If Google is compelled to stop making search deals, Mozilla loses 90% of their income. They just laid off tons of staff. How many more will they be forced to cut?
Apple I suspect will be just fine. But this isn't good news at all on the browser monoculture front.
It's also possible Microsoft would exercise caution, considering this suit against Google. They may want to sidestep any deals that could paint a target on their back in the future.
It's not 2000 anymore. Building a web scale search engine no longer requires novel distributed systems work, and the most viable search algorithms have strong open source implementations. It's still a very hard problem to get right, but you can create an "interesting" poc in a few weeks. Recent work on unspervised content based recommenders can help reduce click stream data requirements.
In my anecdotal experience, it's every bit as good as google, and I simply did not notice a difference in the results when I switched.
It must be down to what people search for, or maybe how heavily Google has customized their personal results to fit their behaviors. I mostly use web searches for looking up technical documentation, and 5-second tasks like weather forecasts and unit conversions.
This has happened probably a handful of times but enough times that I would have been stuck in the water without Google, unfortunately. Only one of those handful of cases was significant (I needed that information for work, not a simple curious search) but Google saved the day.
Some of it may be due to years of growing accustomed to building searches subconsciously around Google which is unfair to DDG, but it's hard to say definitively.
1. Index size - Google spider visits more places than Bing spider. This is why Google delivers better results for compiler error strings, serial numbers etc.
Query examples where Bing/DDG completely miss the mark:
SA1DP2CF - a serial number
s2 034 253 033 C - audi rs2 exhaust manifold part no
Denninger Str. 96, 81925 München, Germany - what is on this location?
2. Intent/Semantic
Query examples:
tesla 00001 - who owns first tesla? Bing is completely lost
original elite alien name - looking for thargoids, Google tells me that right away, DDG #8
3. Localized
Query example: hiking trails - Google gives me relevant local results based on my location (IP based), DDG doesn't (although it is aware of my IP-based location in the same way)
Getting these right is incredibly hard as you literally need Google size infrastructure to get this right, which even Bing doesn't have.
Second thing that is hard to catch up for any Google competitor is the rest of Google infrastructure users rely on - Browser, Email, Meet, Docs, Youtube, Android, Drive... Even if you get the search right but the user has to go back to Google for the rest of services, Google has a chance to get the user back.
IMO attacking Google starts with developing a product that does not insult user's intelligence, is innovative and does things Google can't, explores different business models (as ads inevitably lead to conflict of interest - optimize for user experience or advertising revenue?) and offers infrastructure that displaces (at least some) Google services.
"kicad convert wxpoint to millimeters"
Note how many "Autocad" entries clutter the DDG results. Google gets kicad in every single entry on the first page.
My biggest frustration with search engines is "I gave you the terms so USE THEM. Don't be helpful and omit terms you think aren't relevant."
I still miss AltaVista's interactive cluster diagrams where you could see the web of links and pick the relevant one.
If DDG simply implemented that single feature, I would never go back to Google.
The problem is that, like Microsoft in the 90's, Google will simply copy your feature if it takes off. So, there is no point in innovating in a visible way in search. That's the problem with a monopoly.
Here you go. #2 on the list.
https://www.runnaroo.com/blog/the-search-engine-hacker-news-...
Thanks for this. I'll flip it to my default search for a while and see how it goes.
I know Swisscows and Carrot2 both do some topic clustering, maybe those would be interesting as well.
If you are searching technical info like pdf manuals, datasheets, etc.. I find DDG works better than Google, because most companies aren’t buying to be first result, so the manuals show up first.
If you are looking for Stack Overflow type of content “how to config X on linux using Y”. The !g flag becomes handy.
This is what I do as well but regarding results on technical info I consider DDG/BING/Whatever way inferior to Google.
Disclaimer: I switched to DDG and only very infrequently need to resort to google. I happier not being tracked.
Either way, I use Searx[1], which is a search engine aggregator that you can self-host or use one of the public instances[2].
I would be unsurprised if it's true. The reality that DDG is going to have is that search is almost inherently personal, as an artifact of the imprecision of language and the lack of surrounding context. It applies to some searches more than others, but something like "what is vanilla?" Has a whole variety of answers. What is the substance vanilla? What is made out of vanilla? There's probably 80 different software frameworks that use vanilla in the name. Who knows how many companies have vanilla in their name. Oh, or it could be that you mistyped Manilla, which has its own set of results.
Personalization let's you cut down on that. Maybe this person searches for Python stuff a lot, so there's a good chance the frameworks are what they're looking for. Or, the inverse, this person looks up recipes all the time, they probably know what vanilla is so don't show a full page of "this is where vanilla comes from" results.
Lacking that context, they have to assume the same context for everyone, so either everybody gets a full page of web frameworks or everyone gets a full page of frameworks; DDG has no way to tell which you're probably more interested in.
Yeah, if you aren't used enough, it's not worth trying to target you for manipulation. All that really demonstrates is (1) they use different algorithms than Google, so optimizing against Google's algorithm doesn't work on them, and (2) they aren't used enough to be worth gaming separately.
You and me, as consumers, shouldn’t be forced to use a worse product just to try to balance the market, because we can’t compete with Google either. That’s the point of anti-trust regulations.
I'm sure there's some site the obfuscates results and could probably answer the question a little more scientifically.
My process: think of something I want to find, think of all the keywords I can, type them into the search engine.
Google helps me find what I'm looking for faster than Bing or DDG.
On the other hand, there are often various good local search providers who have bangs that you can use directly, with better SERPs than Google for the relevant queries.
Even with those features on I find constantly outdated information these days.
Yup that article from 2012 Techcrunch with the broken links is really helping me Google.
Disclosure: Currently running an alternative search engine. However I legitimately don't like Google search or Google's practices in the search market, so much so it actually prompted us to throw our hat in the ring.
Edit: I just made the search again, "Techcrunch submission form" The first result for me is from 2006, not 2012, https://techcrunch.com/2006/02/01/how-to-submit-your-company...
Yeah, Google has overtly for, IIRC, about a decade said they are focussing search improvements on personal and even predictive search, so, sure, disable that and the quality goes down.
But that just illustrates that, while there is an obvious advertising incentive for data collection, it actually is relevant to delivering useful search results.
[0]Only 22% of consumers say they are okay with having their information collected indiscriminately by websites to provide a better experience.
Which means by that metric google abuses 88% of it's users unless they go through the means to turn the features off.
Informed consent, access and ownership are all pillars a modern site experience should have when it comes to data collection -- Google fails here and so does DDG in the opposite direction by just never asking which means they can't do any personalization.
The winner here is going to be someone who can provide the better ethical and functional experience. I firmly believe in the next 15 years we will see litigation in the US around data privacy just using California as the canary and Europe recently voted to get even stricter than the GDPR.
That isn't a quote from the referenced link. The quote is "Only 22 percent of consumers agreed that they would be willing to hand over personal data to improve experiences." - which is quite a different thing.
I'm not happy to hand over personal data to improve experiences. But I'm very happy for Google to track what searches I do to improve their results.
Your right it's not a quote I didn't quote it, notice the lack of quotes. I'm also not sure how you are splitting hairs over "information collected indiscriminately" which would be a superset including personal data.
I get https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/20/submit-a-guest-post-to-ext... as the first link
Absolutely. I switched from Google to DDG and Qwant a few weeks ago and was surprised that I didn't see much differences.
But after discussing it with colleagues that were switching back to Google it became apparent that it was because I was siloing Google to its own browser, erasing cookies etc that made it as "inefficient" as the other search engines.
App Store search says.
I use Google with site:apple.com to search all of these instead.
If Apple search capabilities are a hidden asset, then they're very well hidden.
Even indexing the web is a different problem now than in 2000, users expect the search results that are SEO optimized for google.
That said, in general, I appreciate the greater average quality of apps in the App Store.
What's an open source ripoff?
A competitor who wasn’t shackled to that business model would have a lot of freedom to innovate.
Most people seem to disagree with you about the raw results improving. They certainly don’t seem to be for me.
First 4-5 links are ads, the next might be relevant. Page 2 onwards is definitely irrelevant.
A decent search engine is not worth the massive amount of 12 billion dollars. The advertising platform Google build is!
Apple 1) can't recreate that 2) it shouldn't as advertising is not in their DNA and opposite of their privacy core values.
Apple can build a search engine (or just switch to Bing) but they wouldn't be able monetize that for $12000000000.
They certainly have been hiring people who know how to build search tech.
>Apple has hired Google’s chief of search and artificial intelligence, John Giannandrea
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/business/apple-hires-goog...
This is true, but not in a way you think. Conventional wisdom tells us that you're gonna need completely different approaches across the stack (not just technological but organizational as well) when a problem size grows 10x, and the web has grown about 100x from 2000.
Wouldn't it be ironic if the DOJ case fell apart because Apple released it's own search engine?
Barring C-level change at Google I’m expecting the gap to disappear in a year or two.
My impression is that Google Search is worse now than it was in the past. They've gotten complacent. So if they had to fight for users instead of taking them for granted through paying off Apple and Mozilla, then maybe Google would have to perform better. Everyone wins? (Except AAPL stockholders.)
If you Google '$PRODUCT review' and only get Amazon-affiliate scam sites pretending to be review sites, it's not because Google has been SEOed but rather because there are no actual reviews of $PRODUCT.
Aside from a botched update last year, where Google would only return results that were selling things, Google Search is still very good at finding information that exists.
When looking at a web page you nowadays have to wonder 'what is the purpose of this page?'. Unfortunately even sites like wirecutter exist more and more to drive revenue, rather than inform the user. The only types of pages where purpose is still non-commercial (in most cases) are discussions.
It is the pointer to monopolistic behavior: Being so influent that nothing exists outside the Google Search. We can’t affirm honest reviews don’t exist: I’m sure there are authentic comparators, in fact in France UFC Que Choisir is a pretty leftist comparison organization who explores products, compares them and even regularly sends companies to trial, a pretty good sign that they couldn’t care less for those companies in a way that is awesomely aligned with authenticity. I’m sure there are millions of other people writing reviews for pleasure.
Google chose not to show them, and to orient their search in the way they wanted, whatever it is, maybe they’re showing corporate sites first, or commercial sites first, making it impossible for amateurs to exist, making them « don’t exist ». It turns out it makes you feel like nothing is authentic. Therefore we turn back to Amazon or Google and buy any of the list, just trusting the biggest vendor. This probably innocuous wording of yours may be the key to the whole problem here.
Google and DDG, however, are very good at finding authentic reviews in niche market segments where authentic reviews are still common. The fact that search engines can find these reviews suggests that the lack of authentic reviews for mainstream products is much more due to a lack of authentic reviews on the web rather than a problem with search engines.
Whenever I use DDG, I just have to remember that DDG does not have my personal profile, and adjust accordingly. Then the results are fine, and even better if I'm searching outside my normal profile.
It is. I haven't accepted cookies from google in many years, and when I get frustrated enough to !g bang on ddg it never finds me anything better.
It’s on par or better for 99% of what I use it for (tech, real estate, and advocacy).
DDG won't even return Stack ("Your question has been deleted as a duplicate") Overflow results for technical questions.
For any other search term, Google generally spams me with "answer boxes" that are universally slightly besides the point, while DDG gives me a clean page of relevant links.
I have family members who I'd call "computer literate 101" (i.e. they can use e-mail, create a PowerPoint, buy something on the web). Their homescreen is a history of their apps downloads, everything just gets added to the next available space. They do not use folders, they do not move icons. They do not enable large text size even though it would help them see the text better. They do not change the default ringtone. They do not use "do not disturb" when they're in a restaurant.
The reason is, they don't even know these options exist. They have never opened the Settings app.
To change the default search engine, you need to go three screens deep in Settings.app.
If Google stops paying Apple and Apple changes the default (for new users) to Bing or whatever, 99.5% of new users will just use Bing.
There is probably going to be another search player willing to pay to be the default on Apple, with the increase of usage, due to being the default, they will make more money, with more money they will be able to improve their service faster.
Unless search quality is critical for Apple, which would be surprising seeing the search quality of Siri
You can't simultaneously argue that being the default is irrelevant and that it's bad to pay to be the default.
changing "just the default" on organ donation to presumed consent w/ family veto, for instance, would essentially end all organ supply issues in the nation.
If the Justice Department contines with this attempt to stop Google paying to be the default, I can easily see this ending in a situation where their non-search competitors are worse off financially and consumers have substantially less choice than they do now.
But yeah, I'm sure we all know more about Google's strategic outlook than high-level Google execs.
Also Google is not the best engine everywhere nor for everyone.
I think a sign of this is if it was that simple Google wouldn’t be paying that much in the first place.
Anyone doing a gpt-3 search mashup?
Also Apple could build its own search engine (using either google or bing as an api) or they could say buy DDG.
Funny fact: check out the mobile version of bing.com. The MS logo is hidden from the viewport unless you scroll up. Almost as if MS is pretty ok with not advertising to people too much that they’re on their platform.
I used a distro that made yahoo default in Firefox. It’s fine. I’ll end up switching to google eventually but haven’t been arsed to do it yet.
I've been using DDG since they first launched, and that simple promise was all it took to get me to try them out the first time I heard of them.
No matter what your opinion of the company, Google's brand reputation is well earned and pervasive, and it started and was built from scratch, as opposed to DDG which basically stuck its own logo on Bing's API.
You will do that the vast majority of people wont, for them Google means search.
Who had Apple down on their betting sheet as the biggest loser from a Google anti-trust lawsuit?