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I switched to them years ago. Only use Google if I don't get the results I need from DDG, and it's usually no better when I do.

That's been my experience as well. I don't know if DDG is improving; but I can say that Google is getting significantly worse.

Of course, YMMV. I'm probably searching for Unix and coding-related stuff 90% of the time.
 
Ah, another day, another “Apple should acquire X” because I say so thread.

It’s worth noting that at this point, Google needs Apple more than Apple needs Google. That Google is willing to pay Apple so much every year is testament to this - because Apple owns the best customers and is increasingly building a wall between them and other companies like Google and Facebook.

If the day ever comes that Google decides to withhold their search engine from apple devices (I am not sure how this would even work, given that google search runs in the browser), Apple could acquire DDG, but probably not before. 9 billion a year is a lot of money to give up.

Depending on others for content and features doesnt sound like a winning strategy in the long run. Apple is worth Google paying it to have Google search as a default until it isn’t.

Remember Google was not offering turn by turn directions on the iPhone, and that alone made me stick with Android at the time. But getting in late to navigations is better than never. It brought about other features and the upcomoing Apple Tags within it’s privacy concerns.
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Apple smartly turned to making it’s own chips for it’s phones and computers while some said they it was crazy and they should just stick with Intel, and good thing it ventured out or else my iPad Pro would be thick, run hot, be slow and have terrible batter life.
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Apple doesnt want to be a commodity device maker getting off-the-shelf software or chips like Android device makers being at the mercy of Google, Intel or anyone else.
 
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I WOULD LOVE THAT! BECOME A GOOGLE ALTERNATIVE!!!

I don't see the value to Apple in doing so. Google reportedly pays Apple billions of dollars annually for the right to be the default search engine in Safari on iOS and macOS. DDG's valuation in 2018 was something like 10 million dollars.

Besides, honestly, I worry that Apple would screw it up.
 
I have tried DuckDuckGo a few times over the years, and never been able to make myself like it. Google always seemed faster and better results, and I’ve been using it for decades.

Also, I use Chrome exclusively and sync everything with a Google account. Simply not using the Google search engine isn’t really going to do much for me…
 
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Get 8 Billion from Google every year or buy DDG for 1 Billion and likely not getting any money from Google anymore....
i'm sure it's a really hard decision for Tim ;)

I tried to switch to DDG a couple of times, but i was never satisfied with the search results.
Sadly google is still a lot better and more consistent.
 
I have been using DDG for years and have no complaints. Why would Apple need to buy it, though? If their deal with Google ends, they could just default to DDG, exactly as they do with Google right now?
 
Why on earth should Apple buy DDG, when they're able to build a search engine from scratch ?!

Apple do not have to buy DDG, they could just make it their default search engine. Building a search engine from scratch is not as simple, though, especially considering Apple’s difficulties with building anything from scratch. Apple Maps is a good example, came out in 2012 and took quite a while to match Google.
 
The article says you can only change to bing, but I just went to settings and had four options. One of them was DuckDuckGo. Although I just re-read the article. I think maybe they meant the only option for them to turn to as the default engine?
 
Building a search engine from scratch is not as simple, though, especially considering Apple’s difficulties with building anything from scratch. Apple Maps is a good example, came out in 2012 and took quite a while to match Google.

Wel, 2012 is way back and everything depends on attitude. When you start with "how to not" the outcome is foreseeable.
 
I use VPN + DDG to research sensitive topics. Never had any related ads pop up in my fb or on amazon etc. Very satisfied.
 
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I have DuckDuckGo as my default browser on my Mac and my iPhone, but I always end up going to Google manually first to do my searches. DDG is nowhere near as accurate with regards to geographic results as Google is. I would not say that's necessarily a weakness, but it is a downside of their increased privacy measures. I frequently have to be more specific in my searches about the area that I'm choosing to search in to get the results that I want.

And for the record, I use Private browsing windows 99% of the time on both devices, so there's no cookies keeping track of my travels. Google still manages to present far more relevant results.
 
The article says you can only change to bing, but I just went to settings and had four options. One of them was DuckDuckGo. Although I just re-read the article. I think maybe they meant the only option for them to turn to as the default engine?
no, the article said that the only real leverage Apple has in negotiations against google is bing - the other choices don’t really frighten google enough into making google offer up more money. “pay us more or we’ll make DDG the default” is sort of like threatening to shoot yourself in the foot.
 
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There was an initiative to build up an European privacy oriented search engine, unfortunately the project died before was fully functional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaero

As the EU is starting the Gaia-X cloud project, maybe someone can catch the idea again. The financing is not a problem as they can found the project with the billions fines from Google :)
 
I would much rather they keep the ~$10B and do something productive with it other than spending it on Apple TV+ dramas.
Apple has more money than they know what to do with. If you don’t like their dramas, don’t watch them but not having original content won’t get you your magic touch screen laptop or whatever else you think every else wants too.
 
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Didn't apple switch the default search to yahoo or Bing in about iOS 10? I'm not sure what happened after that but it seems like it was shortlived.
 
Why just using Google search without being signed on separate dedicated browser? It’s save you a lot time from targeted ads and browser fingerprinting.

Sadly others than Google search result is pretty lame, especially on non English things.
 
Apple has more money than they know what to do with. If you don’t like their dramas, don’t watch them but not having original content won’t get you your magic touch screen laptop or whatever else you think every else wants too.

Thea could use some of that money to develop new things. But they seem to be scared. Developing something new could flop and investors can’t have that.
 
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No..Apple is privacy oriented, DDG is privacy focused. This means although Apple tend not to exploit your privacy they still collect some data, DDG on the other hand their whole business model revolves on not having an "account" on your with recorded past behaviour.

If Apple buys DDG they will monetise it, Apple works for their stockholders which want to see stock growth and higher earnings. Guess how that happens with search engine business...

TIP: If you insist on using Google, use startpage.com , it gives Google results but does not forward your info to Google. I am not sure why Google agreed to have this deal with them but this is the reality of the situation.

I tried DuckDuckGo and Bing with a pretty open mind, they were unfortunately both pretty terrible if you do anything more than very simple searches. Working on things like research articles; simply typing or pasting parts of a reference article or title gives excellent results in Google but DuckDuckGo and Bing usually gave results that were no where near what I needed and at times results were let’s just say pretty out there. All that data collection is basically why Google usually gives better results.

In my experience searching for maybe a famous person or an animal I’d probably not notice a difference between the three but get into some hard searches ie research/science concepts/phrases or sections of articles and books etc, and Google is the only one that consistently gives proper results for me. With the Bing and DuckDuckGo I ended up wasting a lot more time scrolling through a few pages just get one or two proper results.

Thats fine, most people search for generic stuff. If all you want to do is look up research articles do it on google. The whole point was not to track your -private- life.

If you don‘t trust the internet. Then i wouldnt trust DDG either. I think that’s far too much confidence in a company if your‘re already straddling the ledge.
Besides DDG is just a search aggregator and not a true search engine.
Having said all that, I would love Apple to get into search as a public service because relying on only one mega-company is never a good a thing. And only a company with Apple’s resources could possibly get in the game and get any kind of traction.

No... you see this is the problem, when one company owns everything its just too powerful for society's sake. Google today owns the online video, email, search, browsing, smartphone OS, some computer OS, their locations, and their online file storage. This is just too much power in the hands of 1 for-profit company. With so much power they really can alter politics of some countries.

Apple already has maps, safari, computer OS, iOS, and wearables. I like Apple but I don't want them to control all aspects of my life like the lights in my room, my car, my security camera, my email history, my tv viewings, my message history...etc etc
 
Apple has the brand recognition and clout to create their own engine from scratch. They could put together a team to crank one out and streamline in secrecy without even causing a rounding error to their balance sheet.
 
Apple has more money than they know what to do with. If you don’t like their dramas, don’t watch them but not having original content won’t get you your magic touch screen laptop or whatever else you think every else wants too.

Thea could use some of that money to develop new things. But they seem to be scared. Developing something new could flop and investors can’t have that.

It isn't just new product or magic touch screen. They dont even have to throw all money into R&D, their current rate of R&D for most of their product ( Apart from Mac ) are fine.

Apple had 400 Retail Store when they have 500M iPhone users. And they were already cramped. That was before Apple Watch and AirPods. Having 1000 Stores worldwide for a 1B+ Customer Base isn't too much for an "expansion". It is more of a need. And yet Retail has had very little progress. ( Other than renovation ) They are currently sitting at just over 500 stores. Steve didn't create the Store just for Retail and Marketing. It is used for Support as well. Good Luck trying to book a support session. ( If you live in US and easily can do that, great. US has the highest, largest Apple Store area per Apple User )

They are still extremely slow with their Datacenter expansion. ( At least Apple CDN is finally a thing )

There will likely never be another product that is as big as Smartphone / iPhone. If Apple is worried about people moving off their platform, it shouldn't be some "Services" like Apple Music and Apple TV to keep them in. It should be cheap cloud Storage. It is the same strategy with Amazon AWS as Data Gravity. Once your Data lives inside the ecosystem, it is difficult, a hassle, or in AWS case really expensive to move them out. I mean they could at least start by adding 1TB tier for $5.99

These are areas, ( along with Mac, which finally got some attention ) Apple has neglected for years. And yet Apple decide to spend billions on Dramas.
 
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