Why doesn't DuckDuckGo return any results for "PeerTube"?

Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 5 points – 1 years ago

Even more strange is that when I type "PeerTube", some suggestions appear, but searching any of them will end up back on the "no results found" page.

The suggestions: Searching one of them:

It has been a few weeks since I first encountered this issue. I've tried again and again, but it never worked.

You’re in Safe search: strict mode. It probably thinks it’s a term for porn and therefore blocks it completely. Set it to moderate or off and you’ll get results.

What is your safe search setting set to on duck duck go?

If it is set to strict it will result in no results but if you set it to moderate it will return results.

It was on moderate. Turning it off didn't make any changes.

It is weird that your snapshots don't have the safe search options shown like mine and everyone elses. Do you have any content filters or anything like that on your devices or internet? They could be forcing it to be strict even if you choose otherwise.

well, you posted a screenshot searching not for "peertube" but for "peertube instance".

nonetheless, both work for me in DDG:

peertube

peertube instances

perhaps it's blocked by your isp?

Searching "PeerTube" doesn't return any results. peertube (all lower case) doesn't return anything either. What's funny is that "pertube" returns the correct results for "PeerTube". It seems like it works like this: If the IP requesting the search is from my country and it's searching PeerTube or peertube it's going to block the search. But why should it?! PeerTube isn't blocked here. YouTube is though.

Might be a duckduckgo bug, but have you tried another search engine to see if it works there?

Yes, I tried with SearX, and it worked.

Then with that testing, either ddg filters results, or your ISP doesn't want you to use ddg.

Edit, or it is because they use bing. But use searx and be free.

Appears for me.

Is Peertube banned iny our country? maybe you're typing in a URL?

Works for me too

Also remember that DDG is basically a private frontend to bing, just as much as Startpage is a frontend to google.

If bing has any problem with peertube in OP's country, DDG will have too

Can confirm this. I tried with bing. Same result. That was why it wasn't working, because of bing. Thanks! I'll probably to switch to something else now.

I just looked it up too and it shows up for me in bing, it's probably your ISP at this point.

The point I've made before still stands, not in this case though

It is? Aw maan, I thought ddg is something independend. Now I might have to look for another search engine again.

so is it actually recommended to use ddg or not, I thought they were the privacy flag bearer

Well, it's complicated and it really depends on you in the end. I'll try to explain.

DDG has good results in any language and they donate a lot of money to privacy-related initiatives. That's great and very few do this, BUT they also depend massively on bing: if bing censors something, you won't be able too see it in DDG. There have been a couple other controversies but they are pretty minor imo and almost every privacy-oriented company has those.

Brave search is great and has the best independent index among all private search engines, but it's 100% reliable only for English results and people usually either love or hate brave for its involvement in crypto and a couple of other minor controversies (people love to pick hills to die on)

Then there are meta-engines, who give you the best private results across the board (duh, they look for them on every search engine) but they don't really contribute to the scene like ddg (or even brave) does.

So yeah. DDG is not a bad choice by any means but everything has caveat. It's up to you to stay informed about the software you use to make a conscious choice

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9q3qPxrTqg this is a good overview

I just tried it with a VPN and it worked. Turning it off and refreshing the resulted in no results again.

But I can open https://joinpeertube.org/ without a VPN. This confuses me.