Last month I took a vacation from Google and spent an entire 31 days without using any of its products or services. Instead of GMail I used MobileMe, instead of Chrome I used Firefox, instead of Reader I used NetNewsWire Lite, and instead of Analytics I used Mint. I avoided calls from Google Voice, videos from YouTube, and documents from Docs, but the one service I found hardest to replace was Google Search.

It is no wonder Google is known as a search company. The product that defines them as a corporation and started their business is also their best service. As an alternative to Google Search I used Duck Duck Go exclusively for the last month. Thanks to its integrated Wolfram Alpha parser Duck Duck Go compares well to Google Search for the retrieval of longstanding factual information such as calculations, conversions, dates, facts, geography, IDs, properties, and time sensitive events. It can even mine information from well established wikis covering a broad range of sometimes eccentric topics and categories. A simple syntax can restrict Duck Duck Go’s search to any of 1,023 different independent websites, and its extensive list of keyboard shortcuts keeps my fingers on the home row. My favorite Duck Duck Go feature is its ability to deliver information from a variety of sources at the top of my search results without committing a single click. I know Google is also capable of this feature, but Duck Duck Go’s Wolfram Alpha integration and pop culture wiki connections extends the possible “zero-click” results far past factually quantifiable data and answers questions like “weight of an apple”, and “who is Boba Fett.”

Duck Duck Go’s greatest limitation compared to Google Search is its slower speed. Google’s results are nearly instantaneous while Duck Duck Go sometimes takes several seconds to gather data from all of its sources. Duck Duck Go also lags behind Google when searching for up to the minute information. Google does a great job at showing the latest blog posts or forum entries, but Duck Duck Go struggles to find information even a couple of hours old. Duck Duck Go is a duck sized company compared to Google’s ostrich, and the speed of its search is in direct correlation to its size. The only benefit to Duck Duck Go’s slow speed is that its search filters out a lot of the constantly updated spam on the internet. I am willing to wait a few more seconds for that.

Duck Duck Go and Google Search have a lot in common. They are both search engines, they both allow you to customize their interfaces, and they both show the most relevant information on top. Google may have a faster, more up-to-date search engine, but it is what Duck Duck is missing that makes it great.

Duck Duck Go does not collect or share personal information.

Other search engines save your search history. Usually your searches are saved along with the date and time of the search, some information about your computer (e.g. your IP address, User agent and often a unique identifier stored in a browser cookie), and if you are logged in, your account information (e.g. name and email address).

The only information collected by Duck Duck Go is the search string. None of the user identifiable data like IP address or user agent is ever collected. At other search engines, when you do a search and then click on a link your search terms along with some user identifiable data are sent to the site you click on via the HTTP referrer header. I see this all the time in Mint from visitors coming to Egg Freckles from Google, Bing, and Yahoo search. Duck Duck Go calls this behavior “Search Leakage” and prevents it by redirecting your request. The other sites will still know that you visited them, but they will not know what search you entered beforehand.

The collection of personal data and a ability to spread that information to other websites are two features I am glad are missing from Duck Duck Go. A third is the presentation of invasive ads that are targeted at me using personal information. Because Duck Duck Go collects no personal information none of its ads are targeted with anything more than my current search string, and at most advertising on Duck Duck Go consists of a single ad block from Carbon displayed on the right side of my search results. No games with links, or flashy advertisements. Duck Duck Go keeps advertising as simple as its interface and free of my personal info.

Now that my month without Google is over I still rely on Duck Duck Go, but restrict my searches to established facts while keeping Google close by for up the the minute news and information. I appreciate that Duck Duck Go respects my privacy, and look forward to “Ducking” in the future.

1. To add Duck Duck Go to the Awesome Bar in Firefox, type about:config into the address bar.

2. Then search for keyword.url and change it to https://duckduckgo.com/?q=