Signs you are doing continuous testing wrong - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.com/article/18/11/continuous-testing-wrong <comment><USER2> 'Test Pyramid' considered harmful IMO. It discourages people from writing tests against the public interface of their system , and instead encourages testing against internals.

This leads to a test pack that prevents refactoring, and can't be trusted to catch regression errors.

This is partly down to the widely confused definition of a 'unit test' (which a lot of people interpret as 'one test per class').

If you haven't seen it, please watch Ian Cooper's "TDD, Where Did It All Go Wrong" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ05e7EMOLM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ05e7EMOLM)

Also, I thought continuous testing was having your test pack run all the time while coding, but hey ho.

<comment><USER3> TBH I feel like integration and UI tests can be combined at this point. Writing a bunch of tests to only check UI elements feels like a waste to me. I don't mean to go full on BDD where every step is spec'd out, but I've done it by interacting with elements and validating data with the API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like test recorders (Selenium IDE). They aren't brittle if you manually enter your selectors. Plus you can hook a test recorder up to your own code to fill in any gaps. I do wish they showed mouse movement, though.

One I'd like to add is to keep it simple. When I hear the word pipeline I immediately think "oh no". I'm telling you man, some shops add a mind blowing amount of unneeded complexity with their pipelines.

<comment><USER5> 'not brittle' if you 'manually enter' isn't exactly a glowing review.

There's definitely some good with selenium, but I and others find it is often brittle and doesn't catch errors as reliably as would be ideal.

<comment><USER6> The objects under test are brittle and bound to change dramatically. Selenium can't offer you insurance against this.

I now remember a test suite we had on my project (automotive). We tested against the code structure... that is, we would follow a variable's lifetime and check that its value is correct throughout execution. Two releases later, guess which function got slightly refactored and threw off some 20 testcases?</comment></comment></comment>


DuckDuckGo Is Now a Default Search Engine Option on Android in the EU - <AUTHOR> https://www.searchenginejournal.com/duckduckgo-is-now-a-default-search-engine-option-on-android-in-the-eu/343073/ <comment><USER2> DuckDuckGo is only private if you trust their word.

Over the years they continue to refuse access for a trusted third-party auditor to review their infrastructure and validate (or not) their claims of privacy.

The preference of Android to place DDG in Europe (31 out of 31 countries) is strange when considering privacy as argument. Then is placed this "info.com" as second option on all European countries (31 out of 31 countries) which is virtually unheard about, and again a US-based service which again raises eyebrows on privacy.

Europe-wide has a search engine that deserves our preference, and that is [http://qwant.com](http://qwant.com)

Precisely because it is built and hosted in Europe. Yet, it is displayed as the last option and only as an option for 8 out of 31 european countries. Very strange. Talking from Germany, the preference here would be [http://ecosia.com](http://ecosia.com)

<comment><USER3> Not doubting you, but do you have any sources for your claims?

I will use Qwant in the future but at the minute it's not suitable (IMO) for daily usage.

Ecosia seems like a great idea, but these kind of 'Search and earn' sites have always seemed like a scam to me and I can't find any reason to trust Ecosia over DDG.

<comment><USER2> I'm a software auditor in Europe (per times consulting the European commission itself), mostly for open source licenses but also for cybersec and privacy matters.

This topic with DDG is recurring since years. You cannot verify the infrastructure, it is not hosted on EU-bounded servers and they have been asked for cooperation. Nothing moved as far I follow.

With Ecosia you are right. The point is that Ecosia accountable to European Law in case of scam. You can trust germans to close down the service if ever deemed to be a scam.

<comment><USER4> What do you think about Startpage?

And, which European search engine would you recommend?

<comment><USER5> Startpage was acquired by an adtech company a few months ago [https://www.ghacks.net/2019/11/16/startpage-search-owner- cha...](https://www.ghacks.net/2019/11/16/startpage-search-owner-changes- raise-serious-questions/)

<comment><USER4> Yes i'm aware of that, but they were not 'acquired'... although it's definitely not a good development, i'd argue Startpage is still better (privacy wise) than for example Google.

<comment><USER6> > i'd argue Startpage is still better

Why would you argue this? Adtech companies are one of the big sources of problems with privacy online.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's somehow funny to see that Bing search results are so successful when packaged with privacy in mind into DuckDuckGo. I don't like bing search results, especially for Europe. They are just bad for many local things. The only other search engine beside Google which is interesting and surprising for me is maybe Yandex. It's also not as good as Google in (most of) Europe but it's interesting to see that many things are not censored away in comparison to Bing and Google (political correctness, copyright, nsfw etc. etc.). I'm happy there is an alternative with different culture and jurisdiction.

<comment><USER8> > but it's interesting to see that many things are not censored away in > comparison to Bing and Google (political correctness, copyright, nsfw etc. > etc.).

I am not aware that there is a censorship of things that are deemed 'politically incorrect' by either bing or google, and Yandex does comply with European copyright law and other EU legislation like the right-to-be- forgotten.

<comment><USER9> As an illusory example only, and definitely not as an endorsement, and chosen only because it is the extremes of acceptable speach that are most likely to be censured; consider these search results for "Daily Stormer"

[https://www.google.com/search?q=daily+stormer&oq=daily+storm...](https://www.google.com/search?q=daily+stormer&oq=daily+stormer)

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=daily+stormer](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=daily+stormer)

DDG provides the link to the site as their first result; Google provides links to information about the site.

Again, I am not endorsing the site; it is simply an obvious example of search result differentiation between DDG and Google.

<comment><USER10> Google knows that when I type 'rails' into their search box I mean Ruby on Rails and gives me relevant results, instead of railroad tracks or hand rails.

It's not a big leap to think they'd do that globally for extreme results like DS where most people want to know _about_ them and not actually visit the site.

<comment><USER11> It's a website. Shouldn't your first stop be visiting the site itself to form your own opinion?

<comment><USER10> You still can, obviously.

It's simply more probable that I would prefer a site that contains expert analysis of a topic/subject first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Something that doesn't sit well with me about DuckDuckGo is their hidden use of affiliate links to Amazon and eBay. Fundamentally search engines are vulnerable to predatory business models. Privacy is one issue. Providing financially motivated information is another. To my knowledge (would love to hear more), Google is pretty up front about what is an ad and what isn't while DuckDuckGo covertly sells you to Amazon when you might want to buy something.

While DuckDuckGo seems to be enjoying some halo effect in some communities at the moment (Google once enjoyed a similar glow), I think that general skepticism is probably a healthy orientation toward search engines.

<comment><USER13> As long as they don't alter the search results to give those links an advantage, I have no problem with them using affiliate links. It makes them money to absolutely no loss to me, right?

<comment><USER14> If for convenience I search for "Amazon product X" on my browser bar instead of directly on Amazon, that means that in order for Amazon to generate a certain amount of profit on that product they also have to pay my search engine now, which means all other things equal, this costs me money.

Of course in real life it's not that simple a situation but it's easy to see that everyone behaving like this ends up with the consumer essentially losing money.

<comment><USER15> >they also have to pay my search engine now, which means all other things equal, this costs me money.

Most customer focused companies could save a pretty sum of money by not advertising. Of cause it may hurt overall sales to not advertise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Honestly, I've been using ddg daily and I find I'm having to hit !g more than I'd like. Google in particular seems better at finding matches that come related to the ordering of the words, whereas ddg I have to quote them (and risk getting no results because I misremembered one word) when searching for a specific phrase.

<comment><USER17> My experience is that google gives me results assuming all of the words I searched aren't the words I'm looking for, and it uses tangentially related words in place of everything. Even quotes are useless now.

Ddg is useless when I'm searching for local things like restaurants and whatnot, but for general searches, it gives me what I'm actually looking for at least 75% of the time. With google, I'm barely hitting 25% these days unless it's a very well established phrase/concept that I'm searching. In which case, it's basically functioning as a Wikipedia search engine.

<comment><USER18> Can confirm that Google doesn't honor quotes as it used to for exact match search these days. It's a hit and miss.

<comment><USER19> Can someone who knows about the inside of Google tell us why this happened, and especially why it happens when verbatim mode is used alone or in addition to double quotes?

I can kind of see why double quotes could be confusing for people pasting without being aware of the double quotes rule, but ignoring verbatim outright as has been the standard for years now is even more confusing to me.

<comment><USER20> Usually when people have this concern, it's because the page they are looking for _does not exist_.

I'd like to see examples where you do a search looking for a specific page, either with or without verbatim or double-quotes, and then find it via some other query. Sure, it happens, but it's very rare.

<comment><USER21> Would this count?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22vulnerable+over+and+over+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22vulnerable+over+and+over+again%22&client=firefox- b-m&prmd=ivn&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiE5q_o44DnAhUy4KYKHZWBCM0QpwV6BAgLEBE&biw=414&bih=716)

The page it is taken from is [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22032966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22032966)

It is clearly indexed as it shows up in this search: [https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox- b-m&biw=414&bih...](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox- b-m&biw=414&bih=716&tbs=qdr%3Ad&ei=f30cXq6dLoiFk74Pgdu42Ag&q=cable+haunt+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&oq=cable+haunt+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&gs_l=mobile- gws-wiz- serp.3...32861.38811..39806...3.0..0.173.892.14j1......0....1.9FNq9W2X6M4)

<comment><USER20> I think it shows up now?

Yes - I think you've hit a case where fresh content isn't indexed for phrases only keywords. That latter indexing usually takes a few hours, depending on which data center you hit and load.

<comment><USER21> Ok. It shows up now and your explanation is reasonable. Thanks!

I don't have more examples right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I find it very interesting that the comments here on HN so far are predominated by discussion of "privacy".

The article is about _anti-trust_ regulation.

These are different things.

Regardless of what you might think about the privacy of any particular option today, the point of this change is to make sure more _choice_ is available and visible to users. In the long run, it's worth remembering that such choice might _be a prerequisite_ for more privacy-oriented services to _have a chance to grow_. This is the case even if you don't regard any of the current options highly.

<comment><USER23> But they're both about choice, and the usual reason people make DDG their choice is privacy from Google.

<comment><USER22> Sure, but grep the fine original article for the word "privacy".

It's not present.

HN is discussing HN's tangentially-related feelings more than HN is discussing the article. I'm not surprised, but I'm certainly frustrated: in addition to being navel-gazing, in this situation it's also substantially missing the main reasons this is _good_ : a regulatory agency is actually doing Reasonable Things -- things any privacy advocate should probably be pleased with -- but not just are they doing Reasonable Things, they're them in a relatively subtle, non-prescriptive way that actually keeps the options open for further future improvement. This is _great_ ; DDG is an incidental detail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I personally hope DDG is going to namechange soon. I don't hate their name, but if you present the user with a choice of

\- Google

\- DuckDuckGo

\- Yandex

Why would he click the "silly" option besides humor. It's a bad brand name IMO

<comment><USER25> It's also not very well targeted at global reach. I mean, I assume it's a reference to something in some language / locale? Or, is the humor just super absurdist, i.e. they might've called it ShoeShoeEat and it would've been equally "humorous"?

Assuming the first, it simply means they never imagined being used by people other than (I guess) Americans. Which is unfortunate, but forgiveable.

It's also a terrible finger twister on the keyboard. I wish they swapped duck.co and duckduckgo.com so I could search on duck.co and find dev info on the fingertwister.

<comment><USER23> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck,_duck,_goose)

(I assume, anyway.) I happen to remember it from a drama lesson at school in the UK, but I'm pretty sure it's predominantly American, yes.

<comment><USER26> > (I assume, anyway.)

You assume correctly. The Wikipedia page for DuckDuckGo mentions it at the top, with two references.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How is Apple getting away with iOS? Unlike Android, you cannot cannot change the default browser, maps, messaging apps or _anything._

<comment><USER28> My take is it's a consequence of their vertical integration. Maybe they saw all along, by not even allowing the option to change, there's no way they could be forced to present a rolodex of possible choices - since there's only one choice that works.

You always _had_ the choice with Android, it just had a default. That didn't smell good to regulators in the EU, and they saw an easy option out of that. Telling Apple to open up their walled garden is a lot harder, compared to Android where the garden's already much more open.

IMO, sad that the better approach is getting hit by the regulation stick. Not that I personally think it's needed in either scenario, but it is frustrating to see Apple skate by.

<comment><USER27> > sad that the better approach is getting hit by the regulation stick.

It's not sad, it just doesn't make sense. This isn't logical - Apple should be getting hit worse for being more restrictive

<comment><USER29> Most devices are that restrictive. It's not like you buy an oven and you get to install Linux on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I use ddg as my default on laptop(Firefox) and mobile(safari), on SE Asia region. The basic search results are quite reasonable. The challenge comes when I need specific information, or second level info. It gets quite hard and I end up hitting a !g on private mode. Partly, stackoverflow helps. I would say 80-85% it is ddg. Having said that, I also feel ddg has come a long way than how it was 3-4years back and I'll continue to use it.

</comment><comment><USER31> Same thing happened to Microsoft with browser selection. This does not really change anything. Google search results are just better.

<comment><USER32> I'm actually interested in this, do you have any data to back that claim up or is it just your personal impression? It's not that I don't share it, but I am curious if indeed it did "not really change anything".

By the way, it's not like a marriage where you bind yourself to one party exclusively. I use DDG as default but fall back (for any queries that do not yield good results and are non-sensitive) to Google when necessary. Still an improvement.

<comment><USER33> I don't see a difference between DDG and Google for content that is new to me (because I can't possibly know better), but if I'm trying to retrieve one page in particular (i.e. use Google as a smart bookmark), in my experience Google works much better than DDG.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Duckduckgo has seen some pretty strong growth [0]. Given that this is merely an option (most people won't change from the default, or will pick Google out of familiarity), I'd be interested to see how much of an effect this will have on their numbers.

I think a secondary issue Duckduckgo and other competitors have to contend with is the idea that nothing other than Google is worth the time of day. I know every thread on HN has people queuing up to say how DDG results aren't as good as Google results (or to say how they switched a while ago and DDG is good enough for their needs), but from a user perspective we can see a much more level playing field in Google vs DDG et al (2020) as opposed to Google vs Altavista et al (1998).

[0] [https://duckduckgo.com/traffic](https://duckduckgo.com/traffic)

<comment><USER35> Duck duck go doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Google but it is my default search engine. The genuis thing they implemented was !g at the end of a search term. Now I can get two sources of search info for problems. Most things ddg is fine, but technical problems, you can't have enough options.

<comment><USER36> > Duck duck go doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Google but it is my > default search engine

I mostly use Duck Duck Go now (with liberal use of !g as needed), but the main issue I've had with making it part of my spoken vocabulary using it as a verb. It's much easier to say I "googled" something than "Duck Duck Go'd it" (duck duck went?) or "searched for it on Duck Duck Go". It's been a pet theory of mine for a while that any attempt at getting people to change the words they use is doomed to fail if the replacement contains more syllables (e.g. "letter carrier" for "mailman"), and now I'm wondering if that's something companies should take into account when naming themselves too.

<comment><USER37> Is it really necessary to use verbified brand names? Why not just use the word 'search'?

> _" search for someplace for us to eat tonight"_

> _" I was searching online for a used car"_

> _" dude search for 'cat does a backflip', it's epic"_

etc

<comment><USER27> "Search" or "look up." Don't beholden yourself to any brand name.

<comment><USER38> Thank goodness I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I "search" too.... I don't get why people like to get behind some brand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The past tense of DuckDuckGo is DuckDuckWent, as in "I DuckDuckWent my name and discovered my high school yearbook has been digitized."

<comment><USER40> Except it is rather like you exclaim "Duck Duck Go!" to a duck who then executes your command. A past sense would be that you exclaimed "Duck Duck Go!". Turning it into DDGing makes more sense, as already suggested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> DDG is my current default search engine in all my devices. It's been 2 years using it. In so few ocassions i needed to rely on Google, but really, you don't need it that much is if Stack Overflow search all day or do overal tech searches. If you need to review more, then use Google and compare search results. But for daily search use it's way ok.

</comment><comment><USER42> I've been using DDG for about 2 years almost exclusively, but in the last month, quality appears to have degraded a lot? I actually switched back to Google last week, unfortunately.

<comment><USER43> There won't have been any major change in the past few months that would have negatively impacted your search results.

If you have any specific examples you can always reach out via the feedback box or to staff directly :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Being a year or two late to the party is better than not showing up at all!

</comment><comment><USER45> I can't recommend DDG to friends in Europe until they fix their quick actions and translate them in other languages. It's not acceptable that to look for the weather in Rome I have to write "weather Rome" because "meteo Roma" doesn't bring the quick action up. Also, the local results are very bad, unfortunately.

<comment><USER43> Thanks for the feedback - I've made sure this is logged internally.

It looks like it may have been an edge case around capitalization where "meteo roma" was working and "meteo Roma" wasn't.

We can only find cases like this when users report them - so if you run into one again, feel free to use the feedback button on the bottom-right hand side of the screen! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> They need to fix that low-quality duck icon at some point. It's up there with Irfanview's 'roadkill' icon for ugliness when zoomed in, and it is unrecognizable at very small sizes (e.g. as a tab icon).

This gets harder and harder as time goes on since there's brand recognition attached.

</comment><comment><USER47> It's been over six month since i switched on all my devices over DDG and i still miss dearly the Google results/layout/metadata etc... How long is the withdraw syndrome needs to go for?

</comment><comment><USER48> Why is [https://cliqz.com/](https://cliqz.com/) not an option? They do some excellent work toward privacy.

</comment><comment><USER49> What a shitty website is searchenginejournal, full with spyware: [https://webtest.app/?url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com...](https://webtest.app/?url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com/duckduckgo- is-now-a-default-search-engine-option-on-android-in-the-eu/343073/)

</comment><comment><USER50> I switched to ddg a couple of months back. This wasn't my first switch away from google, I've always reverted back at some stage.

Now I can happily report that it really is 90% as good as google, if not more. It's fast, it's accurate, it's context sensitive. Most importantly I don't feel like I'm being preyed upon. Brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER51> DDG for personal devices, Google for work. Don't care if they track my stackoverflow results.

<comment> rlv-dan DDG is quite good at serving stackoverflow results though

</comment></comment><comment> geek-advised I'm glad this happened, but I would really like to get rid of the bloatware like Chrome, Maps and Gmail.

</comment><comment><USER52> Why is Mojeek forgotten? At least it's a real search engine, and not just a front-end.

</comment><comment><USER53> Misleading title, it will be offered among other options but will be at the top of the list

</comment><comment><USER54> >"DuckDuckGo will soon be offered as an option for default search engine on Android devices across the EU."

"[...] option for default [...]"

<comment><USER55> The word "default" is used a bit weirdly in Chrome. The "default search engines" are ones intended to provide search to the omni bar; as opposed to other search engines which Chrome just picks up passively when you browse the web (often these are suggested when you start typing).

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Isn't ddg yahoo search engine?

</comment><comment><USER57> I would like to see Mozilla Firefox be forced to do the same. As of now, they don't even notify the user of their default Google search to the users. So millions of their user url typing history are being recorded and sent to Google even if they don't use the search function specifically. This in someway has to violates the GDPR.

<comment><USER58> >they don't even notify the user of their default Google search to the users.

After your start typing it clearly says "Serach in Google"

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> "Other options, which differ across the EU, include Info.com, Yandex, Qwant, GMX, PrivacyWall, Givero, and Seznam"

Will the EU be liable if/when these illustrious providers have a data breach?

<comment><USER60> Why would they? Its still up to the user to pick one. Just like how right to repair laws allow you to perform a shit repair that breaks something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I still feel like Google should participate in the bidding and distribute the resulting money (their own and their competitors') to a charity rather than keeping it as profit. They got a fine for a reason, turning it into a profit scheme is a big middle finger to anyone who cares about monopolies.

The question would be how to pick a charity in an unbiased manner, but I guess there are a lot of ways to answer that such as picking the most well-funded charity worldwide, or distributing it over the top ten.

<comment><USER61> From an economic perspective, this makes no sense. The economic benefits google gets from Android largely derive from the control over the default search engine. You're asking that they should donate the proceeds of this benefit. Why would they work on Android at all if they could not benefit from it economically?

The purpose of the auction and the choice is to allow competition for that default spot, and ensure google isn't using Android to further its market dominance in search. However, the EU has its head on straight enough to understand that being chosen as the default search engine for a device still has serious value. There's nothing anti-competitive about google charging a fair price for this benefit. And fortunately we know, because of the auction process, that the prices are fair (i.e. the other bidders certainly bid a price less than the benefit they expect to derive from being selected).

<comment><USER62> > Why would they work on Android at all if they could not benefit from it > economically?

Someone might think their current monetization model should be discouraged via regulation.

MS used to charge manufacturers for Windows Phone - Google could undoubtedly do the same, Android has too much of a moat now for manufacturers to succeed with anything else.</comment></comment></comment>


The Other Android Blueprint: FacebookPhone, TwitterPhone, And Ugh, VerizonPhone? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/04/facebookphone-twitterphone-verizonphone/

<comment><AUTHOR> Seeing the crapware cell phone service providers are putting (that can't be removed no less) on their Android devices, thinking of the future outlined in this TC piece makes me wonder how much worse it could get. And we thought the fragmentation of Android was something of concern already...

I think it would be in Google's interest to start some sort of certification program/or requirement that ensures that any device with their logo on it also can run a user installed vanilla straight-from-Google version of Android without the gunk.

<comment><USER2> _I think it would be in Google's interest to start some sort of certification program/or requirement that ensures that any device with their logo on it also can run a user installed vanilla straight-from-Google version of Android without the gunk._

That would _accelerate_ crappification as carriers would rather remove the Google logo and apps than remove their crapware. The idea that Google can somehow force carriers to do what they don't want to do is admirable, but it won't work (maybe it would have worked in 2008 when Verizon/Sprint/T-Mobile were desperate for an iPhone alternative). If Google wants vanilla Android phones to reach non-developers they're going to have to make them (and market them, and set up a retail distribution chain, and maybe an MVNO) themselves.</comment></comment>