This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The U.S. Department of Justice argues that Google has smothered competition by paying companies such as Apple and Verizon to lock in its search engine as the default choice — the first one users see — on many laptops and smartphones.
Even when it holds the default spot on smartphones and other devices, Google argues, users can switch to rival search engines with a couple of clicks.
DuckDuckGo still sells ads, but bases them on what people are asking its search engine in the moment, a technique known as “contextual advertising.” That focus on privacy helped the company attract more users after the Edward Snowden saga raised awareness about the pervasiveness of online surveillance.
It gained even more customers after Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal opened a window into how personal information extracted from digital services can be passed around to other data brokers.
But Lehman said machine learning has improved rapidly in recent years, to the point that computers can evaluate text on their own without needing to analyze data from user clicks.
During the exchange, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta drew a laugh by asking how internet searches would answer one of pop culture’s most pressing questions this week: whether superstar singer Taylor Swift is dating NFL tight end Travis Kelce.
The original article contains 637 words, the summary contains 212 words. Saved 67%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Good bot
I could switch but I don’t see any need to. The lockin from apple apps and google play apps is far stronger.
ok ill try using duckduckgo again
deleted by creator
Seriously? It’s a search tool. Does absolutely every piece of software you use have to be 100% aligned to your world view? This is getting weird.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
But you didn’t say you expect them to show you the foto. You said you wanted them to issue a statement or something. So the issue was not lack of functionality but not taking a stance. Now that I pointed out how silly it is you’re changing it to “it’s a poor service”. Nice…
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
Do you use DDG China™ or something? This all comes up when I search for it, no censorship
deleted by creator
I’ve just tried to search for ‘tank man’ and also ‘tiananmen square’ with DuckDuckGo’s image search, and both of them returned the picture we all know, that dictator Winnie the Poop doesn’t wanna see…
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
this absolutely wouldn’t happen if there were no regulations - a libertarian
I’ve been using freeadblocker browser after stumbling on it (with DDG as a search engine). Does it have anything to do with Google/chrome? I’m confused, because I’ve been using it for so long and it blocks all ads so I guess I don’t know why no one is using it unless it’s some Google stepchild I don’t know about and I’m still googled without knowing it.
Seems really fishy.
Quite a few trackers: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.hsv.freeadblockerbrowser/latest/
And so many red flags like a free VPN (so they route all your traffic), “powered with AI technology” (what for?), not open source…
A browser is a very sensitive piece of software, you trust it with a lot of personal data. Don’t use a random one like this one.
Because I can use Firefox.
Is that iOS, Android or PC? Do you have a link?
deleted by creator
Android. It seems to be available on Google play ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hsv.freeadblockerbrowser) now but I remember having to find the APK elsewhere when I first got it.
Hmmm, that isn’t open source, I don’t know if one can trust it. Why does a browser need in-app purchases? Try Mull or Cromite.
Edit: from the description, it uses Brave Search (to answer you question), so it doesn’t send to Google your queries. But I’d be careful with an app with a bunch of SEO keywords in its description.
DDG rules
Im just here to watch the slimeballs duke it out.
I installed a custom launcher that’s close to the stock one on my Pixel 3 specifically to make it possible to remove the Google Search widget. Now I have a Firefox widget that points to DDG.
If any are interested, the launcher is Lawn Chair, and it can be installed via F-droid.
If you have a Pixel, why not go all in with https://grapheneos.org/?
I e been debating switching the graphene for weeks weeks now. But I just know I’m gonna end up installing Google play services on it and completely defeat the whole point of the OS. I’m probably gonna buy the pixel 8 when it comes out so once I have that I’ll put graphene on my current phone and see how I like it.
I’ve just switched to it literally yesterday, and while you will probably not avoid Play Services, being able to install it into a different profile that’s only limited to the few apps that need it is nice.
Also, just the fact that on Graphene Play Services do not have the special privileges as on any android phone, and are subjected to the same limitations as any other app (which are even stricter on Graphene) helps a lot. It also means that even if you end up just running the play services at all times, they can’t do as much as they can on other android phones, and the data they can access without your explicit permission is really limited. So, even that helps by a lot.
This is actually great to hear. I’ll probably still ending up holding off until I have a spare phone to test with just because wiping my phone and redoing everything just isn’t something I’m up for right now though. Thank you very much for the info.
Play Services is sandboxed on Graphene and is treated as a regular app, so you can actually disable most of its features, including network access.
I like the ‘ground up’ approach they mention that doesn’t rely on insecure ‘adversaries’. I’ll check it out soon.
F-droid relesae is 4 years old, you can get August 2022 releases on github
For more convenience, the newest version is also available via the IzzyOnDroid repo, you can enable it with one tap in Drod-ify.
He’s probably right, but from what I see, the reality is that like 95% of people simply don’t care, and the rest will find an alternative.
Thing is, Google is also (still) just better.
I use DDG as my primary search engine, but I find myself repeating searches with Google so often, I wrote a userscript to add a “Search with Google” link to the top of the DDG search results.
deleted by creator
You can add an !g to the start of a ddg search and it’ll do the Google search automatically. There are a bunch of websites you can have it do that with. !w for wikipedia, !e for eBay, !a for Amazon, etc
Sure, but I think there’s still benefit to what the other person did. Search DDG by default, and then if you don’t see good results, it’s one extra click for the google search… vs mousing, clicking, 2 keystrokes…
I agree. At least in my experience Google does a better job when it comes to search engine. I use DDG as well but when it comes to searching specific things Google beats it unfortunately.
I’ve seen a lot of chat recently about Google search quality tanking and it’s made me realise that I haven’t re-searched a DDG query in Google for a really, really long time. when I first started using DDG as my main a few years back, I would repeat searches in Google probably 25% of the time? but I honestly can’t remember the last time I had to now. Been at least 6 months!
unfortunately, I do that often. Even when using meta search engine which sources to google, Google UX and results are simply better but sometime feeling is just not rationale
regarding duckduckgo, it is simply too long to type and people rarely configure their browser, especially on mobile.
so yeah, in a sense, Weinberg is right. At the very least, a choice should be provided on first run but you can’t force people to be curious.
Its the easiest thing in the world. I degoogled everything in my life in like 2-3 days after work. People aren’t switching because the bulk of the world’s populace likes the centralization and using the popular option. They just want to use what everyone else is.
I think if you were to ask “most people” about which search engine they prefer, they wouldn’t really understand the question. I remember in highschool a teacher asked someone what operating system they have at home, and she replied “I think it’s Microsoft Office”.
Tech people tend to severely overestimate non-tech peoples’ understanding of tech.
I am lucky my husband likes to learn about this sort of stuff. When we started dating he barely knew the difference between Mac and Windows. Now he uses Linux. Granted, I have to install it, but he keeps on top of maintenance.
Counterpoint: tech literacy is irresponsibly low for a modern developed world that now requires it for everyday operation.
Both of these things can be true at the same time.
Fuck you spez
tips fedora
Seriously, most people don’t even know you can go into browser settings, let alone change your default browser there.
Migrating email alone is a huge pain. To be truly independent you need your own domain in case whatever provider you choose goes to shit. Any decent one will cost money. Now, most people don’t even know what a domain is, let alone where and how to buy it and use it for email. They also have to pay that mail provider, configure everything and migrate their old emails and forward their old mail. Oh and now they also have different logins everywhere, and because they probably don’t have a password manager either they need to get one or just have different logins for different things.
That’s … a gargantuan task. for an average person - even if you provide them with a rough outline of what they’d need to do they probably wouldn’t be able to do so without help.
Also, as a side note, what do you use for watching videos? What phone do you have? What maps do you use? It’s not so easy to “de-google” completely.
Migrating emails isnt that hard if u dont set yourself a deadline. Some services like proton offer migration and forwarding from google and you can just slowly update them as you use it. I myself got tutanota and anonaddy and going through my bitwarden entries updating different alias for everything for the past couple days. Still gonna keep the gmail accounts around for emergency but will slowly disassociate from it.
Takes a while but you can just stick with updating them when you do use it if you dont have the time or feeling lazy. For an average person who doesnt value privacy, they have no reason to move out of google anyway so gmail will always be the popular one unfortunately.
This is how I did it. Set up a Protonmail account with my own domain, and set all my Gmail emails to forward there. I set up a special folder for all forwarded mail, to remind myslef that I should change my email on that service, and every time I logged somwhere or received an email from an important service I use, I made sure to change my address there.
It has already been several years, but I think I’ve managed to replace it everywhere within a few months. I haven’t seen a forwarded email in months, so I think I’m finally done.
I made a list of the Google services I needed to replace, replaced a couple of them, but ultimately that list had dozens of items on it and I’m too tired already to complete it
It is not easy. This comment must be satire?
For example have you tried navigating in a car with a navigation app besides Maps? I don’t have an iPhone and the ones I’ve tried so far suck. I mean, I think Waze isn’t even all that good and Google owns even them now.
I tried Mapquest recently for the first time in 18 years. It was astonishing just how terrible their app and directions were.
I would gladly pay a few dollars a month for an alternative to Google Maps or Waze, but it’s like no company even wants to try and compete with Google and Apple maps.
While I don’t believe you can degoogle that quickly, because some of their services take quite some time to properly switch, such as email, in the end it’s not too hard, but just takes time and some work.
Changing email is easy, if you don’t mind it being a slow process. Just forward your google email, and start slowly replacing any service you notice in the following months/years to your new address.
Google Drive is harder to replace, I went for just running a NAS with Nextcloud, which takes care of most of Google Drive/Docs/Calendar stuff. If self-hosting isn’t your cup of tea, Proton is slowly setting up usable google alternatives - they have Drive and Calendar IIRC.
Now for phone, that’s the hardest task. You wouldn’t help yourself by getting an IPhone. While it would de-google you, there’s basically no point in switching google for apple. Getting android to be usable for stuff like banking, MFA and other bullshit you need your phone for while being degoogled is hard, due to the bullshit Google Services. The only solution I found is to either just go with dumb phone with an obscure OS, or just get a Google Pixel and run GrapheneOS.
Maps are another issue, but thankfully we have a local https://mapy.cz/ , which is a pretty OK alternative to Google maps for our country, and I guess they even work worldwide. I don’t drive a car, so I don’t really need it that often.
The only remaining Google service I use is GCloud VPS, because I have some websites running there on the free instances that I’m too lazy to move. But I’m slowly migrating it to Amazon. Not that it would help much, anyway. And also Youtube, but I’m trying to go through the alternative front-ends as much as possible.
And for browser, I’m using https://mullvad.net/en/browser. Fuck chromium.
that’s DuckDuckGo and “Names Database” CEO*, folks. PLEASE do not look to this man as a beacon for anything privacy-related, even when he says something true.
Google’s search results are absolute garbage lately. It pushes the most advert-heavy spam sites first.
DuckDuckGo has more reliably been giving me the technical documentation I was looking for in the past year.
Weird, I stopped using DDG because it was useless for troubleshooting IT stuff.
Depends on what you’re doing. I look up Linux admin stuff. DDG points to the Arch Linux wiki which is solid, even for non-Arch Linux stuff. Google points to random sponsored blog tutorials that are sometimes outdated or the author doesn’t have a full understanding of what their copy-paste terminal commands do.
Recently I used google to look up a Kotlin coding thing. It pointed to every source except the official Kotlin documentation.
Good thing about DDG is you can just add a simple bang to search another site right from the results
I miss the 2000s/2010s Google. Now I need to endlessly scroll down the page in an attempt to find something barely useful.
I love searching for something on Google and have the entirety of the above the fold be sponsored results
Ublock Origin
My favorite is when I ask how to do something in Google Slides and Google gives me answers on how to do it in Google Docs. So helpful. Not at all frustrating.
or how every answer is a youtube video like just put it all on a page i can skim and read
That’s largely a problem of “modern internet culture” than anything. Resources locked behind proprietary crap like Discord “servers” is a big issue, too.
I can’t find shit anymore, always spam sites angry at my ad blocker or YouTube videos, which are angry at my ad blocker.
The first half of the first page is all ads now on Google. It’s utter shit - the things it’s a lot better at than DDG is NLP, being able to understand questions, and anything news related. If you know exactly what you’re searching for though, using the old style of search words works great on DDG
What does NLP stand for?
Most likely Natural Language Processing - being able to understand what you’re searching for
Search engines are about to be replaced by AI anyway.
If you want good results, use something like perplexity.ai.
It is slow, so it isn’t my main engine. But those results are amazing. You can be very specific in what you are searching and keep refining your search since it remembers your previous results, it tells you why the result is relevant and it also gives summaries of the website so you can know what it says before you click on it.
It truly is artificial intelligent searching.
I used to be able to search for a tracking number by Google and it would link to the correct delivery tracking service. About 1-2 months ago Google stopped doing this and just gives no results. Why would they stop linking you to FedEx or UPS? Who knows, but my wild ass guess is since Google was not able to link “related” sponsored links along with it they just removed the functionality. They are just actively making their service shittier anytime something minor doesn’t dish out a shitty ad along with it.
I’ve gone on to using Kagi and DDG. Rarely do I miss Google search.
Kagi looks neat but they’d have to have absolutely amazing results if they want me to pay for them, which I doubt they have… And sorry, but paying $10/month for a fucking search engine (where the actual cost per user is negligible and profit scales with number of users extremely nicely) is just insane.
I guess Google would make at most about $1/month off of ads from me… if I didn’t block them. I’d be willing to pay that, maybe up to $3 for a really good service. But this is just insane, and continues the trend of “oh you like a service that’s not complete crap? I guess you should pay an order of magnitude (or several) more than what’s necessary to provide that service, because fuck you, what can you do?”
If I had to pay for every service like that I’d probably spend $500/month just for that and then they’d still figure out that hey, we can still put ads in and make a little bit more cuz why not, what are they gonna do?
Their lowest plan is $5/mo for 300 searches.
You are not wrong, but Kagi is basically still a baby. They started maybe like last summer or so? And already decreased their prices twice (well, relative prices.) I think if we give them some time there will be a good priced tier for everyone.
P.S. Search engine is not the only thing they have.
I do this all the time for work. It still works for me when I put a FDX trk # in
Not sure what I am doing wrong, work is when I discovered problem. This is what happens when I try to search in android. Doesn’t work on my work pc or on mine. Maybe it is a Firefox thing?
EDIT: YUP. Tried it with chrome and DuckDuckGo browser and ups tracking search works fine. Wonder what’s going on with Firefox preventing it. Don’t think it’s an extension because doesn’t work in Firefox focus either and my work pc doesn’t have any addons.
User agent. Google wants you to use Chrome. You can spoof the user agent in Firefox to get the same results.
Google search is less than useful nowadays. Google assistant seems to be Google’s inbred idiot cousin. DDG doesn’t seem to be any better. Most of my searches give the same clickbait results that google does.
Honestly, outside of Google Maps, is there any legitimate value to any google product? Is there a single search engine that is brave enough to give 0 results and also literally parses what you’re asking instead of valuating against what the advertisers want you to see?
I dream daily of Google imploding, and every single investor at that useless company going immediately bankrupt and destitute for the disgusting, addled, brain-malware they push.
When I built my PC last year I decided to just let Edge and Bing go for a bit instead of immediately downloading another browser or changing the search engine. I can count on one hand the number of times I needed to enter in Google.com to get a different or better result. And almost every one of those was because I wanted a google maps results and not whatever weird maps MS has.
If I recall correctly, DuckDuckGo uses Bing’s search database (not search itself, just the database).
deleted by creator
Their own CEO admits they are required to allow Microsoft tracking in their “privacy” browser due to the contract for search. They use Bing for search, it’s not a myth.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/duckduckgo-browser-allows-microsoft-trackers-due-to-search-agreement/
This is no longer the case as of August last year, they managed to get the terms of the agreement changed https://www.pcworld.com/article/828064/duckduckgo-will-now-block-microsoft-trackers-too.html
Edit: Duckduckgo’s statement on it https://spreadprivacy.com/more-privacy-and-transparency/
They still have the disclaimer on the app in the pay store. It was added after they were called out.
The fact that they hid it in the first place is disqualifying for a privacy focused product.
Oh definitely, I’m a bit hesitant about them because of things like that, I just consider them as an “it’s at least better than Google” kind of thing
Yeah, I agree with that. I would never use their browser or other products but their search fits the “at least it’s not google/MS”.
I even think what the CEO is saying is correct here, Google is doing it’s best kill competition.
https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/
So I wasn’t totally right in that it doesn’t all come from Bing, but it largely does.
deleted by creator
It might be a myth, but it would probably be the best search engine.
Bing is too good, they’re trying to capture market share and likely operating it at a loss. But if people leave Google, it’s most likely because they dont want tracked. And Microsoft is probably at best just as bad as Google.
A go between that anonimizes the results would be exactly what people want.
You mean that they just don’t frontload ads on results?
They literally state this themselves, it’s not a myth.
afaik they use multiple, including bing and their own indexer (duckduckbot afaik)
DuckDuckGo has been giving me poor results lately - especially when I look for news, everything is a redirect to Bing now - so I instead use Brave Search. It’s kind of disappointing since DDG had always worked great for me
Daily reminder that unregulated capitalism hurts all of us.
Laziness or not giving a damn is a choice
Agreed!
Nice to -for once- see someone else who recognizes that capitalism in itself isn’t a problem as long as it is very well regulated and doesn’t immediately go “Communism is the answer!”
Also: the stock market and hedge fund architecture is an absolute sham and should be criminalized. Virtually none of it is about entrepreneur startup money; all if it is about creating value out of thin air with nothing to support it. It collapses and destroys our economy on a regular, nearly predictable basis and results in greater wealth disparagement as the whales grab up all the collapsed wealth
Capitalism in itself is very much the problem. There is no positive aspect to the extraction of surplus value (“profit”), hoarding the vast majority of it into the hands of the wealthiest “private” property owners.
Marxists are opposed to free markets, at least as a long term goal (in achieving a stateless, moneyless, classless society - i.e. communism). But some leftist ideologies aren’t necessarily opposed to free markets (though are still of course anti-capitalist). This includes democratic socialism and market anarchism.
The key is “very well regulated”, starting with the ban of corporate lobbyists and abolition and criminalization of PAC donations.
COMMERCE in itself isnt bad. Leveraging money and power to extract resources and value without actually creation anything of value-i.e. Capitalism- is very, very bad.
Make a product and sell it? …good. Perform a service for money?..good. Buy wholesale, sell retail?..fine. Steal natural resources, fund political coups for resources, start wars for resourcces, force destruction of oroduct or allow corporations to hoard resources to corner a market?..BAD
I’m sorry but your definition of capitalism is incorrect.
Yeah, it’s something that capitalism as currently is (mostly in the US) allows, but that isn’t the basis of what capitalism is.
I fully agree with you that capitalism needs very strick limits to not be abusive, but it’s still a hundred times better than communism, something that too many people here propose as the
finalgreat solutionActually I think the problem is capitalists entering into forums and insisting that any regulation of capitalism is communism by default. It’s not a case of one or the other, but there is absolutely no way to reform the system from within its current structure. We would have to first abolish any and all corporate lobbying and criminalize the submission of donor checks to legislators, and then repeal any and all tax breaks and pro corporate laws and regulations passed since 1980.
I always look at people who jump to “Communism is the answer” just have issues with properly articulating what they feel and just jump to a reactionary catch all comment.
I myself don’t like a lot of flaws with the core tenants of capitalism, so I often find myself saying reactionary shit like “capitalism bad” sometimes too.
I think this goes for a lot of discussion on economic models. There’s a lot of nuisance to it, and I think so many folks range somewhere between knowing nothing and knowing enough to be dangerous, but lack the energy, time, patience, or skill to really get it across online.
Often we see people posting about stuff so frequently because of a frustration with the current system, so unless it’s like a bad faith argument I mostly just tune it out, or go “hell yeah” in my little monkey brain depending on if it’s something I agree with slightly.
It’s not reactionary to say that capitalism is bad. Capitalism is literally terrible. Not commerce, capitalism. Buying and selling things isn’t wrong, but extracting and consolidating surplus labor from the working class is.
No, you’re right. I’m saying it’s reactionary to write only “Capitalism is bad”, and nothing else. Mostly because in terms of a discussion it makes it hard to keep talking about why capitalism is bad with such a broad statement. This is just the opinion of one dude on the internet who thinks of comments in a very specific way, and I get that others agree probably fine with broad comments of that style.
What worries me about it is that since for various reasons a lot of people just don’t have it in them to spare any thought on the question of how the economy works, they buy into rhetoric about economics being a fake conspiracy where supply and demand isn’t real and actually all economic problems are trivial and only require putting the bad guys in their place. The frustration is justified but stuff like rent control just doesn’t work and you can see why it doesn’t work if you’re willing to honestly think about it.
You say “Rent Control” doesn’t work, but having seen locations with rent control, and living in a place without it I fundamentally disagree with that statement.
In any economic model, housing is a basic need for humans. While rent control isn’t a solution, I don’t think it’s ever intended to be one. It is a stop gap, or a step implemented in a larger plan. It’s basically regulations for combating price fixing.
If you live in a place fraught with renoviction, the act of using a renovation as an excuse to evict people and charge more for the same thing, then the person who has been forced back into the market does not have to become homeless.
To another point, I don’t think rent control would prevent development of new housing either, as landlords aren’t the only folks who buy properties, even though it’s almost financially impossible to buy a house in certain inflated markets these days no matter who you are.
The rhetoric I see around it paints it as a solution, and there are people who say with full sincerity that supply and demand is capitalist propaganda.
This whole dynamic is only surface level. The excuse doesn’t matter; if the whole market can get those prices, it’s because of the number/means of people seeking housing vs the supply. It will happen with or without an excuse to smooth things over. There are plenty of very run-down places in high demand low supply areas that cost huge amounts without any such aesthetic justification.
It demonstrably has prevented and does prevent the development of new housing, among other market distortions, and afaik this is one of the few things economists broadly agree on. To your point, maybe it would be possible that over time, eventually, all rental apartments would be converted into condos etc. as a market response to rent control. But given the demand specifically for rentals (for which there is then artificially reduced incentive to meet), and the difficulty you mention for most people actually buying a home outright, it’s easy to see why in practice there will be an extended, possibly indefinite, period where housing supply will be suppressed by the policy. One reason it could end up indefinite is that homeowners as a voting class have an incentive to protect the value of their properties, and that often means passing regulations that in practice constrain housing supply. When most voters are renters, this is less of a problem.
The way I see it, looking at housing markets as being “inflated”, as if the prices were the result of some trick of greedly landlords, is completely wrong and missing the bigger picture. Real estate is a wealth asset, a store of wealth, and all of those are skyrocketing in dollar terms beyond official measures of inflation, as part of a process of wealth being transferred away from the majority of the population and the value/negotiating power of labor declining. If people only look at their personal situations and false ideas of what prices “should” be and what is subjectively “fair”, they miss this bigger picture and overlook solutions that could actually work.
Which, in the case of housing, is more housing.
Daily reminder that capitalism hurts all of us.
Capitalism isn’t about free markets, it’s about private property and profit extraction.
Okay, sure. I agree that this is an unfair advantage. But like, I’ve been using DuckDuckGo for a while and the best thing about it is the ability to easily search other search engines. Their own actual search engine isn’t exactly great.
Mostly using it makes me realize how much time Google saves me by already having my location and search history. I still don’t trust them and it isn’t what it was a few years ago, but it’s the actual quality of their search that’s keeping them on top.
Also like, why does clicking a thumbnail in video search not take me to the video? Dumb.