5 ms·

DuckDuckGo Terminal Interface

210 points by LucasLarson 7y ago

big_chungus 7y ago
This could be an excellent way to convert those who enjoy the command line (including me). I get awfully sick of google's garbage, "We've detected automated traffic from your systems." I don't scrape stuff, but if I did, so what? This is worse on things like tor or if I can't use JS. Why can't I just type in a query and get back a result? Now, please make this an actual CLI. I want to type `search "performant c hash table"` from my command line and get back results. I can open the resultant link in something like lynx, as all I need is probably textual. This is perfect for development use cases.
- IggleSniggle 7y ago
  https://github.com/jarun/ddgr https://github.com/jarun/ddgr
robgibbons 7y ago
I thought maybe this would be an actual terminal client, as in a way to search DDG via the terminal.
- tracerbulletx 7y ago
  https://github.com/jarun/ddgr https://github.com/jarun/ddgr
  - atupis 7y ago
    Nice does it support piping results to firefox?
    - apjana 7y ago
      Yes, you can open the results in FF.
  - sdan 7y ago
    This is what I was looking for (although honestly I probably won't use this often... unless I get used to it). Thanks!
  - AdrienLemaire 7y ago
    You just made my day, this is awesome! Thanks
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Nice, though I suspect a bunch of the parameters can be submitted with the request. I've got a bash function wrapper around w3m that fires off searches from the shell. It's not a dedicated DDG client, but then again, after you hit the search results, the goal is to view the results page. This does use the "lite" page, which is console-browser friendly-er ddg () { w3m https://duckduckgo.com/lite?q="$*&fd=-1" } Full params list: https://duckduckgo.com/params https://duckduckgo.com/params Nothing for number of results on page, that I see, though I've just added the toggle for no redirect ("&fd=-1", included above now).
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      NB: that should be "&kd=-1", not "fd". ddg () { w3m https://duckduckgo.com/lite?q="$*&kd=-1" }
  - k1e 7y ago
    It uses DDG json api, which gives different search result than their web version in a lot of cases. https://api.duckduckgo.com/api https://api.duckduckgo.com/api >This API does not include all of our links, however. That is, it is not a full search results API or a way to get DuckDuckGo results into your applications beyond our instant answers. Because of the way we generate our search results, we unfortunately do not have the rights to fully syndicate our results, free or paid. For the same reason, we cannot allow framing our results without our branding. Please see our partnerships page for more info on guidelines and getting in touch with us.
sdan 7y ago
Nice. Could I use this on my Terminal now?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Not unless your terminal interprets Javascript. Though you might appreciate https://duckduckgo.com/lite https://duckduckgo.com/lite
kbd 7y ago
Somehow the input on this doesn't register as an actual textbox. Many of my keystrokes are read by Vimium instead, making this unusable.
- keithnz 7y ago
  in vimium you can go i and you will be in insert mode ( till you hit escape ) and you will be fine.
  - kbd 7y ago
    TIL, thanks.
bitpush 7y ago
1+1 returns [Object object] https://imgur.com/les9QqQ https://imgur.com/les9QqQ
shmerl 7y ago
For some reason it doesn't work for me (nothing happens after typing a search term).
- sk0g 7y ago
  Same here, was pretty excited to try it out too! Help and the likes work, but not just searching.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
    Wait, help? When I type help I gest a list of search results for help. Did you actually get help text?
    - shmerl 7y ago
      It's :help
      - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
        Ah. Thanks for the er, help.
- boardwaalk 7y ago
  It only works if I use a single word, no spaces...
isatty 7y ago
The default keypress for / isn't captured and makes it difficult to type in an URL to search for (not that the URL search returned anything).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
vector_spaces 7y ago
Weirdly this doesn't seem to work using their own Android DDG Privacy Browser app
adjkant 7y ago
So I'm sure this is cool to programmers, but this feels like if DDG wants to go towards popular use it should be going in the opposite direction, yeah? I guess this probably wasn't much work (maybe even an internal hackathon project) but still feels like DDG isn't really headings towards popular adoption and I'm curious what their internal focus is.
- PostOnce 7y ago
  It's one of the most popular sites on the internet already. https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/duckduckgo.com https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/duckduckgo.com It's also built into browsers. So, whatever they're doing, it's working.
  - adjkant 7y ago
    Come on, we all know that doesn't mean it's getting as wide use as a search engine as Google let's say. And popularity doesn't mean that it's not leaving things on the table. I'm just trying to give feedback as a potential user from a non-technical perspective, which I think most developers overlook.
    - PostOnce 7y ago
      You can't beat Google by trying to be Google without having Google level money, and even then, you still probably can't, Microsoft and Yahoo tried. So, do something different. It's possible to grow by endearing yourself to geeks first. How'd Firefox catch on to begin with? Geeks, then they recommend to family and friends etc. Hell, even if geeks were their only users, it'd likely be viable. There are a lot of us.
      - godelski 7y ago
        > Geeks, then they recommend to family and friends etc. Or, in my case, parents ask their kids to set up their computers and they install firefox and add things like adblockers.
  - 7y ago
etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
Just earlier today I thought it would be very cool to use Google assistant in a terminal. It looks like there is an example python project that is close to working with some polishing. Google assistant is also lacking a client for web browsers, or desktops in general... It appears free to use the assistant API for non commerical purposes. Until it gets randomly deprecated.
jakeogh 7y ago
relatedish: https://gitlab.com/surfraw/Surfraw https://gitlab.com/surfraw/Surfraw
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Trivium: written by some guy named Julian Assange.
  - jakeogh 7y ago
    I think they are trying to kill him in Belmarsh. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mumbling-assange-tells-judge-t-121202397.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mumbling-assange-tells-judge-...
njsubedi 7y ago
Fedback (see #1) from my use on Firefox 70 on Mac OS Catalina 1. Feedback isn't being sent anywhere (looking at the network requests.) 2. Searching for sum or difference of numbers (eg. 2-1) returns [Object]. 3. Typing / or ' invokes the browser's quick find option 4. I can never search for the letter M (or m, or 'm' inside quotes) because it always gives "-- End of search results." instead of the search results. 5. I can never search for a URL (say, http://duckduckgo.com http://duckduckgo.com) as a keyword. No results at all. 6. Pressing CTRL-L after typing some text clears the text as well (unlike any other terminal) 7. Pronounce doesn't work at all (audio plays well on Forvo) Discoveries: 1. Searching for \anything takes you to the first result (on a popup that's blocked by the browser). 2. [Added] A `duck` CLI would be useful.
- U8dcN7vx 7y ago
  ddgr perhaps?
- addandsubtract 7y ago
  Re: 6. I found that annoying as well. I use CTRL+L to jump to the address bar, not clear the terminal. MacOS uses CTRL+K to clear it and I'd assume that be the case on linux as well.
  - fouc 7y ago
    Hmm? ctrl-L clears the terminal in iTerm (and in linux terminals too I believe) Ok looks like CMD-L and CMD-K also clear the terminal in iTerm. But we're talking about "ctrl" here
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sigmonsays 7y ago
I can't seem to search for "kubernetes" or "kubernetes linux"; with or without quotes.
- Nicksil 7y ago
  That's a feature.
- exikyut 7y ago
  I think it's hitting a cache backend and not the main index, to lower the quality of the exposed JSON endpoint (which is really easy to consume).
- lutoma 7y ago
  same, most longer search terms just don't return anything for me (but they do on regular DuckDuckGo).
exikyut 7y ago
Various comments are noting that certain queries are not working. I think this is hitting a caching/prefetch layer and not actually querying the main index. My theory: - this was a hackathon/weekend/20%(ish) project... - ...using JSON for simplicity... - ...said JSON endpoint needs to be exposed in a straightforward way... - ...without implementing authentication/obfuscation (which would have blown the allotted time budget)... - ...and so the decision was made to "break" the results in some way instead, so that once you realize https://duckduckgo.com/?q=test&o=json https://duckduckgo.com/?q=test&o=json is EXTREMELY easy to parse, it's of no value.
- shakna 7y ago
  > :why > Because Devdas uses vimperator with Google?? I don't think they mix well. Devdas, you should try this instead. I'm not sure this was ever intended to be more than just a quick project. It breaks because parsing has a lot of edge cases, and this was done quickly.
corecoder 7y ago
It sucks so much! I tried typing but apparently was typing too fast and more than half of the letters didn't appear on the screen?
- keithnz 7y ago
  do you have vimium installed? I had similar symptoms till I realized, then realized what was going on. If this is the case, press i to go into insert mode, and you should be good from there
jhoechtl 7y ago
I liked DDG a lot .. but when I discovered that it is effectively an UI over Bing (Yahoo?), I am a lot less impressed. Is there any search engine which is NOT backed by an extremely heavyweight player?
- okraszo 7y ago
  Where did you find information it is really a "proxy" to Bing? I couldn't find such information. BTW, there is also similar private search that proxies queries to google - https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/
  - mkl 7y ago
    From two days ago: Startpage is now owned by an advertising company https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/di5rn3/startpage_is_now_owned_by_an_advertising_company/ https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/di5rn3/startpage_i... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577
- hnarn 7y ago
  Your claim desperately needs a citation.
  - mda 7y ago
    Logic. Creating and maintaining a half decent search engine requires a billion dollar worth of infrastructure and talent. They have neither.
    - sveme 7y ago
      That's circular. They don't have it because they could not? Alas, it's using bing as one source, it's more than just a proxy to bing. And they seem to have their own crawler as well.
      - sct202 7y ago
Lio 7y ago
This is a lot of fun. Right now I'm hitting a few issues with the Vimium plugin in Firefox. Pretty sure that can be fix though.
rinchik 7y ago
Doesn't work in FF with "Search for text when you start typing". I expected better implementation. JS hijacks pretty much every event, and cursor is just a styled span, not a real input, which introduces a bunch of usability bugs.
trpc 7y ago
DDG coincidentally makes almost every post to the frontpage as if it was a trillion dollar company meanwhile almost all interesting SHOW HN threads upon which the entire future of livelihood of many indie devs and micro startups depend are buried without even getting the slightest chance to get any coverage.
BLanen 7y ago
The search results are ddg pages suggesting search terms based on the input? Why can't I just search normally and the list is a list of the actual results of my query. Now you navigate to the ddg search results page and have to then browse as usual. Almost useless. You'd think this would be made to skip that step.
dxxvi 7y ago
It can be a little bit better if the url's are dimmed a little bit (they can be still green to mimic the mono-color terminals, but dimmer).
tretiy3 7y ago
it doesn't work. today i was asking ddg why sys.maxint is no longer works in python3. got immediate answer. but this terminal app just keep silent about that.

210 points by LucasLarson 7y ago

This could be an excellent way to convert those who enjoy the command line (including me). I get awfully sick of google's garbage, "We've detected automated traffic from your systems." I don't scrape stuff, but if I did, so what? This is worse on things like tor or if I can't use JS. Why can't I just type in a query and get back a result? Now, please make this an actual CLI. I want to type `search "performant c hash table"` from my command line and get back results. I can open the resultant link in something like lynx, as all I need is probably textual. This is perfect for development use cases.

IggleSniggle 7y ago
https://github.com/jarun/ddgr https://github.com/jarun/ddgr

robgibbons 7y ago

I thought maybe this would be an actual terminal client, as in a way to search DDG via the terminal.

tracerbulletx 7y ago
https://github.com/jarun/ddgr https://github.com/jarun/ddgr
- atupis 7y ago
  Nice does it support piping results to firefox?
  - apjana 7y ago
    Yes, you can open the results in FF.
- sdan 7y ago
  This is what I was looking for (although honestly I probably won't use this often... unless I get used to it). Thanks!
- AdrienLemaire 7y ago
  You just made my day, this is awesome! Thanks
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Nice, though I suspect a bunch of the parameters can be submitted with the request. I've got a bash function wrapper around w3m that fires off searches from the shell. It's not a dedicated DDG client, but then again, after you hit the search results, the goal is to view the results page. This does use the "lite" page, which is console-browser friendly-er ddg () { w3m https://duckduckgo.com/lite?q="$*&fd=-1" } Full params list: https://duckduckgo.com/params https://duckduckgo.com/params Nothing for number of results on page, that I see, though I've just added the toggle for no redirect ("&fd=-1", included above now).
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    NB: that should be "&kd=-1", not "fd". ddg () { w3m https://duckduckgo.com/lite?q="$*&kd=-1" }
- k1e 7y ago
  It uses DDG json api, which gives different search result than their web version in a lot of cases. https://api.duckduckgo.com/api https://api.duckduckgo.com/api >This API does not include all of our links, however. That is, it is not a full search results API or a way to get DuckDuckGo results into your applications beyond our instant answers. Because of the way we generate our search results, we unfortunately do not have the rights to fully syndicate our results, free or paid. For the same reason, we cannot allow framing our results without our branding. Please see our partnerships page for more info on guidelines and getting in touch with us.

sdan 7y ago

Nice. Could I use this on my Terminal now?

dredmorbius 7y ago
Not unless your terminal interprets Javascript. Though you might appreciate https://duckduckgo.com/lite https://duckduckgo.com/lite

kbd 7y ago

Somehow the input on this doesn't register as an actual textbox. Many of my keystrokes are read by Vimium instead, making this unusable.

keithnz 7y ago
in vimium you can go i and you will be in insert mode ( till you hit escape ) and you will be fine.
- kbd 7y ago
  TIL, thanks.

bitpush 7y ago

1+1 returns [Object object] https://imgur.com/les9QqQ https://imgur.com/les9QqQ

shmerl 7y ago

For some reason it doesn't work for me (nothing happens after typing a search term).

sk0g 7y ago
Same here, was pretty excited to try it out too! Help and the likes work, but not just searching.
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  Wait, help? When I type help I gest a list of search results for help. Did you actually get help text?
  - shmerl 7y ago
    It's :help
    - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
      Ah. Thanks for the er, help.
boardwaalk 7y ago
It only works if I use a single word, no spaces...

isatty 7y ago

The default keypress for / isn't captured and makes it difficult to type in an URL to search for (not that the URL search returned anything).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

vector_spaces 7y ago

Weirdly this doesn't seem to work using their own Android DDG Privacy Browser app

adjkant 7y ago

So I'm sure this is cool to programmers, but this feels like if DDG wants to go towards popular use it should be going in the opposite direction, yeah? I guess this probably wasn't much work (maybe even an internal hackathon project) but still feels like DDG isn't really headings towards popular adoption and I'm curious what their internal focus is.

PostOnce 7y ago
It's one of the most popular sites on the internet already. https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/duckduckgo.com https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/duckduckgo.com It's also built into browsers. So, whatever they're doing, it's working.
- adjkant 7y ago
  Come on, we all know that doesn't mean it's getting as wide use as a search engine as Google let's say. And popularity doesn't mean that it's not leaving things on the table. I'm just trying to give feedback as a potential user from a non-technical perspective, which I think most developers overlook.
  - PostOnce 7y ago
    You can't beat Google by trying to be Google without having Google level money, and even then, you still probably can't, Microsoft and Yahoo tried. So, do something different. It's possible to grow by endearing yourself to geeks first. How'd Firefox catch on to begin with? Geeks, then they recommend to family and friends etc. Hell, even if geeks were their only users, it'd likely be viable. There are a lot of us.
    - godelski 7y ago
      > Geeks, then they recommend to family and friends etc. Or, in my case, parents ask their kids to set up their computers and they install firefox and add things like adblockers.
- 7y ago

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago

Just earlier today I thought it would be very cool to use Google assistant in a terminal. It looks like there is an example python project that is close to working with some polishing. Google assistant is also lacking a client for web browsers, or desktops in general... It appears free to use the assistant API for non commerical purposes. Until it gets randomly deprecated.

jakeogh 7y ago

relatedish: https://gitlab.com/surfraw/Surfraw https://gitlab.com/surfraw/Surfraw

dredmorbius 7y ago
Trivium: written by some guy named Julian Assange.
- jakeogh 7y ago
  I think they are trying to kill him in Belmarsh. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mumbling-assange-tells-judge-t-121202397.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mumbling-assange-tells-judge-...

njsubedi 7y ago

Fedback (see #1) from my use on Firefox 70 on Mac OS Catalina 1. Feedback isn't being sent anywhere (looking at the network requests.) 2. Searching for sum or difference of numbers (eg. 2-1) returns [Object]. 3. Typing / or ' invokes the browser's quick find option 4. I can never search for the letter M (or m, or 'm' inside quotes) because it always gives "-- End of search results." instead of the search results. 5. I can never search for a URL (say, http://duckduckgo.com http://duckduckgo.com) as a keyword. No results at all. 6. Pressing CTRL-L after typing some text clears the text as well (unlike any other terminal) 7. Pronounce doesn't work at all (audio plays well on Forvo) Discoveries: 1. Searching for \anything takes you to the first result (on a popup that's blocked by the browser). 2. [Added] A `duck` CLI would be useful.

U8dcN7vx 7y ago
ddgr perhaps?
addandsubtract 7y ago
Re: 6. I found that annoying as well. I use CTRL+L to jump to the address bar, not clear the terminal. MacOS uses CTRL+K to clear it and I'd assume that be the case on linux as well.
- fouc 7y ago
  Hmm? ctrl-L clears the terminal in iTerm (and in linux terminals too I believe) Ok looks like CMD-L and CMD-K also clear the terminal in iTerm. But we're talking about "ctrl" here

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

sigmonsays 7y ago

I can't seem to search for "kubernetes" or "kubernetes linux"; with or without quotes.

Nicksil 7y ago
That's a feature.
exikyut 7y ago
I think it's hitting a cache backend and not the main index, to lower the quality of the exposed JSON endpoint (which is really easy to consume).
lutoma 7y ago
same, most longer search terms just don't return anything for me (but they do on regular DuckDuckGo).

exikyut 7y ago

Various comments are noting that certain queries are not working. I think this is hitting a caching/prefetch layer and not actually querying the main index. My theory: - this was a hackathon/weekend/20%(ish) project... - ...using JSON for simplicity... - ...said JSON endpoint needs to be exposed in a straightforward way... - ...without implementing authentication/obfuscation (which would have blown the allotted time budget)... - ...and so the decision was made to "break" the results in some way instead, so that once you realize https://duckduckgo.com/?q=test&o=json https://duckduckgo.com/?q=test&o=json is EXTREMELY easy to parse, it's of no value.

shakna 7y ago
> :why > Because Devdas uses vimperator with Google?? I don't think they mix well. Devdas, you should try this instead. I'm not sure this was ever intended to be more than just a quick project. It breaks because parsing has a lot of edge cases, and this was done quickly.

corecoder 7y ago

It sucks so much! I tried typing but apparently was typing too fast and more than half of the letters didn't appear on the screen?

keithnz 7y ago
do you have vimium installed? I had similar symptoms till I realized, then realized what was going on. If this is the case, press i to go into insert mode, and you should be good from there

jhoechtl 7y ago

I liked DDG a lot .. but when I discovered that it is effectively an UI over Bing (Yahoo?), I am a lot less impressed. Is there any search engine which is NOT backed by an extremely heavyweight player?

okraszo 7y ago
Where did you find information it is really a "proxy" to Bing? I couldn't find such information. BTW, there is also similar private search that proxies queries to google - https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/
- mkl 7y ago
  From two days ago: Startpage is now owned by an advertising company https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/di5rn3/startpage_is_now_owned_by_an_advertising_company/ https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/di5rn3/startpage_i... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577
hnarn 7y ago
Your claim desperately needs a citation.
- mda 7y ago
  Logic. Creating and maintaining a half decent search engine requires a billion dollar worth of infrastructure and talent. They have neither.
  - sveme 7y ago
    That's circular. They don't have it because they could not? Alas, it's using bing as one source, it's more than just a proxy to bing. And they seem to have their own crawler as well.
    - sct202 7y ago

Lio 7y ago

This is a lot of fun. Right now I'm hitting a few issues with the Vimium plugin in Firefox. Pretty sure that can be fix though.

rinchik 7y ago

Doesn't work in FF with "Search for text when you start typing". I expected better implementation. JS hijacks pretty much every event, and cursor is just a styled span, not a real input, which introduces a bunch of usability bugs.

trpc 7y ago

DDG coincidentally makes almost every post to the frontpage as if it was a trillion dollar company meanwhile almost all interesting SHOW HN threads upon which the entire future of livelihood of many indie devs and micro startups depend are buried without even getting the slightest chance to get any coverage.

BLanen 7y ago

The search results are ddg pages suggesting search terms based on the input? Why can't I just search normally and the list is a list of the actual results of my query. Now you navigate to the ddg search results page and have to then browse as usual. Almost useless. You'd think this would be made to skip that step.

dxxvi 7y ago

It can be a little bit better if the url's are dimmed a little bit (they can be still green to mimic the mono-color terminals, but dimmer).

tretiy3 7y ago

it doesn't work. today i was asking ddg why sys.maxint is no longer works in python3. got immediate answer. but this terminal app just keep silent about that.