DuckDuckGo Vs. Google: What You Need to Know

DuckDuckGo vs. Google: What You Need to Know

Adweek: DuckDuckGo vs. Google

There’s no denying that we are years away from seeing any other search engine take over Google. Yes, it has grown thaaaaat big and has left us so dependent on itself that it just can’t happen so quick.

Google tracks almost all our activities through our smart devices — especially so in the case of Android devices. The places you visit, the steps you walk, the time you spend on each website, the searches you make, the products you click on and so on.

If you are using Google devices and/or its products, Google is behind you.

Everywhere. All the time.

(If you’re wondering, yes, Google does know exactly what you watched the last night and the night before it and throughout the year)

Why is this important for you to know?

Tell me, why not? It’s your data. You don’t share it with your girlfriend, why’d you share it with anyone else?

On the Google search engine part, the impact of tracking data (searches/activity) reflects in the biased search suggestions and results that you see when you search a keyword on Google.

So, basically, Google bombards you with information that it “thinks” aligns with your prior activities.

This is where DuckDuckGo comes in. It is a search engine designed to treat you like an anonymous user every time you use it. Simply put: it does not track you or your activity.

This means that everything you search through DuckDuckGo stays between you and the browser only.

DuckDukcGo‘s motto?

Simplifying privacy in the age of the internet and “setting the new standard of trust online.”

DuckDuckGo/About

These snapshots speak for themselves

If you wish to verify any of this, just follow steps one to three on both the search engines.

1. Open your incognito tab and go to Google.com
2. Search for any keyword. I searched for “content writer.”
3. Once the search result comes up, type different words and notice what Google suggests. I typed ‘what is’, ‘how ’, ‘website’. And that was it. Google knew what I might be interested in next.

Snapshot GoogleSnapshot GoogleSnapshot Google

Repeat the same with DuckDuckGo. And here are the results.

On the other hand, when you use DuckDuckGo, it shows you a completely unique suggestion that hardly has any correlation with your previous searches.

Snapshot DuckDuckGoSnapshot DuckDuckGoSnapshot DuckDuckGo

Now, I guess, it’s more clear to you.

DuckDuckGo has come a long way

Despite being nowhere close to the search giant — Google — DuckDuckGo is growing faster than anticipated. With an average growth of 50% each year, the search engine is putting up a remarkable show on the stage.

From its commencement in 2008 to date, DuckDuckGo has scaled from 79,839 average daily searches to a grand 33,964,034 average daily search in the first 20 days of 2019.

Here’s what the graph looks like for DDG’s commendable growth:

DuckDuckGo Traffic

How Close is that to Google?

Whether you talk in terms of the number of searches or in total revenue, DuckDuckGo is but a “little something” when compared to Google.

Here’s a simple comparison for you: What DuckDuckGo does in a day, Google does it within ~12.5 minutes. Yes, that’s ~33 million searches every 12.5 minutes on Google. That’s 3.5 billion searches every day and 1.2 TRILLLLLLLION searches every year.

It can be said that DuckDuckGo is not a competitor of Google but of course a worthy rival

Also, we shouldn’t forget, it’s almost 10 years younger to Google. With 50% growth each year and people becoming more and more aware of data privacy, things might change for DuckDuckGo in the future.

At least I’d expect it to.

Using Both Their Features to My Benefit

While DuckDuckGo wants Google completely gone, I hold a different opinion.

I want both of them to be. *that’s like a true consumer*

And it’s simply because of the benefits I reap from both of them.

I’d be wrong to say that I’d not been a beneficiary of the filtered search suggestions and result that Google displays, and also of its other eminent features.

But the fact that Google displays results based on my location and search history all the time — and that there’s no choice of shutting it down sometimes — bugs me off.

This makes for the one and only reason why I’ve switched to DuckDuckGo.

Being a content writer, I have to conduct a lot of research on various different topics. And for this, I need to rely on unfiltered results and not just the ones that are most relevant in my location.

DuckDuckGo is also quite helpful when searching for potential freelancing clients from across the globe as it doesn’t filter anything w.r.t where I live.

Doing the same would be next to impossible if I try it on Google. It’ll keep throwing at me what’s “nearest” (no matter how irrelevant) to me. And that’s a truckload of garbage to deal with.

Then there are also times when you just open your search engine to explore new stuff. DDG comes quite handy for that as well. It curates the most trending keywords from across the globe that match the word or phrase you type. In the case of Google, it would be that same old crap you’ve already been through 10s of times.

In one sentence, DuckDuckGo is what you’d like to go for when you need unfiltered, unbiased results.

There are many instances when Google feels like a blessing. Especially because of its on-search-page features.

Suppose you search for “dictionary”, Google automatically brings up a dictionary on the search page itself. So, you do not have to open and navigate to any other tab.

Snapshot Google

And this is just great.

Google has also mastered the art of aesthetically organising and presenting information to its users in case it’s needed for the searched keyword. For example, here’s what it showed me when I searched for the keyword “Cricket”,

Snapshot Google

That’s the schedule of the most recent cricket matches. Can it get any more organized?

Also, if I want to search for some local information, there’s nothing that can beat Google for that. And well, we know exactly ‘how’, Google. We know it.

In conclusion, I’d say that for me, personally, it is actually about choosing wisely between the two search engines according to what I need to know.

Let me know in the comments which browser you use and what you like or dislike about it?

Mohammad is an established technical, B2B, and B2C writer in the blockchain and cryptocurrency niche. For enquiries, you can visit https://www.mohammadmusharraf.com or email him at contact[at]mohammadmusharraf[dot]com

DuckDuckGo Vs. Google: What You Need to Know was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.