August 14th, 2014
There's a new search engine in town. It's called DuckDuckGo. I thought I'd give it a try after getting tired of using the big three.
Anonymous Searching
The reason why I first became interested - and started using DuckDuckGo
is because it offers anonymous searching. This means that no one is
tracking or watching what you search for (one source
even claims that
it is NSA-proof). Call me crazy, but I like
that. I just don't like the idea of a search engine watching and
tracking everything I do. Who knows, they could be spying on me
while I try and develop a product that's better than theirs and
they steal my idea. Bottom line, I wouldn't invite a stranger into
my house to watch me browse the internet, nor do I feel comfortable
with another stranger watching me browse albeit they're outside of my home. I
think we can all appreciate that.
Clean Layout
If you're anything like me, you find search engines a bit annoying.
They're constantly trying to make money off of you by putting ads
in front of you. This tends to make the search engine look kind
of ugly. While DuckDuckGo does show ads, you don't feel bombarded.
At this point they have one ad for a search on "shoes".
Limited ads leave you with an attractive search engine
without frills that is the picture of efficiency.
Having a clean search engine prevents distractions. When I'm using a search engine (especially while working) I want to stay focused on the task at hand. We've all seen how certain search engines try to make their home page look cool, or provide news/weather/etc... DuckDuckGo's clean appearance limits these distractions so I can stay focused and in the end limits the amount of noise I have to filter out while using a search engine.
Good Results
One of the important parts of a good search engine is the
need for quality results. I was pleasantly suprised by
the quality of DuckDuckGo's search results.
The results I receive are not only relevant to what I'm looking for
but are often very good results giving me the answers I want
as quickly as possible.
Image/Video/Recipes
I like the fact that unlike other popular search engines,
DuckDuckGo can display Images, Videos, and Recipes within
the search results page. This means you don't have to click
on a link to go
to another page. Also, the recipes display is something
some other search engines don't even have.
Poor Image View
I don't care much for DuckDuckGo's image view. It shows
you about 20-30 images and then you have to click a link
to show more. This isn't a huge deal but if I'm looking
for a specific image, then it can be a bit annoying
to have to continually click a link to see more images.
It'd be better if you could click on a link to go
to a separate image page. That way, you could look at
the first 30 images then go to a separate page if you
don't want to keep clicking.
Less Image Search Results
When I searched for "custer" in another search engine, I
received many more search results than I did in DuckDuckGo.
In the end, I like DuckDuckGo. I think it's easy to use, clean, and no one's looking over your shoulder at every keystroke. Unfortunately, search engines are big business these days so there's no telling if DuckDuckGo will change to try making money. I hope they don't.