8 ms·

Yandex is a pretty good search engine. Yandex is essentially what people think DuckDuckGo is, on the other hand DuckDuckGo is essentially is just Bing.

prox 4y ago
Isn’t Yandex completely Russian? I usually get Yandex with my malware as well.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  .ru is but .com the other is european based.
- isodev 4y ago
  I wouldn’t trust it even if it’s only partially Russian. If they offer “private” search services, they must also have a way to monetise it.
zamadatix 4y ago
My impression was most use DuckDuckGo for privacy reasons so it's a bit surprising to read Yandex is supposed to be what people think DuckDuckGo is. Also DuckDuckGo sources from far more than just Bing and it does have its own crawler as well. My understanding of Yandex was that it's just another user-information-is-primary-income search provider this time HQ'd in Russia, neither of which exactly appealing to the typical DDG crowd. Though I'd throw Kagi out to anyone who puts a lot of weight on such things as being a more pure example than either.
- mrgalaxy 4y ago
  > Also DuckDuckGo sources from far more than just Bing and it does have its own crawler as well. Do you have a source for this? I'd be interested in reading the technicals of merging search results from multiple sources.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    They do use their crawler to source some "smart" results, but the bulk of ordinary results seems to be from Bing.
    - tomByrer 4y ago
      Yep, DDG admists this (blog post from a few weeks back). When DDG first started, most of their results came from Yandex IIRC.
  - zamadatix 4y ago
    When I was looking into it I only found a few high level things like https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so.... Nothing on how the sausage is made unfortunately. Same for Kagi which takes a similar layered approach (though anecdotally it seemed a bit more spread across backend sources).
- thrown_22 4y ago
  >My understanding of Yandex was that it's just another user-information-is-primary-income search provider this time HQ'd in Russia, neither of which exactly appealing to the typical DDG crowd. A Russian company having my data given the current state of relations between it and my government is less worrisome than Google having the same.
  - z3c0 4y ago
    Your data is useless, no matter where it is. Data on the collective of American citizens, however, is not.
    - tekknik 4y ago
      This response, though frequently used, is wrong. If my data is useless they wouldn’t collect it. They use this data to target ads specifically for me, increasing those ads value. So yes, individuals data is worth something.
      - z3c0 4y ago
        That's not how ad targeting works. Your data is used in aggregate to target ads to your purported demographic, and that designation is usually obtained on-the-fly via your recent page visits. Storing your individual interests isn't worth the money it costs. That said, this has nothing to do with ads. It's a matter of foreign intelligence.
        tekknik 4y ago
        Yet, my ads become more valuable when they have data that I’m interested in a specific subject. Absent if that data, the ads are worth less.

prox 4y ago

Isn’t Yandex completely Russian? I usually get Yandex with my malware as well.

ipaddr 4y ago
.ru is but .com the other is european based.
isodev 4y ago
I wouldn’t trust it even if it’s only partially Russian. If they offer “private” search services, they must also have a way to monetise it.

zamadatix 4y ago

My impression was most use DuckDuckGo for privacy reasons so it's a bit surprising to read Yandex is supposed to be what people think DuckDuckGo is. Also DuckDuckGo sources from far more than just Bing and it does have its own crawler as well. My understanding of Yandex was that it's just another user-information-is-primary-income search provider this time HQ'd in Russia, neither of which exactly appealing to the typical DDG crowd. Though I'd throw Kagi out to anyone who puts a lot of weight on such things as being a more pure example than either.

mrgalaxy 4y ago
> Also DuckDuckGo sources from far more than just Bing and it does have its own crawler as well. Do you have a source for this? I'd be interested in reading the technicals of merging search results from multiple sources.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  They do use their crawler to source some "smart" results, but the bulk of ordinary results seems to be from Bing.
  - tomByrer 4y ago
    Yep, DDG admists this (blog post from a few weeks back). When DDG first started, most of their results came from Yandex IIRC.
- zamadatix 4y ago
  When I was looking into it I only found a few high level things like https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so.... Nothing on how the sausage is made unfortunately. Same for Kagi which takes a similar layered approach (though anecdotally it seemed a bit more spread across backend sources).
thrown_22 4y ago
>My understanding of Yandex was that it's just another user-information-is-primary-income search provider this time HQ'd in Russia, neither of which exactly appealing to the typical DDG crowd. A Russian company having my data given the current state of relations between it and my government is less worrisome than Google having the same.
- z3c0 4y ago
  Your data is useless, no matter where it is. Data on the collective of American citizens, however, is not.
  - tekknik 4y ago
    This response, though frequently used, is wrong. If my data is useless they wouldn’t collect it. They use this data to target ads specifically for me, increasing those ads value. So yes, individuals data is worth something.
    - z3c0 4y ago
      That's not how ad targeting works. Your data is used in aggregate to target ads to your purported demographic, and that designation is usually obtained on-the-fly via your recent page visits. Storing your individual interests isn't worth the money it costs. That said, this has nothing to do with ads. It's a matter of foreign intelligence.
      - tekknik 4y ago
        Yet, my ads become more valuable when they have data that I’m interested in a specific subject. Absent if that data, the ads are worth less.