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Ask HN: DuckDuckGo vs StartPage/Ixquick

6 points by yaddayadda ↗ HN
Since the Prism break, I've seen a lot of HN postings about DuckDuckGo. In almost every DuckDuckGo discussion, I've seen one or two mentions of either StartPage or Ixquick.

Based on this thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6022236) it would appear that StartPage/Ixquick is notably more private than DDG. If it is, it seems to me that SP/I should be more prominent in HN postings.

So, now I'm curious - Why are there so many more DuckDuckGo HN postings making it to the front page than there are StartPage/Ixquick?

Is there a qualitative difference? Just a different market presence? What the difference?

Edited to add "Ask HN" to title

5 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 14.9 ms ] thread
schrodingersCat
Why is ddg popular with HN users? Well, for me it has to do with the privacy and the geek-centric features. Plus their 0-click search results are really useful (I have a plugin to put them at the top of my google and bing search results). Ddg is just as private as ixquick/SP when you are searching within their site. The even have a tor hidden services link if you are really paranoid. When you use bang search (i.e. !g), there's really no way for ddg to protect your privacy anymore. I really only use their bang search when ddg doesn't give me what I was looking for, and then its usually to !sp. To sum it up, ddg is just a better product all around.
mtgx
DDG was kind of the first to appear on HN, so I think it developed a fan base here, and it has also been implemented as one of the search engines in some Linux distros. It's also an American company, and has recently received funding from a popular VC firm. All these things are piling up for its "popularity" and momentum in the tech sphere.

But it appears Startpage has almost 3x the traffic of DDG right now (4 mil vs 1.5 mil daily searches):

https://startpage.com/eng/press/pr-four-million.html

schrodingersCat
This might in part be due to the fact its the default search engine for TorBrowser
kohanz
I personally find DuckDuckGo more intriguing because it appears that they have actually developed their own search engine technology, whereas StartPage/Ixquick just submits your query to Google anonymously.
mcv
I very much like the 0-click results from DuckDuckGo. But if you want something else, Qwant (http://www.qwant.com/) has something similar. (Possibly even better; I haven't compared it yet.)