this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Technology

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[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Daily reminder that unregulated capitalism hurts all of us.

[–] Robaque@feddit.it 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Daily reminder that capitalism hurts all of us.

Capitalism isn't about free markets, it's about private property and profit extraction.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago (9 children)

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!"

[–] Robaque@feddit.it 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

Free markets don't have to be capitalist.

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[–] millie@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] cloudy1999@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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.

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[–] FIST_FILLET@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] red@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago (9 children)

DuckDuckGo CEO apparently is just another CEO. I've been an early adopter that's been using their search engine long before there were apps or a browser.

What's stopping people from using DDG isn't switching to DDG, it's getting absolutely dogshit results 90% of time. As an advanced user I know I can prefix my search with "!g phrase" to use Google instead of DDG. The sad fact is that despite the ad-ridden result page and tracking, Google is still lightyears ahead in providing relevant, and especially timely results for a user that is both tech-savvy and critical.

They need to improve their product, users will follow a good adfree search engine, that's a given. Only a fraction of users will put up with degraded results in order to search without tracking.

I sincerely hope they will get their tech up to par. And that their browser on mobile reaches feature parity soon. (as a Z Fold user, DDG browser doesn't have tabs. Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox does).

The new kid on the block needs humility and good tech, not shittalk. Fuck that CEO,. he's undermining something very promising and important.

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I often don't find what I want in DDG; and I then try !g to look for it with Google... and Google doesn't find it either.

In my experience it is very rare for Google to help me with a search that DDG failed with. As for the converse, I wouldn't know - because I never search Google first. Why wouldn't I? They're evil.

That said, I will point out that I don't use a google account, and I block most google-related cookies. I know that some people find Google gives better results due to its personalised results; and obviously I'm not 'benefiting' from that. So it is believable that you get better results from Google than I do, due to it knowing more about you, and thus guessing what you might want to see.

[–] xtapa@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I made the switch a week ago. For two days at work, I always used Google, DDG and ecosia(uses bing) at the same time to compare the results. They are the same most of the time for the first 10 to 20 results. There's sometimes a blogpost that one engine shows that the other doesn't, but that post never made a difference.

When DDG does not get me helpful results, I can still ask Google to help out.

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[–] Floey@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I agree that DDG's results suck, but so do Google's.

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