The Upstart that Dares to Challenge Google
John Paul Titlow, writing for Fast Company, takes a look inside DuckDuckGo, the fledgling search engine with a focus on privacy. New users are flocking to the site after the intelligence leaks that began last year. However, even with its fast growth, it receives only about 4 million searches per day, three orders of magnitude less than Google’s 5.9 billion.
I started using it last year and really like it. I wish I could make it the default search engine in iOS Safari.
I am agonized to say this, but Duck Duck Go is not up to snuff.
I am nearly insane about the violations of our privacy everywhere. A few months ago, I made the switch. I told all my browsers to default to Duck.
Within hours, I was searching for something technical (I'm a programmer) that was not obscure. I asked Duck and didn't get the answer. I tried five different search phrases. No love.
I went to google and got it on the first try. I killed my google cookies to make sure it wasn't relying on my history and tried again. I got the right answer in position one or two for all five of the Duck phrases that failed.
I did not give up right away. It took about three days and probably a dozen experiments like this one. It's tragic. I really, really want Duck Duck Go to work but, being able to know the answers is more important than avoiding google.