Duck Duck Go
Encyclopedia
DuckDuckGo is a search engine
that is based in Valley Forge
, Pennsylvania
and uses information from crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia
) with the aim of augmenting traditional results and improving relevance. The search engine philosophy emphasizes privacy
and does not record user information.
whose last venture, The Names Database
, was acquired by United Online (NASDAQ:UNTD)
in 2006 for $10M. Weinberg has a B.S. in Physics and an M.S. in Technology and Policy from MIT
. The project was initially self-funded by Weinberg and is now occasionally advertising-supported. The search engine is written in Perl
and runs on nginx
and FreeBSD
. Weinberg also does angel investing, and is part of the Philadelphia startup
scene.
DuckDuckGo is built primarily upon search APIs
from various major vendors (such as Yahoo! Search BOSS
), because of this, TechCrunch
characterized the service as a "hybrid" search engine. At the same time, it produces its own content pages, and so also is similar to sites like Mahalo
, Kosmix
and SearchMe
.
While the name has been called "silly", when questioned about the name, Weinberg has explained, "[r]eally it just popped in my head one day and I just liked it. It is certainly influenced/derived from Duck Duck Goose, but other than that there is no relation, e.g. a metaphor."
Precise traffic statistics are now public and in 2011 these are of order of 200,000 visits per day. Other sources include Compete.com
which estimated 191,904 monthly visitors in March 2011. On April 12, 2011, Alexa
reported a 3 month growth rate of 51%.
DuckDuckGo has been featured on TechCrunch as a part of Elevator Pitch Friday and it was a finalist in the BOSS
Mashable
Challenge.
In July 2010 Weinberg started a DuckDuckGo community website to allow the public to report problems, discuss means of spreading the search engine, request features and discuss open sourcing the code.
In October 2011 Union Square Ventures
invested in DDG. Union Square partner Brad Burnham stated, "We invested in DuckDuckGo because we became convinced that it was not only possible to change the basis of competition in search, it was time to do it."
of many sources, including Yahoo! Search BOSS
, Wikipedia
, Wolfram Alpha
and its own Web crawler
, the DuckDuckBot. It uses data from crowd-sourced sites, especially Wikipedia, to populate "Zero-click Info" boxes, which are red boxes containing topic summaries and related topics above results. DuckDuckGo also offers the ability to show mostly shopping sites or mostly info (non-shopping) sites via search buttons on its homepage.
DuckDuckGo positions itself as a search engine that puts privacy first and as such it does not store IP addresses, does not log user information and only uses cookies when needed. Weinberg states "By default, DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information. That is our privacy policy in a nutshell."
Weinberg has refined the quality of his search engine results by deleting search results for companies he believes are content mills, like Demand Media
's eHow
, which publishes 4000 articles per day produced by paid freelance writers, which Weinberg has indicated is "low-quality content designed specifically to rank highly in Google's search index". DuckDuckGo attempts to filter eHow results as well as pages with lots of advertising.
In August 2010 DuckDuckGo introduced anonymous searching, including an exit enclave, for its search engine traffic using Tor
. This allows anonymity by routing traffic through a series of encrypted relays. Weinberg stated: "I believe this fits right in line with our privacy policy. Using Tor and DDG, you can now be end to end anonymous with your searching. And if you use our encrypted homepage, you can be end to end encrypted as well."
In 2011, DuckDuckGo introduced voice search for users of the Google Chrome
"Voice Search" extension.
DuckDuckGo also features !Bang commands which give the user the ability to use DuckDuckGo and have their search redirected to the relevant site. An example of this is the !wiki command which redirects the search to Wikipedia's English website.
, "It feels a lot like early Google, with a stripped-down home page. Just as In-N-Out doesn't have lattes or Asian salads or sundaes or scrambled eggs, DDG doesn't try to do news or blogs or books or images. There's no auto-completion or instant results. It just offers core Web search—mostly the "ten blue links" approach that's still really useful, no matter what its critics say...As for the quality, I'm not saying that Weinberg has figured out a way to return more relevant results than Google's mighty search team. But Duck Duck Go...is really good at bringing back useful sites. It all feels meaty and straightforward and filler-free..."
Thom Holwerda also reviewed the search engine for OSNews
in June 2011 and praised its privacy features, its defeating of the filter bubble
and its shortcuts to site specific searches. He stated "...what are some of the reasons you might want to try out DuckDuckGo? First of all, DuckDuckGo doesn't track you, so you get real privacy when you search the web. Google tracks pretty much everything you do so they can better target you with advertisements. I have no problems with targeted advertising...What does bother me, though, is the fact that I wouldn't be able to protect myself if the US government ever subpoena'd Google to gain access to that information....More importantly though (at least for me) - DuckDuckGo tries to pop something called the filter bubble."
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
that is based in Valley Forge
Valley Forge
Valley Forge in Pennsylvania was the site of the military camp of the American Continental Army over the winter of 1777–1778 in the American Revolutionary War.-History:...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
and uses information from crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
) with the aim of augmenting traditional results and improving relevance. The search engine philosophy emphasizes privacy
Internet privacy
Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storing, repurposing, providing to third-parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Privacy can entail both Personally Identifying Information or non-PII information such as a...
and does not record user information.
History
DuckDuckGo was founded by Gabriel Weinberg, a serial entrepreneurEntrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
whose last venture, The Names Database
Names Database
The Names Database is a social network, owned and operated by United Online, the parent company of Classmates.com, with headquarters in Orem, Utah. Unlike most social networks, it requires that new registrations include five email addresses of friends or acquaintances...
, was acquired by United Online (NASDAQ:UNTD)
United Online
United Online is a public company formed by the 2001 merger of NetZero and Juno Online Services. The company's range of products and services has evolved significantly since inception, primarily through a series of acquisitions that have included Classmates Online , MyPoints and FTD Group, Inc. ....
in 2006 for $10M. Weinberg has a B.S. in Physics and an M.S. in Technology and Policy from MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
. The project was initially self-funded by Weinberg and is now occasionally advertising-supported. The search engine is written in Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
and runs on nginx
Nginx
nginx is a Web server and a reverse proxy server for HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP protocols, with a strong focus on high concurrency, performance and low memory usage. It is licensed under a BSD-like license and it runs on Unix, Linux, BSD variants, Mac OS X, Solaris, and Microsoft Windows.- Overview...
and FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
. Weinberg also does angel investing, and is part of the Philadelphia startup
Startup company
A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets...
scene.
DuckDuckGo is built primarily upon search APIs
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
from various major vendors (such as Yahoo! Search BOSS
Yahoo! Search BOSS
Yahoo! Search BOSS is a Yahoo! Developer Network initiative to provide an open search web services platform.- Description :...
), because of this, TechCrunch
TechCrunch
TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....
characterized the service as a "hybrid" search engine. At the same time, it produces its own content pages, and so also is similar to sites like Mahalo
Mahalo.com
Mahalo.com is a web directory and Internet-based knowledge exchange launched in alpha test in May 2007 by Jason Calacanis...
, Kosmix
Kosmix
Kosmix was an American privately held company in Mountain View, California. Their website earned revenue from advertising related to its categorization engine. The engine organizes the Internet into topic pages allowing users to explore the Web by topic, "presenting a dashboard of relevant videos,...
and SearchMe
SearchMe
SearchMe was a visual search engine based in Mountain View, California. It organized search results as snapshots of web pages — an interface similar to that of the iPhone's and iTunes's album selection....
.
While the name has been called "silly", when questioned about the name, Weinberg has explained, "[r]eally it just popped in my head one day and I just liked it. It is certainly influenced/derived from Duck Duck Goose, but other than that there is no relation, e.g. a metaphor."
Precise traffic statistics are now public and in 2011 these are of order of 200,000 visits per day. Other sources include Compete.com
Compete.com
Compete.com is a web traffic analysis service of Compete, Inc. which operates in the United States and publishes the approximate number of global visitors to the top 1,000,000 web sites in the world...
which estimated 191,904 monthly visitors in March 2011. On April 12, 2011, Alexa
Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
reported a 3 month growth rate of 51%.
DuckDuckGo has been featured on TechCrunch as a part of Elevator Pitch Friday and it was a finalist in the BOSS
Yahoo! Search BOSS
Yahoo! Search BOSS is a Yahoo! Developer Network initiative to provide an open search web services platform.- Description :...
Mashable
Mashable
Mashable is an American news website and Internet news blog founded by Pete Cashmore. The website's primary focus is social media news, but also covers news and developments in mobile, entertainment, online video, business, web development, technology, memes and gadgets...
Challenge.
In July 2010 Weinberg started a DuckDuckGo community website to allow the public to report problems, discuss means of spreading the search engine, request features and discuss open sourcing the code.
In October 2011 Union Square Ventures
Union Square Ventures
Union Square Ventures is a venture capital firm based in New York City, New York, United States.The firm was founded by Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham in 2004...
invested in DDG. Union Square partner Brad Burnham stated, "We invested in DuckDuckGo because we became convinced that it was not only possible to change the basis of competition in search, it was time to do it."
Features
DuckDuckGo's results are a mashupMashup (web application hybrid)
In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services...
of many sources, including Yahoo! Search BOSS
Yahoo! Search BOSS
Yahoo! Search BOSS is a Yahoo! Developer Network initiative to provide an open search web services platform.- Description :...
, Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha is an answer-engine developed by Wolfram Research. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might...
and its own Web crawler
Web crawler
A Web crawler is a computer program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner or in an orderly fashion. Other terms for Web crawlers are ants, automatic indexers, bots, Web spiders, Web robots, or—especially in the FOAF community—Web scutters.This process is called Web...
, the DuckDuckBot. It uses data from crowd-sourced sites, especially Wikipedia, to populate "Zero-click Info" boxes, which are red boxes containing topic summaries and related topics above results. DuckDuckGo also offers the ability to show mostly shopping sites or mostly info (non-shopping) sites via search buttons on its homepage.
DuckDuckGo positions itself as a search engine that puts privacy first and as such it does not store IP addresses, does not log user information and only uses cookies when needed. Weinberg states "By default, DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information. That is our privacy policy in a nutshell."
Weinberg has refined the quality of his search engine results by deleting search results for companies he believes are content mills, like Demand Media
Demand Media
Demand Media, Inc. is an online media company and content farm that operates online brands such as eHow, and Cracked, and is known for creating online content through its Demand Media Studios division based on a combination of measured consumer demand and predicted ROI...
's eHow
EHow
eHow is an online how-to guide with more than 1 million articles and 170,000 videos offering step-by-step instructions. eHow articles and videos are created by freelancers and cover a wide variety of topics organized into a hierarchy of categories. Any eHow user can leave comments or responses, but...
, which publishes 4000 articles per day produced by paid freelance writers, which Weinberg has indicated is "low-quality content designed specifically to rank highly in Google's search index". DuckDuckGo attempts to filter eHow results as well as pages with lots of advertising.
In August 2010 DuckDuckGo introduced anonymous searching, including an exit enclave, for its search engine traffic using Tor
Tor (anonymity network)
Tor is a system intended to enable online anonymity. Tor client software routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers in order to conceal a user's location or usage from someone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis...
. This allows anonymity by routing traffic through a series of encrypted relays. Weinberg stated: "I believe this fits right in line with our privacy policy. Using Tor and DDG, you can now be end to end anonymous with your searching. And if you use our encrypted homepage, you can be end to end encrypted as well."
In 2011, DuckDuckGo introduced voice search for users of the Google Chrome
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
"Voice Search" extension.
DuckDuckGo also features !Bang commands which give the user the ability to use DuckDuckGo and have their search redirected to the relevant site. An example of this is the !wiki command which redirects the search to Wikipedia's English website.
Reception
In a June 2011 article, Harry McCracken of Time Magazine was very positive about DuckDuckGo, comparing it to his favorite hamburger restaurant, In-N-Out BurgerIn-N-Out Burger
In-N-Out Burger is a regional chain of fast food restaurants with locations in the western United States. Founded in 1948 by Harry Snyder and his wife Esther, establishing the first In-N-Out burger in Baldwin Park and headquartered in Irvine, California, In-N-Out Burger has since expanded outside...
, "It feels a lot like early Google, with a stripped-down home page. Just as In-N-Out doesn't have lattes or Asian salads or sundaes or scrambled eggs, DDG doesn't try to do news or blogs or books or images. There's no auto-completion or instant results. It just offers core Web search—mostly the "ten blue links" approach that's still really useful, no matter what its critics say...As for the quality, I'm not saying that Weinberg has figured out a way to return more relevant results than Google's mighty search team. But Duck Duck Go...is really good at bringing back useful sites. It all feels meaty and straightforward and filler-free..."
Thom Holwerda also reviewed the search engine for OSNews
OSNews
OSNews is a computing news web site with a focus on operating systems and their related technologies that launched in 1997. The content is managed by a group of editors and the owner. The managing editor of OSNews is Thom Holwerda . David Adams is a publisher for OSNews, and also contributes...
in June 2011 and praised its privacy features, its defeating of the filter bubble
Filter bubble
A filter bubble is a concept developed by Internet activist Eli Pariser in his book by the same name to describe a phenomenon in which websites use algorithms to selectively guess what information a user would like to see based on information about the user like location, past click behaviour and...
and its shortcuts to site specific searches. He stated "...what are some of the reasons you might want to try out DuckDuckGo? First of all, DuckDuckGo doesn't track you, so you get real privacy when you search the web. Google tracks pretty much everything you do so they can better target you with advertisements. I have no problems with targeted advertising...What does bother me, though, is the fact that I wouldn't be able to protect myself if the US government ever subpoena'd Google to gain access to that information....More importantly though (at least for me) - DuckDuckGo tries to pop something called the filter bubble."