Privacy focused search engine DuckDuckGo surpasses 10 million daily queries

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in internet on (#DJBY)
DuckDuckGo announced they hit a milestone, surpassing the 10 million daily query mark on June 22, 2015. DuckDuckGo saw 10,218,617 queries on June 22nd alone. The company gives credit to that surge in users based on them being a privacy focused search engine. Gabriel Weinberg wrote, "we're proud to be helping so many people take back their privacy." DuckDuckGo has grown 600% since Edward Snowden's NSA surveillance news broke two years ago. And yet only a few percent of people have even heard of DuckDuckGo and other private alternatives.

Founded in 2008 by Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo is based in Paoli, Pennsylvania rather than Silicon Valley. The site, which does not track user data, now handles some 3bn searches a year - although that is only about the same volume that Google processes in 24 hours. Since last year, it has been a built-in search option in both Safari and Firefox. The site also promises to provide the information users want with fewer clicks through features such as instant answers, themes and !bangs. DuckDuckGo hopes these other features will help it continue to build on the audience gained from people looking for more private ways to search the web following the Snowden revelations.

Re: Or, more recently... (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-07-13 16:39 (#E6E0)

Yeah the search quality is poor and far too censored by default. Startpage is much, much better (because it uses Google of course).

Agreed that the new Startpage interface is godforsaken and there is STILL no replacement mobile interface, which is insane.

This redesign death spiral seems to be the way with every last web site, even useful and technically sound and aware ones like Lifehacker or, well, Slashdot. :)

Speaking of which, I don't visit there much any more but the overall quality seems to have gotten MUCH worse. Clearly the hordes haven't come here. Did all the decent people (present company excluded) just stop posting on the Internet?
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