7 ms·
Introducing DuckDuckHack
- blairbits 14y agoThis seems to me to be a great example of hour DDG can gain an edge on Google. I don't think you'll ever see Google offering something like this; they're too big. A smaller option like DDG has more room to grow, and can take advantage of the crowd like this in ways that Google can't.
- ImJasonH 14y agoGoogle offered something very similar to this a few years ago: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/10/google-search-add-ons.html http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/10/google-search-add-o... Sadly it seems to no longer be supported.
- SeoxyS 14y agoThis is begging to be renamed "HackHackGo." Has such a nice ring to it!
- epi0Bauqu 14y agoHaha, you'll notice hackhackgo.com redirects to the same place :). We had a large internal debate about the name and it came down to these two, with hacksear.ch in third.
- heyrhett 14y ago+1 "DuckDuckHack"
- NickPollard 14y agoIf it hacks like a duck...
- fraserharris 14y agoYou compared this to Firefox Add-ons. Does that mean that these won't be integrated into DDG natively? Will that only be at your discretion?
- crazedpsyc 14y agoNo, they will be native.
- prakash 14y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3915588 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3915588
- gilrain 14y agoGood choice, in the end. The brand is more "DuckDuck", not "Go".
- 14y ago
- sasha-dv 14y agoDDG is getting better all the time. These days, I use it almost exclusively. I love the !bang syntax.
- tree_of_item 14y agoWhat advantage do bangs have over Chrome's ability to detect and add search engines to the Omnibox?
- crazedpsyc 14y agoThey exist for sites you've never been to before, you don't have to do anything to a fresh browser install to make them work, they are browser-indepenent (I don't use or like chrome personally), and you can use them on any computer at any time. I know they are always helpful for me when using public computers.
- andrewcooke 14y agoi use it by default too (i guess it's largely cosmetic, but since something now displays quickly it doesn't feel so slow, even though the results still lag a little), but for non-trivial searches i regularly use !google because it simply returns better results. i don't see how they can fix that (they delegate to bing?) but i wish they could. it's just depressing how much better google results can be when the answer "isn't obvious". sorry, i guess this reads really negative. it's not my intent - as i said i use it. i just wish it could be better.
- pbhjpbhj 14y agoThe !bang syntax is for pass-through search (http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html). So, why even bother going to DDG and not simply using address bar search shortcuts? Why would I do 'ddg !g "my" "search" "terms"' as opposed to 'g "my" "search" "terms"'?? Or is this using ddg as start page for your browser, or ... Just curious.
- samdk 14y agoFor me, there are a couple of benefits of having the functionality built into my search engine rather than my browser. First, all I have to do is set up DDG as the default search engine in my browser, and then I get tons of search shortcuts working without any more effort on my part. I don't have to worry about syncing between different computers, browsers (I use Chrome and Firefox at different times), and operating systems. Second, there are many more shortcuts than I'd ever think to maintain myself, and somebody else has already put the work into defining them. I can do !{relatively popular site} and even if I'm guessing, it almost always works. (In fact, I can't remember the last time it didn't.)
- Adaptive 14y agoThis is like Google Labs turned inside out. Innovative stuff. I love it. More power to DDG!
- evoxed 14y agoSwitching my default search in 3..2..1..
- matt2000 14y agoI couldn't figure it out from the docs, do the plugins get approved by DuckDuckGo? Or does the user have to install them for their own account? I'm a bit confused at how you would mediate between different plugins trying to provide an answer for the same query, etc.
- epi0Bauqu 14y agoThe plugins get approved by DuckDuckGo, and generally we work with people to make them good or round them out ourselves. In the future there may be a way to install them in addition (for say, the ones we aren't using for the whole site). We have a bit of an answer for conflicts on this in the FAQ: http://duckduckhack.com/#faq http://duckduckhack.com/#faq "What if there are plugin conflicts? The ultimate arbiter is the user, and that's the perspective we take, i.e. what is best for the user experience? That said, often times it makes sense to combine ideas into one, better plugin."
- mburshteyn 14y agoIt'd be great to let users download plugins. There might be small communities that do regular searches where certain instant answer hacks might not make sense to the vast majority of users.
- crazedpsyc 14y agoYou can download plugins from github, but note that they are under GPL as far as I know. EDIT: Nope, perl5 license.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- chintan 14y agoGoogle had something like this back in 2007. Matt Cutts: "An easy way to add new features to Google" http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/adding-new-features-to-google/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/adding-new-features-to-google/
- jjcm 14y agoCrowd sourcing better search results through content plugins. Genius - great job ddg/h guys!
- iamgopal 14y agoI wonder how google fights on every frontier, and apple being smart always avoid fights.
- amitamb 14y agoVerticalSet is offering similar functionality. DuckDuckGo is starting to go in the same direction. http://www.verticalset.com/ http://www.verticalset.com/ Although aim is same to make search engine a platform, technologically it is rather different. Would love to hear feedback on this.
- boyter 14y agoI actually quite like VerticalSet as the display is very clean. The thing that is most interesting about is is the installable extensions. Assuming its still around in a few years like DDG it may be worth spending some time to create some of them.
- amitamb 14y agoThanks for compliments, I don't see stopping development any time soon.
- reitzensteinm 14y agoThis is absolutely fantastic. I remember suggesting ages ago that Intel's ark.intel.com should be integrated, so if you searched for Q6600 or 2600k or i7 980 it would show you details of the processor. I might have a shot at integrating that. Does anyone know about the legality of doing so? I'm sure Intel wouldn't care, but showing the info in a zero click box would seem to be different than merely scraping the pages in order to return search results.
- conradev 14y agoI actually want to do something similar, and integrate a search of ARM's website into DDG for quick reference to specific ARM assembly opcodes.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- rabidsnail 14y agoShowing extracts in search results is widely considered to be fair use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_v._Google http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_v._Google
- joering2 14y agoperhaps bit OT, but read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_v._Google#Ruling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_v._Google#Ruling (1) Operator did not directly infringe on author's copyrighted works; (5) Search engine fell within protection of safe harbor provision of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). wouldnt the same rules applies IF the government comes after The Pirate Bay? Or even the guy who is now being extradited to US for his linking website?
- rabidsnail 14y agoIf the Pirate Bay were somehow construed as being in US jurisdiction, they would run into this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_Ltd.#Opinion_of_the_Court http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_...
- mkmcdonald 14y agoNice idea. I have but one problem, and it's with the site (DuckDuckHack) itself. Could the author just make the tutorial section scrollable with the rest of the page? The current functionality is quite awkward. It's also ignorant of (most of) the keyboard (home, end, page up, page down, etc.), which is the quickest way to traverse a page.
- epi0Bauqu 14y agoThanks -- the site looks for the scrollwheel and the down arrow, both of which will open the tutorial after which page down et al. should work as expected. Are you seeing different behavior or just wanted to hit page down initially?
- mkmcdonald 14y agoI'm referring specifically to the state before the pane is activated. It feels awkward to have so few options to activate it. The transition/animation also toys a bit with scrolling up/down.
- qeorge 14y agoReminds me of Yahoo's Search Monkey (RIP). DDG seems like a much better home for this (awesome) idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_SearchMonkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_SearchMonkey
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- _ankit_ 14y agoCan't wait to spend a weekend creating a plugin!
- klapinat0r 14y agoSlightly off topic, but can anyone elaborate on the legal handling of displaying the xkcd comics? As they are fetched directly from images.xkcd.com, and do not contain a "discussion", would it still be considered Fair Use, or have they made an agreement with Randall Munroe?
- tantalor 14y agoTheir usage is noncommercial (no fee) and links through, so it satisfies CC BY-NC 2.5. See http://xkcd.com/license.html http://xkcd.com/license.html
- kulkarnic 14y agoHow does ranking between plugins work? Is the order arbitrated in advance?
- perlgeek 14y agoPlugins should be narrow enough to only ever trigger one of them
- whackberry 14y agoAwesome! Wish I could upvote this twice.
- rabidsnail 14y agoDo you guys already support Mycroft plugins? Granted you can't use them to play tetris in the results list, but they're easier to make (you only need to know how to edit XML) and there are already thousands on http://mycroft.mozdev.org http://mycroft.mozdev.org. You just need to add some heuristics to scrape the results out. Actually, one could make a pretty good search engine that was just a frontend for mycroft that was able to extract results and figure out which plugins to use for which queries.
- epi0Bauqu 14y agoNot directly -- but will definately look into it.
- cnbeuiwx 14y agoThis is more about duckduckgo than duckduckhack, but Im starting to love this search engine. Found out about the "s:d" command that sorts all the hits in descending order.. combined with the arrow keys and the "h" key to get back to the search box, you can search a multitude of search terms reaally fast and efficiently. And no spying on its users! Google, you can go f-ck yourself from now on. I love this engine. Thanks so much for creating it!
- epi0Bauqu 14y agoThanks -- for the record, s:d is an internal plugin that currently calls Blekko.
- driverdan 14y agoHere are a few ideas that would be cool. # hackernews / hn "hn url" - See if a URL has been posted to HN. If so show the title and link to post + comments "hn keywords" - Show HN search results with linked title and link to comments hn could be an alias to hackernews. # reddit Reddit's native search sucks in every way possible. Add a reddit keyword with similar functionality.
- prakash 14y agoGood ideas, we are collecting all of them here: http://ideas.duckduckhack.com/ http://ideas.duckduckhack.com/
- shellox 14y agoIt's really cool that duckduckgo want to go this way. I think both, the creator of ddg and the users will profit of the ideas, which will come up in DuckDuckHack. The users know what they want, so it's the right choice to let them be part of it ;)
- theon144 14y agoYay! I wanted to contribute to duckduckgo a while ago, but found it quite daunting, this is perfect!
- Natsu 14y agoI saw this on GitHub a few days ago (there's, umm, not a lot else in the Perl section) and have been thinking about things to add. Looks good, guys!
- 16s 14y agoAt least someone is innovating in search.
- swah 14y agoOT: nice signin implementation there!
- ekanes 14y agoIn 10 years, Google could be in serious trouble on the search front. Yes it will take that long. Yes they could actually lose. Rock 'em Gabriel.
- cldwalker 14y agoFor some context on how this has been tried before: * http://yubnub.org/ http://yubnub.org/ - one of the first if not first to create a community around web commands. Primitive string substitution * http://queri.ac http://queri.ac (disclaimer: I maintained it for awhile) - a small community of web commands. Supported options, bookmarklets and more. Browser-independent. * ubiquity, https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Ubiquity https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Ubiquity, - improved on web commands by having them written in javascript and had an awesome API for combining commands and rendering command output. However, it was firefox-specific. The main innovation I see with duckduckhack is that they're using github to foster contribution.
- tripzilch 14y agoAnd that it directly adds to an already successful search engine.
- charlieok 14y agoI have seen duckduckgo popping up in more places over the past few months. I don't know much about them but they're obviously doing something right. This just pushed me over the top in setting them as my default search engine.
- pirateking 14y agoI started using DuckDuckGo for its position on privacy, but that is just one reason of many to use it now. I have more than a few ideas for hacks, after reading the very nice tutorial. Look forward to playing with it.
- asselinpaul 14y agoThis is so cool...
- gcr 14y agoNice! Will this be integrated with the zero-click info API at http://api.duckduckgo.com/ http://api.duckduckgo.com/ ?
- epi0Bauqu 14y agoThe goodies/fathead plugins should auto-flow through. Spice/longtail are a bit more complicated but would love to get them in at some point.