, but I gave it another shot a year or two back and haven't stopped using it ever since. Plus, with bangs [duckduckgo.com], which are easily one of its best features and something I sorely miss whenever I sit down at someone else's computer, a Google search is never more than a "!g" away if for some reason I think I need it, though that happens less and less with time. Between using bangs to jump immediately to a particular site, the ability to change
Re: I use it nearly 100% of the time (Score:2)
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!wa is the best. Yes, I could just go to Wolfram Aplha's site, but since DDG is my default search engine, !wa is awesome. Best web calculator around.
For those unfamiliar, try
!wa (e^x + e^-x)/2
!wa integral of e^-(x^2) dx from negative infinity to n
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You searched for 'git reset', and are upset that ddg didn't tell you git ammend?? Wow.
FWIW ddg returns what you wanted if you don't actively search for the wrong thing.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=git+... [duckduckgo.com]
What's next? you going to search for the honda sports car with split rear window... and then get mad if it doesn't return "Corvette" ?
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Or... you could find a better way to say that instead of being so dismissive of it or suggesting that their experiences can't possibly be representative.
Good for you. That's not everyone's experience however... including my own, for what's that worth, and you suggesting that beca
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What's the more outlandish? That you somehow know what other people you've never met might intend or want, or that your experiences are not necessarily the same as other peoples, and that the experiences described are not necessarily simply the result of wishful thinking?
Like I said... hooray for you. That's not everyone's experience, and your counterpoint of how well it works for you is immaterial. Your persiste
Markets? Do you mean Countries? (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's not reduce whole countries to just markets. We are users and citizens, not just consumers or products.
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Sorry but yes you are the product.
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Bizarre that Google is giving their product away to DuckDuckGo, isn't it? I mean how is that evil, it makes no sense.
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It's win-win for Google. They get your search history without the cost of serving results. Everything you type in Chrome goes to Google, of course.
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Ah, I had forgotten about that particular conspiracy theory. I assume you have zero evidence to back it up.
Shame as I'd love to be the one kicking off that GDPR complaint. Imagine being responsible for costing Google 4% of global turnover.
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Does Chrome autocomplete for you? Yeah, that's everything you type in the "omnibar" going to Google, and they save your history.
There's a Gooogle privacy setting for that:
Web & App Activity
(Paused)
Used by Assistant, Google Maps, and others
If you turn this setting on, Google will save your activity on Google sites and apps in your Google Account, including searches and associated info like location. You can also choose to save which apps you use, your Chrome history, and which sites you visit on the web.
All nicely GDPR compliant, I'm sure. You might check if you still have it enabled, as perhaps you're not comfortable with it.
If you search on DDG on Chrome, that url becomes part of your "Chrome history". And Google knows how to parse the URIs of common sites to extract everything.
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Autocomplete uses DDG if that is your selected search engine. The rest is explicitly opt in. Also note that you can encrypt synced data with your own key.
In other words, Google doesn't record every web site you visit.wothout your permission, and can't read it if you don't want them to. They don't know what you enter in the search bar. Doing so would be a clear GDPR violation unless explicitly opted in to.
Your original comment was dishonest, and your follow up plain wrong.
But... (Score:1)
Methinks this does not remove you from the Google bubble, especially if you are logged in to Chrome, which I never am. Everything in Chrome's history is reported back to the mothership, logged in or not.
I'd like to use duckduckgo but... (Score:3)
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They literally use bings search engine under the covers.
They just direct your search query to bing, and then show it, potentially with a couple of 'info cards' they made themselves for the most common stuff (eg. currency conversions).
If it isn't on duckduckgo (Score:4, Interesting)
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Google is good now? (Score:1)
I wait until they include YaCy [yacy.net]
Simplifying support for competition? (Score:2)
Most notably it's expanded search engine lists to include pro-privacy rivals in more than 60 markets globally.
How dare they help level the playing field a little! Why do they hate America?