Problem with DuckDuckGo

• Creator frustrated with DuckDuckGo's DNS resolution failures
  • Hangs for 20-40 seconds frequently
  • 50/50 chance of working properly
  • Server-side parsing causes delays instead of client-side resolution
• Uses DuckDuckGo for 8 years primarily for bangs feature (13,500 available bangs)
  • Bangs allow searching specific sites with syntax like "!yt" for YouTube, "!gi" for Google Images
  • Uses ~20 bangs regularly out of 13,500 available

Unduck Solution Overview

• Built custom search engine replacement in 1 hour
• Free and open source (MIT license)
• Goal: provide bang functionality without DuckDuckGo's DNS issues
• Performs searches instantly with no network calls after initial load
• Progressive Web App (PWA) with service worker for offline functionality

Technical Implementation

• Uses DuckDuckGo's public bangs data from bangs.js file
  • 13,500 bangs in malformed JS format
  • Reformatted to proper JS array, compressed to 400KB gzipped
• Vanilla JavaScript implementation with minimal dependencies
  • Only dependency: V PWA plugin for service worker
• Client-side search resolution (no server calls)
• Default search engine configurable via localStorage (defaults to Google)
• Custom bang added for T3 chat (!t3)

Technical Features

• Service worker caches all content locally
• HTML/JS served from service worker (no network requests)
• Anonymous tracking with Plausible (easily disabled)
• Custom handling for GitHub repo links (ghr bang)
• Search history could be logged locally in IndexedDB (planned feature)

Previous Related Work

• Built ChromeTana extension 10+ years ago
  • Redirected Windows 10 Bing searches to preferred search engine
  • Enabled bangs from Windows search bar
  • Microsoft responded by forcing default browser behavior
  • Extension suffered from phishing attempts, spam, copyright claims
  • Google account compromised, malware distributed through extension
  • Bad ratings due to security incident

Usage and Impact

• Added to all browsers except iPhone (Apple hardcodes search engines)
• Unexpectedly using T3 chat bang frequently for AI searches
  • Changed search behavior patterns
  • Defaulting to AI chat instead of traditional web search
  • Examples: bash commands, code formatting, technical questions
• Fast AI responses (using Gemini) changed search preferences

Sponsor Integration

• Agora - audio/video communication platform
  • Used for 4+ years on PING project
  • Superior quality/latency vs other WebRTC solutions
  • New conversational AI integration with OpenAI realtime models
  • React SDK overhauled based on creator's feedback

Future Plans

• Creator doesn't plan extensive development
• Problem solved for personal use case
• Open to community contributions and forks
• Expects 3-4 forks to emerge with additional features
• Would return to DuckDuckGo if they fix DNS issues
• Encourages others to build similar personalized tools