The DuckDuckGo Kiada

 

I have been using the DuckDuckGo browser on my 2017 iMac computer for over a year now. It has been a comme ci, a little bit of this, and comme ca, a little bit of that, experience thus far. In that it is kind of like life in general, isn’t it?

First off I have found that the DuckDuckGo (DDG) browser, which, as I understand it, parasites on the Safari browser, loads, generally speaking, very very slowly. I have tried various strategies to deal with this slow loading problem. I have opened the DDG browser by itself. I have opened Safari first closed it and opened DDG. I have opened Safari left it open and opened DDG. I have quit DDG three times—it goes into fire mode extensively on the first close even when I do no searches—before using it at all regardless of whether I open DDG by itself or in combination with Safari. On one occasion when I closed it after use I washed the dishes and it was still trying to close in fire mode after ten minutes of closing. Ultimately, I had to force close DDG, something I often have to do with DDG. 

Secondly, I have found DDG to b sluggish after I opened it with or without opening Safari first and with or without closing DDG thrice before use. DDG is like the slacker of browsers. Anyway, nothing that I have found helps combat this sluggishness.  

Thirdly, I have found DDG inconsistent. Take my use of the DDG Player, a player that allows one to watch YouTube without the annoying commercial interruptions, as an example of this inconsistency. Sometimes the playe works well. Sometimes it is sluggish taking several seconds before loading the player over YouTube. Sometimes it does not work at all and I receive the mantra that YouTube thinks I am a bot. Consequently I can only watch YouTube videos in commercial YouTube mode. Usually if I close DDG and wait for an hour or so YouTube no longer thinks I am a bot and I can go back to watching YouTube videos in Player mode.

Fourthly, I have found that DDG has trouble loading Google owned services and Yahoo (so does Safari though not as intensely as DDG) Mail. Sometimes, for example, when I try to sign into YouTube I get a message that the browser is not supported. Generally, if I try again and sometimes again and sometimes again I can get ultimately get into, for example, YouTube. As for Yahoo it sometimes seems that it takes a minute or so before I can sign into Yahoo Mail.

In terms of aesthetics DDG has gotten "sexier", in my opinion, over time. I prefer the curved rectangle search box that DDG uses on the browser now, for example, to the standard rectangle box it had before.

Given all these issues I have stopped using DDG. I have returned to Safari and my computer is working almost like new again. Sorry DDG but you are not ready, in my opinion, for prime time at this point so goodbye for now.