Problems with Duckduckgo.com - images search not loading and fav icons, problems with IP/DNS?

[Gabrio]

hi there,

i personally use https://duckduckgo.com as a search engine which i really like. i noticed that for some reason when i am on o2 network either 4G or 3G, doesn't matter, the image search is not working, it shows all broken images.

the images are loaded from proxy.duckduckgo.com which seems not to be resolved on the o2 data connecion.

can someone tell me why?

i like DDG as a search engine for privacy reasons.

example, here i am on my connection at home and no problem loading

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.aeVtwDnvKISpr7Xuya...

that is the url of what is loaded when you go to images search and open in new tab.

finally here's what i get

can anyone try this if it happens on your end as well? i think o2 network does not resolve proxy.duckduckgo.com

many thanks,

Gabrio

[welshsteve76]

I think it is a combination of O2 and DuckDuckGo itself.  Duckduckgo is a private search engine that I believe works through a vpn. It may well be that O2 doesn't like this, or there are settings on the phone (possibly in another app such as a firewall/AV app) that are preventing this from working.  Do you get the same results if you use Google or Yahoo image searches?

[Martin-O2]

Thanks for the mention @jonsie  

@Gabrio I'm going to ask our Guru team to look into this one for you. I'll need some info so I'll reply to you private message. 

[Gabrio]

Actually i got it to work now.? How? The agent last night removed the.block on 18 yrs content.

That tells me that DDG should be whitelisted as its not one of those sites.

What u guys think?

Gabrio

[MI5]

I'm guessing it's because you could potentially display unsuitable images in the search window and also explains why mine works.....

[Gabrio]

But you can do that in google as well. Plus DDG has a safety search function too....

[MI5]

Dunno, I'm guessing as I don't set the rules for O2.....

[Chris_K · Accepted solution]

Hey all,

Good news is nobody is crazy and nobody has weird settings on their phone causing these issues. As a responsible network operator, we have an age verification system in place to help protect minors, or those who don't wish to be exposed to potentially age sensitive content.

I have checked the website classification for duckduckgo.com on our end and it is correctly classified as "Search, Dynamic Site". That is, our filters recongise this as a search website that contains dynamic content - which has the potential to display age sensitive materials. Yes, DDG & Google have a built-in safe search, but if a child wanted to get around this then it only takes a few clicks and no real age checks, whereas our age verification means only an adult can disable such a safety net.

The way the website is classified is, our filter checks it in real time and if it believes the search page contains adult content, then it will block it for anyone who isn't age verified. If it doesn't detect adult content, then it will not block the results for anyone who isn't age verified. This explains why many here were able to load this fine (likely age verified), while you and some others weren't (non age verified).

Hope that helps explain the situation

[Gabrio]

Cheers but why doesnt it recognize that i searched say "apple" or "orange" ? Those are quite safe searches 🙂

Thanks

[Chris_K]

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@Gabrio wrote:
Cheers but why doesnt it recognize that i searched say "apple" or "orange" ? Those are quite safe searches 🙂

---

These days, literally searching for anything *could* return an 'unsafe' image. A combination of website defined/controlled keywords (which could be faked/inaccurate) and an incorrect image analysis on the search engine' side (it's a computer, after all...) could potentially show something it maybe shouldn't. In most cases it won't, but it could.

Search terms like red, apple or orange are all very innocent words, but unfortunately that doesn't mean we can be safe in a knowledge it won't show something it shouldn't. Our age verification adds a safety layer for parents and guardians but for those of us who don't need such a safety net, we provide multiple methods of turning this off quickly.

[Gabrio]

That all makes sense. Why is Google allowed though?

Also when that is blocked i dont see fav icons of each site on the SERP.

Thanks for all your insights anyway.