Shit contaminates everything it touches.
I think Google’s power to decide what search results should go on top is a problem, even if they sometimes use it for good. That’s why I’m not abandoning DDG over not having a truth filter on searching the goddamn web.
That seems to ignore the lessons we’ve been learning the past 6 years now, and so intently in the past 2. This sort of neutrality results in misinformation spreading much more widely than before, and this is not consequence free. It is what led to the rise of the alt right, because they can funnel you into an echo chamber by simply getting you to search the right terms. And, of course, there are the millions dead now because of the misinformation about COVID-19.
There’s a reason why DDG themselves sees it as a problem that the alt right and antivaxxers are using their site to recruit. They’re blaming Microsoft for the problem. (Though, seeing as they clearly can alter the results stream, it seems odd to me that they don’t just put in their own filter.)
I don’t see why a search for answers—which is what a web search is—shouldn’t be biased towards finding the truth, and not known, dangerous lies. If you’re worried that a single company might control what is true, that’s just reason to have competition and checking them. Not a reason to push the false dichotomy of “showing both sides.”
The way technology increases the spread of false information is one of the biggest problems of modern times. Just letting it happen doesn’t seem to be an option.
As opposed to Duck Duck Go’s power to do that, or Bing’s, or AltaVista’s? Every search engine has the power to do that. It’d be impossible to have a search engine without deciding what results go on top. Deciding what goes on top is what makes a search engine what it is.
DDG is terrible for sports scores. I have to use chrome to get the Google sports pages with conference standings.
DDG is great for casual viewing online. I clear all the tabs and cookies at the end of the day. Straight Dope is Fireproof and saves my login.
I’ve always used multiple search engines.
I’m not sure what this means.
Going to your favorite web sites and hanging out. That’s the main purpose of the Dope. I wish they served 
.
There are a lot of places to kill time boredpanda, Cracked, Reddit etc.
Tangential question: I tried using DDG on my Android phone, and the SDMB has this annoying issue of wild scrolling at the simplist touch. Like down several posts or so. And that happened only on SDMB. So back to Chrome for the Dope. Any other DDG users experience this?
Yes. Many tines with DDG. It’s usually long threads that trigger the glitch.
Hmm, could you use DDG to search for “What would Google say about Mal Reynolds?”…
I have to admit a great deal of satisfaction seeing Ad tracking blocked with DDG.
My daily dose of Humor used to include a lot of tracking. Clicking the link shows Icons with slashes for three sites.
Click the B+ score and the report lists 5 trackers. Google, Quantcast, comScore, Blogher, Nativo.
It feels so good to visit sites without getting covered in Ticks and Chiggers.
This thread got a bit confusing, because I think DDG also has a privacy browser. I suppose you could use Google on DDG’s browser when you are looking for quality search results. It will still track your IP or whatever, but it’s more convenient than firing up Chrome when you want to use Google.
So, I think aceplace57 and Dag_Otto are talking about the browser and everyone else is talking about the search site.
DDG is my primary browser. I only use Chrome for Google formatted sports scores, and a few sites that block DDG. The sites reject ad blocking.
I’m not sure about my search engine. I type whatever I want in the address bar. Like “Ukraine Russia”. I would guess the DDG browser uses the DDG search engine.
Thanks; I was wondering why anyone would use a search engine to hang out on one’s favorite sites…
I use DDG and the Brave browser. It will not stop the NSA, but it offers a sense of security.
To the extent that it matters, what I meant with that short post was that I think the extent of Google’s “helpful” “this is what we think you really want to see, based on your history, and the history of people with searches like yours, and based on who has paid us to put their results on top” outweighs their decision to use the same manipulation to not give people results from pages with bad information. Or, I’m fine with it existing, in many situations it’s a good way of searching, but I don’t think it is such a boon that the opposite is bad.
If DDG was like facebook, youtube and twitter, a site that sought to be people’s focus for online presence, a site that sought to keep people engaged, active and prolong their visit as long as possible, I think that restricting the ability to present bad material should be a goal. But it should be possible to use a search engine to find information on the net, and though I’m in no way a free speech absolutists, it should be possible to put false information on the net. Unless the material is illegal and it’s harmful that it’s online, it is in my opinion a good thing that it’s possible both to search in a way that will ignore the false information, and in ways that will get you that false information. Because the situation where only heavily filtered searches are allowed at all is a bad one.
Duck Duck Go have since announced that they’ve made chances specifically to downrank sites associated with Russian propaganda, as well as adding infoboxes from more reputable sources for any currently unfolding situations.
And, predictably, a ton of comments are acting like it’s the end of the world. Even though DDG literally said they had wanted to be able to do this but had trouble due to how their link with Bing worked. And the ones I’ve clicked on seem to all be MAGA types.
Your argument would make more sense if DDG pitched itself or was used as some sort of academic-style search engine that was just about listing all information posted online, say, for research purposes or to track spread. But it is instead pitched as a replacement for Google et al, and is de facto used the same as those search engines. People go there to find answers to questions. They aren’t combing through all the results: they’re looking at the front page.
The people I linked above who are upset: none of them seem to be upset because they will have trouble tracking information they know is false. They tend to be the type who believe conspiracy theories. It’s not even like the information will be removed. It’s just being downranked, so it won’t appear on the front page. And that means it won’t be so easily spread.
DDG isn’t merely showing search results. It is answering people’s questions. And its results convince people. Their site was helping bad actors spread their lies. Of course they thought this was a bad thing, and are taking remedies to deal with it.
As I’ve said, we’ve seen what happens when these information finding websites stay neutral. Misinformation spreads. Millions die preventable deaths in a pandemic. And millions, being convinced by fake news, wind up believing conspiracies and electing fascists into office.
Maybe someone can invent something that literally just returns ever website that uses certain keywords, based on some basic metric like “number of visitors” or “date written” or something like that. But that’s not how modern search engines work.
It would be hilarious if DDG made the information available only if you put the word “false” into the search, much like the way Google changed its image finder to only show naked images if you put the word “nude” or “naked” in the search bar. Google earlier made people click a button for showing all images or only family friendly or something like that but that apparently didn’t work well enough, so it defaulted to never showing naughty bits unless specifically asked to.
I don’t see why some variant of this wouldn’t work for non-pictorial results, although it would send a certain segment through the roof.