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Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

208 points by rms_returns 7y ago

I'd made a similarly titled post[1] a couple years back and I seriously don't know what kind of usage DuckDuckGo has right now. But I'd like to think that it is extensively used, at least in the developer community. And I strongly believe that people should start degoogling their lives at least slowly and gradually if its not possible to do it at once. If more people start using DDG, the search engine will improve and that least that one aspect of degoogling could be achieved to a certain extent. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13284917

hjek 7y ago
DDG is just a proxy for Bing. Yes, let's degoogle our lives, but why not start using a free/libre metasearch engine (like Searx[0]), while you're at it? [0]: https://asciimoo.github.io/searx/ https://asciimoo.github.io/searx/
- kitotik 7y ago
  Citation needed. They use Bing Ads, but I’m not sure if their actual search results are just proxied Bing results.
  - akvadrako 7y ago
    They are not exclusively Bing, but mostly. I think Wikipedia has the details.
  - epicide 7y ago
    They seem to even let you turn ads off in the settings.
  - hjek 7y ago
    I think nowadays they mix in some results from other search engines, but it started out as just Bing results. Doesn't change the point about it being just a proprietary interface to other proprietary search engines. > We do use results from Bing. Our zero-click info and some other stuff we do, however, uses results from all over.[0] [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20180910181021/https://duck.co/forum/comment/27893 https://web.archive.org/web/20180910181021/https://duck.co/f...
cvnyw 7y ago
I've been using it for a few months and I find myself using !g for like 4 out of 5 requests. Also image search is VERY slow, images load like in a slideshow. I'll end up going back to Google. I like the idea of DDG and I have a strong dislike for Google but DDG is simply not there yet. Having said that it's better than it was five years ago, when it was simply insufferable. So, maybe in five years? ;)
- ravenstine 7y ago
  Weird, I haven't found their image search slow. I just wish I could search by usage rights. Also, I suggest using !s instead of !g so that you still get Google results without actually being redirected to Google.
  - antidaily 7y ago
    Same. Its fine.
    - slenk 7y ago
      What is this !s and !g notation?
      - takeda 7y ago
        https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang
        slenk 7y ago
        I had no idea. This changes everything for me
- elandrum 7y ago
  That’s odd, that’s not been my experience at all. I’ve been using DDG exclusively for probably 4 years now. I rarely use !g.
- 7y ago
octosphere 7y ago
I like DuckDuckGo if it wasn't for their data centers being in the U.S. My problem lies in the fact that they could have an intelligence agency like the NSA in their data centers and they could attribute specific queries to specific users by looking at the originating IP. I'm not even sure they have a canary[0] [1] implemented. This is why combining DDG with an anonymous mixer network like Tor is useful (or even a VPN). You're probably wondering why my threat model includes the likes of the NSA. Well I just don't want spying, simple as that. Sure, Tor might seem like overkill, but over time all those single, isolated queries start to build an elaborate dossier on you and the contents of your mind. [0] https://duck.co/forum/thread/15228/would-you-adopt-a-canary https://duck.co/forum/thread/15228/would-you-adopt-a-canary [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- skellera 7y ago
  What search engine do you use then?
  - octosphere 7y ago
    I use a few. Putting all my eggs in one basket is a bad idea in general. If you must know, I do use DDG, but strictly with Tor and sometimes a VPN. In no order: https://eu.startpage.com https://eu.startpage.com https://www.searx.me/ https://www.searx.me/ https://www.ecosia.org/ https://www.ecosia.org/ https://millionshort.com/ https://millionshort.com/ https://www.mojeek.com/ https://www.mojeek.com/ https://www.qwant.com https://www.qwant.com (All used with Tor and sometimes a VPN)
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - beefield 7y ago
    I like qwant.com. No affiliation.
maverickmax90 7y ago
startpage.com Way better in search and privacy
- detaro 7y ago
  In what way is it better in privacy?
  - octosphere 7y ago
    https://www.startpage.com/en/search/privacy-policy.html https://www.startpage.com/en/search/privacy-policy.html
    - kitotik 7y ago
      They use AdWords. This seems like a lateral jump from DDG.
    - detaro 7y ago
      Doesn't seem that different to DDGs (with different search providers), could you highlight the difference that makes them "way better"?
- lunarplague 7y ago
  startpage always pays google for search results, which is way better than me paying google for search results. I've basically set startpage for all my browsers for years, and it's always been a good time.
ravenstine 7y ago
Does anyone know how to donate to DDG? It doesn't say on their site, but I want to contribute to their success.
- StevePerkins 7y ago
  Just disable your ad blocker for their site. They're not a philanthropy, they have a profitable ad-based business model.
  - chongli 7y ago
    Plenty of people (particularly here on HN) consider many or even all forms of advertising to be unethical. I don't think it's fair to ask someone to disable their ad blocker. For someone who never clicks on ads, the revenue generated by disabling is negligible anyway.
    - StevePerkins 7y ago
      Even if they added a Patreon button (or whatever the "ethical" provider is this month), 99.99% of their revenue would still come from ads. Seems like some weird mental gymnastics to pretend their business model wouldn't be what it is. Like it or not, it's fantasy to pretend that donationware scales beyond individual devs. It's rarely even enough to support individual dev stuff.
      - epicide 7y ago
        I don't think the point is to change their business model. The point is to include an alternative way to support them other than ads. Augment, not replace. E.g. I remove ads (both in their settings and with an ad blocker). However, I would love to support them. I'd probably pay them more than they'd make off of me in ads, as well.
  - DougN7 7y ago
    They use Bing ads. It’s really unfortunate - I’d love to help them and advertise with them, but 99% of my ads will show on Bing and its other properties, which is not what I want to support.
jeromegv 7y ago
Started last week. So far so good.
benbristow 7y ago
The thing with Google is that, like it or not, their analytics and their knowledge of you as an individual helps produce better search results for you. Google will always be the better search engine. That being said DuckDuckGo is definitely getting much better nowadays. Still end up going back to Google after a few days though.
- lucb1e 7y ago
  You don't have to use either exclusively. Just pick the one you think is best as your default search engine, and for anything that this 'best' one (by whatever standard) cannot handle, you can still fall back to the other. For example, DDG is really good at documentation lookups like Java or Python docs. Google is much better at complicated queries (I always struggle for an example, had one recently where DDG was just lost and Google gave the perfect top result, and remember thinking "I should write this down" but I don't think I did...), so I use DDG by default and if I can't find what I'm looking for, I fall back to Google. I don't have to fall back for ~90% of my queries, so that's a significant improvement over using Google all the time. DDG is horrible at images, and Google Images beats Bing Images. But again, 90% of my image queries can be answered by Bing, so in only 10% of the cases I fall back to Google for images.
  - benbristow 7y ago
    > For example, DDG is really good at documentation lookups like Java or Python docs I've kind of found the opposite. Because Google knows I'm a developer when I search for libraries etc. they're usually at the top. For example, if I search for 'express' (the NodeJS package) on Google their website is at the bottom of the first page (just below my local newspaper's website, Paisley Express). On DuckDuckGo it's 1 from the bottom of the second page. Of course just a single example but you can see where I'm coming from.
- lettergram 7y ago
  > like it or not, their analytics and their knowledge of you as an individual helps produce better search results for you. Google will always be the better search engine. I actually disagree. Googles optimizing function is to get you to visit sites with their ads. Because DuckDuckGo doesn’t have an ad network on every website, their optimization function is to get you to come back to search (where their ads are). I think people have also missed Google slowly manipulating search results to maximize profit. Their motives are not aligned with people looking for information (at least not any more)
lucb1e 7y ago
Going one step further, I removed my websites from the Google index: https://lucb1e.com/?p=post&id=130 https://lucb1e.com/?p=post&id=130 If you want to find my stuff, you now have to use DDG or some other search engine. Hopefully we can signal to Google that we are not okay with monopolistic behaviour (that's why I blocked them, not just for being the biggest or monopolist, but for also behaving like it -- see the blog post for details).
- appleflaxen 7y ago
  that's an awesome idea! how do you determine which IPs are the google webcrawler, though?
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    I match the user agent string on containing "Google". It seems that Google Chrome only includes "Chrome", so I don't block users this way. Here is an overview of all Google crawlers' user agent strings: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1061943 https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1061943 As you can see, they all include Google (capitalized). I don't use robots.txt because they say that doesn't stop them from including the site in search results: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608 https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608 I don't know if returning a HTTP 403 error will, but it seems like it's worth a try. I also looked into banning IP ranges (that would have been my preferred option), but if I remember correctly they were subject to change and it seems overkill to write a scraper for that page that would then have to generate a config file and reload a service.
    - tonfa 7y ago
      The documented way is the noindex tag (in html or http headers): https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en
      - lucb1e 7y ago
        Not all resources are HTML so I couldn't use the meta tag, but the header looks interesting! Reading up on it, it seems to achieve pretty much the same thing as my current solution. Would you say this is better for some reason? Nobody should encounter my server's 403 response except those with a Google user agent anyway. The page doesn't say whether this works the same as the robots.txt disallow, where you may still appear in results because other pages link to you. The 403 might be more effective, but I can't really tell either way.
haunter 7y ago
Is the moral basis enough to use an inferior product? So just because Google is "bad" does it make ok to use an inferior product? How does that help me as an end user? OP's only argument (Google is bad so use DDG) is not really convincing tbh
- takeda 7y ago
  I guess it depends on someone's morals. If a company does something you disagree with, but you still support them, because it's inconvenient not to it means you are ok with it. Sorry for getting politics into it, but I see people complaining about current situation, but also don't want to move their assess to protest, because it is inconvenient to do so. Well duh, if you don't want to put an effort, because it would inconvenience you, then you deserve what you are getting.
- stjohnswarts 7y ago
  Not inferior. If you don't like it then use google, no one will cry over your decision. Privacy holds a lot of value for a lot of people, if it doesn't for you then that's your choice and no one is telling you to start taking it seriously, that is a personal issue, tbh
topherPedersen 7y ago
I launched BuckBuckMoose.org recently so I could start using DuckDuckGo more often. The idea with BuckBuckMoose is that you can search DuckDuckGo without fear of missing out on Google. How it works is you simply enter your search query, and then a two split screen windows pop up with Google search results on the left and DuckDuckGo results on the right. If you want to try it out as your default search engine you can use Tom Schuster's "Add Custom Search Engine" extension for Firefox to add it (BuckBuckMoose) as your default search engine. (I don't actually expect anyone else to use it). Anyway, having used this tool daily for the past few months I feel that I'm somewhat of an expert* on DuckDuckGo's search results. One interesting thing I've noticed is how similar their results are. It's almost as if Bing is trying to mimic Google's results on purpose? It's a little odd. The results are pretty good tho. However, I have noticed that Google is always a little bit faster.
- octosphere 7y ago
  Hmm, I went to http://buckbuckmoose.org http://buckbuckmoose.org and noticed no TLS. Perhaps it doesn't need crypto because the popups themselves utilize crypto.
- mistermann 7y ago
  If I'm logged into google do I get my customized search results? Would be nice to have a choice on this behavior (actually, would be interesting to have an iframe for each mode to see the difference in results).
- imiric 7y ago
  Have you tried Searx[0]? It returns results from the major search engines (and can be customized for more) while attempting to maintain privacy as much as possible. I'm not sure how effective it actually is from a privacy standpoint, but being able to see aggregate results in a single, clean UI has been a big productivity boost for me. I've been running a self-hosted instance for a few months now and haven't had major complaints. [0]: https://github.com/asciimoo/searx https://github.com/asciimoo/searx
viach 7y ago
Do you know that DDG is just a sophisticated proxy to another search engine under the hood, which probably has even lower standards for privacy than Google and using DDG you indirectly support it?
- StevePerkins 7y ago
  Well, yeah... hence the point of a proxy.
- FabHK 7y ago
  1. Yes, and that proxying provides value (privacy) 2. There's more to it, such as the bangs, keyboard-based result selection, etc.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
toncontact 7y ago
Let’s start using DuckDuckGo all the time.
fareesh 7y ago
For the uninitiated, !bang is a pretty great feature: https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang
- toncontact 7y ago
  What are your most used bangs? Mine is !gi.
- lucb1e 7y ago
  Am I the only one who really doesn't like having to prefix that symbol and never types bangs? I type faster than most other tech people but putting my whole left hand on the left side of the keyboard to press Shift with my pinky and 1 with my ring finger is more trouble than adding a keyword for the search in Firefox (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches). Especially because I type the G, Y, and W (google, google-images, youtube, wikipedia... the thing you use this for) with my left hand as well. Bangs are recommended almost every time ddg comes up, and I see people like my brother using them, so it seems like nobody else minds and the choice of symbol will never change. Am I alone in thinking it's one of the worst possible prefix characters?
  - grimgrin 7y ago
    That’s an odd complaint when I first read it Maybe it relates to hand pain and stuff You could use right shift, also, though that’d be tricky for my brain
    - lucb1e 7y ago
      Maybe it helps to know that I'm a Vim user and I notice the difference it makes when having to move my hand to the mouse (or even the arrow/home/page-up keys) to position my cursor as opposed to using Vim key bindings?
      - grimgrin 7y ago
        Doing a ! doesn’t really shift much from home row positioning. Certainly not as much as arrow keys would I do understand the thought though. After doing a few years on a mac and learning to love pushing cmd with my thumb, which was a lot of actions like cut copy paste and more, I began to hate if I had to use left pinky for anything ctrl related Even on linux or windows today I’ll map ctrl directly left of spacebar so I can keep the same habit up It’s naturally great for me in vim too, be it moving up and down the page with ^d and ^u or some custom ^ mapping, etc I think if you're a heavy command line user or even programmer, you'll be having to do ! and ` and ~ and so on, meaning -- it's some pretty solid muscle memory
phatfish 7y ago
I have used it as a default for at least 2 years. I'd estimate drop back to Google for 20-25% of specific "subject matter" searches, mostly around technology. Probably a bit less than that for general searches. Most of the time I run the same search on Google the results are very similar for the top hits. But Google does seem to produce helpful results that are not exactly what I searched for more often. DDG also skews heavily to US results which is a pain. Any Amazon links are always to .com and not the regional site. Just a general understanding of region specific results seems to be missing, and I end up qualifying searches with the country or town.
- bpfrh 7y ago
  I switched to DDG about half a year ago. What I really like is that for me I can switch location bias on and off. Sometimes I want region specific results, but most of the time not, so I actually get better results on DDG.
- weinzierl 7y ago
  > DDG also skews heavily to US results which is a pain. DDG also skews heavily to US results which is one reason I find DDG useful. I have been largely using DDG for years. What finally drove me away from Google completely is that you cannot get search results that are untainted by localization anymore. Whenever I search for programming related topics or the subjects typically discussed on HN I always get a some confusing local results no matter what language and region settings I use. https://google.com/ncr https://google.com/ncr which did a good job for years doesn't seem to work anymore. Really the only reason to refer to Google nowadays is if I deliberately search local places, organizations and businesses - this is where Google is unbeaten in my opinion. Even local news and events isn't usually worth the g! switch. These two might be good in the US but here in Germany all search engines are equally bad at it.
- lucb1e 7y ago
  DDG skews very heavily towards your country setting indeed, and the default is indeed the USA, but Google is even worse. On DDG the locale selector is a switch displayed on every search results page. For Google, you have to use a VPN for the same effect. I'm a Dutchman living in Germany speaking English at home and at work, so I switch between languages quite a lot: Dutch when I want to know local things (e.g. European laws, or recipes with ingredients that stores here actually carry), German when I need to know something like filing taxes or when trash is being picked up (I don't speak German yet, so I only do this when necessary), and English for everything else. Trying to do that on Google is nearly impossible. It somewhat picks up on the language of your query (certainly better than DDG picks up on that), but for English queries I'll still get a few German results, even after I click the "Change to English?" prompt (and I have to click every time, since I do not store cookies for Google). Like, thanks for this German forum thread when looking for an error message after I already set it to English... In DDG you can just flip a switch.
Normal_gaussian 7y ago
I've been using DDG for a year on my desktop, 6 mo. on phone and laptop, 1 mo. at work. I don't get the people that are claiming worse results from DDG than google - the only thing I can think is that we write our searches differently. But that seems a long shot.
- thebigspacefuck 7y ago
  I've never noticed an issue with it except for things where Google has a specific app for the results, like Google Maps, flights, or reviews. Yelp and Apple Maps are no contest for Google Maps. I can type !g but that's not intuitive to most users. I'm also not sure I get as much benefit since I'm using Google for those things anyway.
cpv 7y ago
Aside from DDG, can anyone say anything about other available alternatives, like startpage.com, lite.qwant.com or searchencrypt.com?
linuxlizard 7y ago
I switched to DDG a few months ago. I've found it to meet my needs quite well.
omerh 7y ago
My default search engine for more than a year. Mobile and desktop, rarely I use !g bang. Also, dns are 1.1.1.1 / 1.1.0.0 Browsers are ff and safari. Email is ProtonMail.
anoncake 7y ago
The fact that Google tends to ignore half the query does make that choice easier.
- akvadrako 7y ago
  DDG also ignores half the query, so that's a weird thing to say. At least Google has verbatim mode.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    It does, but boycotting a search engine that returns garbage in favor of another search engine that returns garbage is easier than if the former actually worked properly.
lkj 7y ago
- "python remove from list": Google has the Python docs on the first page. DDG does not. - "site:news.ycombinator.com rms_returns duckduckgo": At first the DDG results looked better but multiple results had no mention of "rms_returns" at all. - "archlinux dmesg audit": Both nice. - "lange nacht der museen berlin": Wow, unexpectedly relevant results on DDG, did they improve their local results? I think I should indeed try again. Previous times it was full of spam for local results.
- rms_returns 7y ago
  For your first query, DDG returns StackOverflow link which I think could be even more important for those searching about how to remove an item from python list.
- FabHK 7y ago
  Thanks for providing examples, I'm always baffled by those that claim that Google results are so much better. - "python remove from list": DDG returns the stack overflow answer (mentioning `del`). If I wanted the docs, I'd put in the !py3 bang, which uses the python 3 documentation search. - "site:news.ycombinator.com rms_returns duckduckgo": yeah, DDG is fuzzing the search terms annoyingly, though I've heard that complaint about google as well? I've had more luck adding a plus, "site:news.ycombinator.com +rms_returns duckduckgo"
- stjohnswarts 7y ago
  lol well I just search and duckduckgo has almost nothing -but- python (the language) links about removing from a list. Are you sure you didn't make a typo? I suppose it is possible duckduckgo saw your search comment and "fixed" it, but I have my doubts. If you wanted site specific stuff add site:python.org
hi41 7y ago
There are some queries that governments would be very interested in knowing who did it. As an example could be the query how to make bomb. Does DuckDuckGo hand over this information to government agencies? Information such as ip address, user if etc?
- stjohnswarts 7y ago
  they don't keep logs so it's impossible for them to turn over your search history and ip address
tlack 7y ago
I've been working on a search engine as well. It's screen shot based. That's how frustrated I am using Goog! Very buggy and can't take much load, but check it out: https://glorp.co/Search/Hacker%20News https://glorp.co/Search/Hacker%20News
temp 7y ago
If it offered results that even began to resemble relevance, I would, but Google's the only one covering my country's market with good results.
0xcde4c3db 7y ago
I use DDG regularly. It's fine for casual "was that company's domain a .net or .com" kinds of searches, but it struggles for more specific or obscure content. My biggest problem with it is that the "advanced" operators are extremely buggy. Quotes and minus sometimes seem to be treated more as suggestions than requirements. Other times they return no results when omitting them returns results that should match. Sometimes a term with a minus is instead treated like there's no minus, i.e. ranking results with that word higher. This seems to have gotten worse over time. I don't have examples for this because the behavior is not consistent at all. The "inurl" and "intitle" operators exist but seem to only work for a single word/instance (e.g. "functional intitle:Haskell" works as expected but "functional intitle:Haskell intitle:reactive" returns a bunch of results without either of those words in the title).
- WarOnPrivacy 7y ago
  > "My biggest problem with it is that the "advanced" operators are extremely buggy. Quotes and minus sometimes seem to be treated more as suggestions than requirements. Other times they return no results when omitting them returns results that should match. Sometimes a term with a minus is instead treated like there's no minus, i.e. ranking results with that word higher. This seems to have gotten worse over time." This is the exact explanation of why I moved away from Google. My searching trends toward very specific terms. >2 years ago, Google started ignoring my boolean operands. It became increasingly difficult to craft a boolean search that Google would actually respect. I finally bailed 6 months ago. By that time, using a minus sign often returned nothing but the results I was trying to avoid.
owlrobot 7y ago
I would but one of the biggest problems I have with it is how I can't look up info. in certain areas like Reddit which I use a lot because it only gives one link even if I include the word "reddit".
- epicide 7y ago
  I just did a search for "switch reddit" and got at least 5 different subreddits. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant? Also, while it makes you dependent on the reddit search, there's the "!r" search shortcut.
- gpm 7y ago
  I use "site:reddit.com" all the time on ddg, no problems whatsoever with the results.
akvadrako 7y ago
I can't stand DDG because it doesn't have a verbatim mode; I end up having to wrap every word in quotes.
akarki15 7y ago
"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain" 100% sure any Google alternative is going to be equally "morally bad" if not worse once it gets even 1% of Google's traffic.
spookybones 7y ago
I've been using DuckDuckGo for about a year now. I must admit, when doing research, I often g! the search as well to see what I'm missing out on, especially with images. I also don't know why they don't offer a year parameter for the advance time search. It's a pretty good engine nonetheless. I use wikipedia a lot, so w! proves useful.
- FabHK 7y ago
  And, btw, !wxx, where xx is the two letter ISO language code (!wde, !wes, !wla...).
herodotus 7y ago
My biggest beef with ddg is that they do not localize my searches. If I search for "Ferry Schedule" for example, I want the nearest Ferry, not San Francisco. My tech related searches are probably fine on DDG, but my personal life searches (movies, transit, theatre, music, events.....) should all use the best available location information.
- truculent 7y ago
  I used to feel this too, but once I started getting back into the habit of stating the location I'm interested in in the search it became a non-issue
jplayer01 7y ago
DDG's search results seem consistently terrible whenever I try to use it for an extended period of time. It's fine for really basic searches, but anything more specialized or niche is terrible (considering my interests, that's all of my searches). I mostly use Startpage nowadays instead, which seems to give me good enough results most of the time.
- Timucin 7y ago
  I believe having privacy puts the user at disadvantage since DDG doesn't keep your history or track who you are. i.e. Google knows definitely knows I am a developer and shows the tech related things first even when I search for super generic words. That's why people think DDG doesn't do a good job but I think it does if you can be more specific. Yet I agree it's not better than or equal to Google when it comes to image search. I guess Google is doing a better job on classifying images.
  - mosselman 7y ago
    I believe privacy, to me as a user, is a huge advantage. I have been using DuckDuckGo for years now and I when I run into something I can’t find on it, which happens sporadically, I use !s to jump to anonymous google results on start page and it turns out I can’t find it with google either. So either DuckDuckGo has gotten better or I have gotten better at telling it what I want, or both. Either way, I don’t feel that privacy puts me at a disadvantage.
    - Timucin 7y ago
      Oh, no. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't trying to say privacy is bad, I was trying to say Google has a clear advantage since it knows more about the user. Don't think it's worth to compromise your privacy though. Another advantage of Google is having the vast resources they have but again, it works because they know who you are. I also agree with what you said. People just need to be more specific with their search and yes, DDG is going better by the day.
  - dontbenebby 7y ago
makecheck 7y ago
It’s still my default but results are becoming noticeably worse. For instance, I used to be able to search for uncommon names and have them surface; now DDG seems to try really hard to assume I meant some dictionary word (frankly, a search engine clearly ignoring your actual search term becomes useless really quickly). A critical feature though is that “g!” to Google will never return AMP pages; as long as that’s true I will always start from DDG.
- frosted-flakes 7y ago
  Searching an esoteric error message with lots of search terms never returns anything relevant on DDG, so that's usually when I add the !g. > A critical feature though is that “g!” to Google will never return AMP pages; Why is that?
- FabHK 7y ago
  > DDG seems to try really hard to assume I meant some dictionary word (frankly, a search engine clearly ignoring your actual search term becomes useless really quickly) I wonder whether that's due to users using mobile more and more, where typos are much more frequent. It is very annoying indeed, and coaxing it with quotes and/or plusses doesn't seem to yield consistent results.
rmtech 7y ago
Anecdotally I tried DuckDuckGo and found it really irritating. It is just a bad search engine and seems to not be very good at finding what you need unless what you need is something very common. Surprisingly, Google seems to listen to what you actually type.
ddffre 7y ago
I started using it recently, but it doesn't feel as comfortable as google for me.
PorterDuff 7y ago
I've been using startpage lately and seem to prefer it to DDG, but they both can give inferior search. At the risk of being repetitious, I think what I'd like is a completely private search engine that uses only a self-curated list of websites. A year or two of googling and using the good results from that would probably fix me for some time. As usual, switch to google if the results aren't good. Getting rid of the cruft would be a nice thing.
jypepin 7y ago
The main thing that made me go back to google is the smart results they offer. I search enough for things like "champions league", "PSG vs Inter", "Warriors", "US Open" expecting the smart result at the top (the little widget that embeds the info I want). Switching to DDG I missed that too much and decided to go back to google.
- jraby3 7y ago
  But you can always just add a !g and still get the smart results.
moneytide1 7y ago
The privacy aspect isn't necessarily what draws me in, but rather the simple arrow key search result parsing. Google used to have it but I cannot get it to work anymore. Allows me to very quickly skim many results using arrow down -> enter -> Alt+left -> repeat. Also the ! command is amazing, no more wasted seconds on the homepages of youtube, amazon, ebay (!yt, !a, !e). Now if only we can add arrow key selection to those sites :)
AriaMinaei 7y ago
I've had a very different experience. In most queries, I see better or equal results in DDG compared to Google, especially since DDG digs up less SEO heavy pages. But occasionally for certain queries, Google returns better results then DDG. I use the !g clause perhaps once a day.
utopcell 7y ago
I find it mind-boggling that privacy-conscious folks go for DDG. This is a company that hides in their FAQ that their results are also backed by Yandex [1], and the first thing they ask you to do when you go to their home page is install a Chrome extension, giving them full access to your machine, let alone your searches. [1] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
newscracker 7y ago
I have degoogled myself heavily and don’t use anything other than Maps once in a while, but DDG is not the best answer as a replacement for people who just want to get things done. Instead of telling people to use DDG alone, it’s better to tell people to use DDG, Searx, and others so that there’s choice and freedom. I use DDG as my primary search engine, but the quality of search results and the rate of improvement leave much to be desired. So I tend to go to !s (search in startpage) or !g (search on Google). DDG would have to improve by leaps and bounds if it has to be the only search engine that I have to use (or rather, the only search engine who’s direct results I have to use). Apart from poorer search results, instant answers aren’t great either. DDG has currency conversions as well as stock quotes as instant answers. But both these are so highly hit or miss that I end up going to some other site anyway. For currency conversion, depending on where you put the currency symbol or code (as a prefix or suffix) or if you don’t leave a space between the currency and the numerical value, you may or may not get instant answers. For stock quotes, there are many symbols where, if you just type the symbol, you wouldn’t get instant answers. You’d have to type “<stock symbol> stock”. For some stocks just typing the stock symbol is enough.
sizzle 7y ago
DDG loads painfully slow on Android chrome browser compared to Google search for me. Does anyone know if this is deliberate on Google part? Is there a way to speed up DDG search? I'm using a vpn ad blocker, I wonder if it's something in my host file...
- HeadsUpHigh 7y ago
  Works fine on me. Might be device specific.
szatkus 7y ago
I use Duck on my desktop for about a year, I think. I noticed that Google got worse during that period to the point I switched default engine on my phone to DDG. The only drawback I see that DDG sometimes returns strange results for local searches. Even with Poland switch. For example if I typed some restaurant's name I most likely would get some restaurant in Warsaw with the same or similar name.
helph67 7y ago
I have been using DDG instead of Google but recently became aware of StartPage https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ They state they pay Google for their searches but don't track you.
klingonopera 7y ago
I've been on DDG since about November/December last year. I thought I'd probably change back to the Gman within a few days, but I still use it. And I only today found out about "!g" (I was literally typing "google.com/search?q=terms" into my address bar everytime). Averaging about 1 in 5 searches I need to go to Google to get my results. Mostly stuff regarding popularity and currentness, like memes e.g., or (admittingly bad and lazy) natural language queries where Google also has an edge.
tagawa 7y ago
> I seriously don't know what kind of usage DuckDuckGo has right now Still growing, thankfully. We make our search traffic public here: https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://duckduckgo.com/traffic
quickthrower2 7y ago
I’ve started the process: * move google analytics to stat counter. Might consider their no cookie option. * moved email to domain based plus zoho. Keeping web inbox zeroed so I’m not to dependent on web mail or zoho * did a google takeout so I access to old emails of my acc gets shut down. * Firefox/safari for home browsers * duck duck go default SE * ublock origin In the other direction: * using material design for a new side project!

208 points by rms_returns 7y ago

hjek 7y ago

DDG is just a proxy for Bing. Yes, let's degoogle our lives, but why not start using a free/libre metasearch engine (like Searx[0]), while you're at it? [0]: https://asciimoo.github.io/searx/ https://asciimoo.github.io/searx/

kitotik 7y ago
Citation needed. They use Bing Ads, but I’m not sure if their actual search results are just proxied Bing results.
- akvadrako 7y ago
  They are not exclusively Bing, but mostly. I think Wikipedia has the details.
- epicide 7y ago
  They seem to even let you turn ads off in the settings.
- hjek 7y ago
  I think nowadays they mix in some results from other search engines, but it started out as just Bing results. Doesn't change the point about it being just a proprietary interface to other proprietary search engines. > We do use results from Bing. Our zero-click info and some other stuff we do, however, uses results from all over.[0] [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20180910181021/https://duck.co/forum/comment/27893 https://web.archive.org/web/20180910181021/https://duck.co/f...

cvnyw 7y ago

I've been using it for a few months and I find myself using !g for like 4 out of 5 requests. Also image search is VERY slow, images load like in a slideshow. I'll end up going back to Google. I like the idea of DDG and I have a strong dislike for Google but DDG is simply not there yet. Having said that it's better than it was five years ago, when it was simply insufferable. So, maybe in five years? ;)

ravenstine 7y ago
Weird, I haven't found their image search slow. I just wish I could search by usage rights. Also, I suggest using !s instead of !g so that you still get Google results without actually being redirected to Google.
- antidaily 7y ago
  Same. Its fine.
  - slenk 7y ago
    What is this !s and !g notation?
    - takeda 7y ago
      https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang
      - slenk 7y ago
        I had no idea. This changes everything for me
elandrum 7y ago
That’s odd, that’s not been my experience at all. I’ve been using DDG exclusively for probably 4 years now. I rarely use !g.
7y ago

octosphere 7y ago

I like DuckDuckGo if it wasn't for their data centers being in the U.S. My problem lies in the fact that they could have an intelligence agency like the NSA in their data centers and they could attribute specific queries to specific users by looking at the originating IP. I'm not even sure they have a canary[0] [1] implemented. This is why combining DDG with an anonymous mixer network like Tor is useful (or even a VPN). You're probably wondering why my threat model includes the likes of the NSA. Well I just don't want spying, simple as that. Sure, Tor might seem like overkill, but over time all those single, isolated queries start to build an elaborate dossier on you and the contents of your mind. [0] https://duck.co/forum/thread/15228/would-you-adopt-a-canary https://duck.co/forum/thread/15228/would-you-adopt-a-canary [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
skellera 7y ago
What search engine do you use then?
- octosphere 7y ago
  I use a few. Putting all my eggs in one basket is a bad idea in general. If you must know, I do use DDG, but strictly with Tor and sometimes a VPN. In no order: https://eu.startpage.com https://eu.startpage.com https://www.searx.me/ https://www.searx.me/ https://www.ecosia.org/ https://www.ecosia.org/ https://millionshort.com/ https://millionshort.com/ https://www.mojeek.com/ https://www.mojeek.com/ https://www.qwant.com https://www.qwant.com (All used with Tor and sometimes a VPN)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- beefield 7y ago
  I like qwant.com. No affiliation.

maverickmax90 7y ago

startpage.com Way better in search and privacy

detaro 7y ago
In what way is it better in privacy?
- octosphere 7y ago
  https://www.startpage.com/en/search/privacy-policy.html https://www.startpage.com/en/search/privacy-policy.html
  - kitotik 7y ago
    They use AdWords. This seems like a lateral jump from DDG.
  - detaro 7y ago
    Doesn't seem that different to DDGs (with different search providers), could you highlight the difference that makes them "way better"?
lunarplague 7y ago
startpage always pays google for search results, which is way better than me paying google for search results. I've basically set startpage for all my browsers for years, and it's always been a good time.

ravenstine 7y ago

Does anyone know how to donate to DDG? It doesn't say on their site, but I want to contribute to their success.

StevePerkins 7y ago
Just disable your ad blocker for their site. They're not a philanthropy, they have a profitable ad-based business model.
- chongli 7y ago
  Plenty of people (particularly here on HN) consider many or even all forms of advertising to be unethical. I don't think it's fair to ask someone to disable their ad blocker. For someone who never clicks on ads, the revenue generated by disabling is negligible anyway.
  - StevePerkins 7y ago
    Even if they added a Patreon button (or whatever the "ethical" provider is this month), 99.99% of their revenue would still come from ads. Seems like some weird mental gymnastics to pretend their business model wouldn't be what it is. Like it or not, it's fantasy to pretend that donationware scales beyond individual devs. It's rarely even enough to support individual dev stuff.
    - epicide 7y ago
      I don't think the point is to change their business model. The point is to include an alternative way to support them other than ads. Augment, not replace. E.g. I remove ads (both in their settings and with an ad blocker). However, I would love to support them. I'd probably pay them more than they'd make off of me in ads, as well.
- DougN7 7y ago
  They use Bing ads. It’s really unfortunate - I’d love to help them and advertise with them, but 99% of my ads will show on Bing and its other properties, which is not what I want to support.

jeromegv 7y ago

Started last week. So far so good.

benbristow 7y ago

The thing with Google is that, like it or not, their analytics and their knowledge of you as an individual helps produce better search results for you. Google will always be the better search engine. That being said DuckDuckGo is definitely getting much better nowadays. Still end up going back to Google after a few days though.

lucb1e 7y ago
You don't have to use either exclusively. Just pick the one you think is best as your default search engine, and for anything that this 'best' one (by whatever standard) cannot handle, you can still fall back to the other. For example, DDG is really good at documentation lookups like Java or Python docs. Google is much better at complicated queries (I always struggle for an example, had one recently where DDG was just lost and Google gave the perfect top result, and remember thinking "I should write this down" but I don't think I did...), so I use DDG by default and if I can't find what I'm looking for, I fall back to Google. I don't have to fall back for ~90% of my queries, so that's a significant improvement over using Google all the time. DDG is horrible at images, and Google Images beats Bing Images. But again, 90% of my image queries can be answered by Bing, so in only 10% of the cases I fall back to Google for images.
- benbristow 7y ago
  > For example, DDG is really good at documentation lookups like Java or Python docs I've kind of found the opposite. Because Google knows I'm a developer when I search for libraries etc. they're usually at the top. For example, if I search for 'express' (the NodeJS package) on Google their website is at the bottom of the first page (just below my local newspaper's website, Paisley Express). On DuckDuckGo it's 1 from the bottom of the second page. Of course just a single example but you can see where I'm coming from.
lettergram 7y ago
> like it or not, their analytics and their knowledge of you as an individual helps produce better search results for you. Google will always be the better search engine. I actually disagree. Googles optimizing function is to get you to visit sites with their ads. Because DuckDuckGo doesn’t have an ad network on every website, their optimization function is to get you to come back to search (where their ads are). I think people have also missed Google slowly manipulating search results to maximize profit. Their motives are not aligned with people looking for information (at least not any more)

lucb1e 7y ago

Going one step further, I removed my websites from the Google index: https://lucb1e.com/?p=post&id=130 https://lucb1e.com/?p=post&id=130 If you want to find my stuff, you now have to use DDG or some other search engine. Hopefully we can signal to Google that we are not okay with monopolistic behaviour (that's why I blocked them, not just for being the biggest or monopolist, but for also behaving like it -- see the blog post for details).

appleflaxen 7y ago
that's an awesome idea! how do you determine which IPs are the google webcrawler, though?
- lucb1e 7y ago
  I match the user agent string on containing "Google". It seems that Google Chrome only includes "Chrome", so I don't block users this way. Here is an overview of all Google crawlers' user agent strings: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1061943 https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1061943 As you can see, they all include Google (capitalized). I don't use robots.txt because they say that doesn't stop them from including the site in search results: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608 https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608 I don't know if returning a HTTP 403 error will, but it seems like it's worth a try. I also looked into banning IP ranges (that would have been my preferred option), but if I remember correctly they were subject to change and it seems overkill to write a scraper for that page that would then have to generate a config file and reload a service.
  - tonfa 7y ago
    The documented way is the noindex tag (in html or http headers): https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en
    - lucb1e 7y ago
      Not all resources are HTML so I couldn't use the meta tag, but the header looks interesting! Reading up on it, it seems to achieve pretty much the same thing as my current solution. Would you say this is better for some reason? Nobody should encounter my server's 403 response except those with a Google user agent anyway. The page doesn't say whether this works the same as the robots.txt disallow, where you may still appear in results because other pages link to you. The 403 might be more effective, but I can't really tell either way.

haunter 7y ago

Is the moral basis enough to use an inferior product? So just because Google is "bad" does it make ok to use an inferior product? How does that help me as an end user? OP's only argument (Google is bad so use DDG) is not really convincing tbh

takeda 7y ago
I guess it depends on someone's morals. If a company does something you disagree with, but you still support them, because it's inconvenient not to it means you are ok with it. Sorry for getting politics into it, but I see people complaining about current situation, but also don't want to move their assess to protest, because it is inconvenient to do so. Well duh, if you don't want to put an effort, because it would inconvenience you, then you deserve what you are getting.
stjohnswarts 7y ago
Not inferior. If you don't like it then use google, no one will cry over your decision. Privacy holds a lot of value for a lot of people, if it doesn't for you then that's your choice and no one is telling you to start taking it seriously, that is a personal issue, tbh

topherPedersen 7y ago

I launched BuckBuckMoose.org recently so I could start using DuckDuckGo more often. The idea with BuckBuckMoose is that you can search DuckDuckGo without fear of missing out on Google. How it works is you simply enter your search query, and then a two split screen windows pop up with Google search results on the left and DuckDuckGo results on the right. If you want to try it out as your default search engine you can use Tom Schuster's "Add Custom Search Engine" extension for Firefox to add it (BuckBuckMoose) as your default search engine. (I don't actually expect anyone else to use it). Anyway, having used this tool daily for the past few months I feel that I'm somewhat of an expert* on DuckDuckGo's search results. One interesting thing I've noticed is how similar their results are. It's almost as if Bing is trying to mimic Google's results on purpose? It's a little odd. The results are pretty good tho. However, I have noticed that Google is always a little bit faster.

octosphere 7y ago
Hmm, I went to http://buckbuckmoose.org http://buckbuckmoose.org and noticed no TLS. Perhaps it doesn't need crypto because the popups themselves utilize crypto.
mistermann 7y ago
If I'm logged into google do I get my customized search results? Would be nice to have a choice on this behavior (actually, would be interesting to have an iframe for each mode to see the difference in results).
imiric 7y ago
Have you tried Searx[0]? It returns results from the major search engines (and can be customized for more) while attempting to maintain privacy as much as possible. I'm not sure how effective it actually is from a privacy standpoint, but being able to see aggregate results in a single, clean UI has been a big productivity boost for me. I've been running a self-hosted instance for a few months now and haven't had major complaints. [0]: https://github.com/asciimoo/searx https://github.com/asciimoo/searx

viach 7y ago

Do you know that DDG is just a sophisticated proxy to another search engine under the hood, which probably has even lower standards for privacy than Google and using DDG you indirectly support it?

StevePerkins 7y ago
Well, yeah... hence the point of a proxy.
FabHK 7y ago
1. Yes, and that proxying provides value (privacy) 2. There's more to it, such as the bangs, keyboard-based result selection, etc.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

toncontact 7y ago

Let’s start using DuckDuckGo all the time.

fareesh 7y ago

For the uninitiated, !bang is a pretty great feature: https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang

toncontact 7y ago
What are your most used bangs? Mine is !gi.
lucb1e 7y ago
Am I the only one who really doesn't like having to prefix that symbol and never types bangs? I type faster than most other tech people but putting my whole left hand on the left side of the keyboard to press Shift with my pinky and 1 with my ring finger is more trouble than adding a keyword for the search in Firefox (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches). Especially because I type the G, Y, and W (google, google-images, youtube, wikipedia... the thing you use this for) with my left hand as well. Bangs are recommended almost every time ddg comes up, and I see people like my brother using them, so it seems like nobody else minds and the choice of symbol will never change. Am I alone in thinking it's one of the worst possible prefix characters?
- grimgrin 7y ago
  That’s an odd complaint when I first read it Maybe it relates to hand pain and stuff You could use right shift, also, though that’d be tricky for my brain
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    Maybe it helps to know that I'm a Vim user and I notice the difference it makes when having to move my hand to the mouse (or even the arrow/home/page-up keys) to position my cursor as opposed to using Vim key bindings?
    - grimgrin 7y ago
      Doing a ! doesn’t really shift much from home row positioning. Certainly not as much as arrow keys would I do understand the thought though. After doing a few years on a mac and learning to love pushing cmd with my thumb, which was a lot of actions like cut copy paste and more, I began to hate if I had to use left pinky for anything ctrl related Even on linux or windows today I’ll map ctrl directly left of spacebar so I can keep the same habit up It’s naturally great for me in vim too, be it moving up and down the page with ^d and ^u or some custom ^ mapping, etc I think if you're a heavy command line user or even programmer, you'll be having to do ! and ` and ~ and so on, meaning -- it's some pretty solid muscle memory

phatfish 7y ago

I have used it as a default for at least 2 years. I'd estimate drop back to Google for 20-25% of specific "subject matter" searches, mostly around technology. Probably a bit less than that for general searches. Most of the time I run the same search on Google the results are very similar for the top hits. But Google does seem to produce helpful results that are not exactly what I searched for more often. DDG also skews heavily to US results which is a pain. Any Amazon links are always to .com and not the regional site. Just a general understanding of region specific results seems to be missing, and I end up qualifying searches with the country or town.

bpfrh 7y ago
I switched to DDG about half a year ago. What I really like is that for me I can switch location bias on and off. Sometimes I want region specific results, but most of the time not, so I actually get better results on DDG.
weinzierl 7y ago
> DDG also skews heavily to US results which is a pain. DDG also skews heavily to US results which is one reason I find DDG useful. I have been largely using DDG for years. What finally drove me away from Google completely is that you cannot get search results that are untainted by localization anymore. Whenever I search for programming related topics or the subjects typically discussed on HN I always get a some confusing local results no matter what language and region settings I use. https://google.com/ncr https://google.com/ncr which did a good job for years doesn't seem to work anymore. Really the only reason to refer to Google nowadays is if I deliberately search local places, organizations and businesses - this is where Google is unbeaten in my opinion. Even local news and events isn't usually worth the g! switch. These two might be good in the US but here in Germany all search engines are equally bad at it.
lucb1e 7y ago
DDG skews very heavily towards your country setting indeed, and the default is indeed the USA, but Google is even worse. On DDG the locale selector is a switch displayed on every search results page. For Google, you have to use a VPN for the same effect. I'm a Dutchman living in Germany speaking English at home and at work, so I switch between languages quite a lot: Dutch when I want to know local things (e.g. European laws, or recipes with ingredients that stores here actually carry), German when I need to know something like filing taxes or when trash is being picked up (I don't speak German yet, so I only do this when necessary), and English for everything else. Trying to do that on Google is nearly impossible. It somewhat picks up on the language of your query (certainly better than DDG picks up on that), but for English queries I'll still get a few German results, even after I click the "Change to English?" prompt (and I have to click every time, since I do not store cookies for Google). Like, thanks for this German forum thread when looking for an error message after I already set it to English... In DDG you can just flip a switch.

Normal_gaussian 7y ago

I've been using DDG for a year on my desktop, 6 mo. on phone and laptop, 1 mo. at work. I don't get the people that are claiming worse results from DDG than google - the only thing I can think is that we write our searches differently. But that seems a long shot.

thebigspacefuck 7y ago
I've never noticed an issue with it except for things where Google has a specific app for the results, like Google Maps, flights, or reviews. Yelp and Apple Maps are no contest for Google Maps. I can type !g but that's not intuitive to most users. I'm also not sure I get as much benefit since I'm using Google for those things anyway.

cpv 7y ago

Aside from DDG, can anyone say anything about other available alternatives, like startpage.com, lite.qwant.com or searchencrypt.com?

linuxlizard 7y ago

I switched to DDG a few months ago. I've found it to meet my needs quite well.

omerh 7y ago

My default search engine for more than a year. Mobile and desktop, rarely I use !g bang. Also, dns are 1.1.1.1 / 1.1.0.0 Browsers are ff and safari. Email is ProtonMail.

anoncake 7y ago

The fact that Google tends to ignore half the query does make that choice easier.

akvadrako 7y ago
DDG also ignores half the query, so that's a weird thing to say. At least Google has verbatim mode.
- anoncake 7y ago
  It does, but boycotting a search engine that returns garbage in favor of another search engine that returns garbage is easier than if the former actually worked properly.

lkj 7y ago

- "python remove from list": Google has the Python docs on the first page. DDG does not. - "site:news.ycombinator.com rms_returns duckduckgo": At first the DDG results looked better but multiple results had no mention of "rms_returns" at all. - "archlinux dmesg audit": Both nice. - "lange nacht der museen berlin": Wow, unexpectedly relevant results on DDG, did they improve their local results? I think I should indeed try again. Previous times it was full of spam for local results.

rms_returns 7y ago
For your first query, DDG returns StackOverflow link which I think could be even more important for those searching about how to remove an item from python list.
FabHK 7y ago
Thanks for providing examples, I'm always baffled by those that claim that Google results are so much better. - "python remove from list": DDG returns the stack overflow answer (mentioning `del`). If I wanted the docs, I'd put in the !py3 bang, which uses the python 3 documentation search. - "site:news.ycombinator.com rms_returns duckduckgo": yeah, DDG is fuzzing the search terms annoyingly, though I've heard that complaint about google as well? I've had more luck adding a plus, "site:news.ycombinator.com +rms_returns duckduckgo"
stjohnswarts 7y ago
lol well I just search and duckduckgo has almost nothing -but- python (the language) links about removing from a list. Are you sure you didn't make a typo? I suppose it is possible duckduckgo saw your search comment and "fixed" it, but I have my doubts. If you wanted site specific stuff add site:python.org

hi41 7y ago

There are some queries that governments would be very interested in knowing who did it. As an example could be the query how to make bomb. Does DuckDuckGo hand over this information to government agencies? Information such as ip address, user if etc?

stjohnswarts 7y ago
they don't keep logs so it's impossible for them to turn over your search history and ip address

tlack 7y ago

I've been working on a search engine as well. It's screen shot based. That's how frustrated I am using Goog! Very buggy and can't take much load, but check it out: https://glorp.co/Search/Hacker%20News https://glorp.co/Search/Hacker%20News

temp 7y ago

If it offered results that even began to resemble relevance, I would, but Google's the only one covering my country's market with good results.

0xcde4c3db 7y ago

I use DDG regularly. It's fine for casual "was that company's domain a .net or .com" kinds of searches, but it struggles for more specific or obscure content. My biggest problem with it is that the "advanced" operators are extremely buggy. Quotes and minus sometimes seem to be treated more as suggestions than requirements. Other times they return no results when omitting them returns results that should match. Sometimes a term with a minus is instead treated like there's no minus, i.e. ranking results with that word higher. This seems to have gotten worse over time. I don't have examples for this because the behavior is not consistent at all. The "inurl" and "intitle" operators exist but seem to only work for a single word/instance (e.g. "functional intitle:Haskell" works as expected but "functional intitle:Haskell intitle:reactive" returns a bunch of results without either of those words in the title).

WarOnPrivacy 7y ago
> "My biggest problem with it is that the "advanced" operators are extremely buggy. Quotes and minus sometimes seem to be treated more as suggestions than requirements. Other times they return no results when omitting them returns results that should match. Sometimes a term with a minus is instead treated like there's no minus, i.e. ranking results with that word higher. This seems to have gotten worse over time." This is the exact explanation of why I moved away from Google. My searching trends toward very specific terms. >2 years ago, Google started ignoring my boolean operands. It became increasingly difficult to craft a boolean search that Google would actually respect. I finally bailed 6 months ago. By that time, using a minus sign often returned nothing but the results I was trying to avoid.

owlrobot 7y ago

I would but one of the biggest problems I have with it is how I can't look up info. in certain areas like Reddit which I use a lot because it only gives one link even if I include the word "reddit".

epicide 7y ago
I just did a search for "switch reddit" and got at least 5 different subreddits. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant? Also, while it makes you dependent on the reddit search, there's the "!r" search shortcut.
gpm 7y ago
I use "site:reddit.com" all the time on ddg, no problems whatsoever with the results.

akvadrako 7y ago

I can't stand DDG because it doesn't have a verbatim mode; I end up having to wrap every word in quotes.

akarki15 7y ago

"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain" 100% sure any Google alternative is going to be equally "morally bad" if not worse once it gets even 1% of Google's traffic.

spookybones 7y ago

I've been using DuckDuckGo for about a year now. I must admit, when doing research, I often g! the search as well to see what I'm missing out on, especially with images. I also don't know why they don't offer a year parameter for the advance time search. It's a pretty good engine nonetheless. I use wikipedia a lot, so w! proves useful.

FabHK 7y ago
And, btw, !wxx, where xx is the two letter ISO language code (!wde, !wes, !wla...).

herodotus 7y ago

My biggest beef with ddg is that they do not localize my searches. If I search for "Ferry Schedule" for example, I want the nearest Ferry, not San Francisco. My tech related searches are probably fine on DDG, but my personal life searches (movies, transit, theatre, music, events.....) should all use the best available location information.

truculent 7y ago
I used to feel this too, but once I started getting back into the habit of stating the location I'm interested in in the search it became a non-issue

jplayer01 7y ago

DDG's search results seem consistently terrible whenever I try to use it for an extended period of time. It's fine for really basic searches, but anything more specialized or niche is terrible (considering my interests, that's all of my searches). I mostly use Startpage nowadays instead, which seems to give me good enough results most of the time.

Timucin 7y ago
I believe having privacy puts the user at disadvantage since DDG doesn't keep your history or track who you are. i.e. Google knows definitely knows I am a developer and shows the tech related things first even when I search for super generic words. That's why people think DDG doesn't do a good job but I think it does if you can be more specific. Yet I agree it's not better than or equal to Google when it comes to image search. I guess Google is doing a better job on classifying images.
- mosselman 7y ago
  I believe privacy, to me as a user, is a huge advantage. I have been using DuckDuckGo for years now and I when I run into something I can’t find on it, which happens sporadically, I use !s to jump to anonymous google results on start page and it turns out I can’t find it with google either. So either DuckDuckGo has gotten better or I have gotten better at telling it what I want, or both. Either way, I don’t feel that privacy puts me at a disadvantage.
  - Timucin 7y ago
    Oh, no. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't trying to say privacy is bad, I was trying to say Google has a clear advantage since it knows more about the user. Don't think it's worth to compromise your privacy though. Another advantage of Google is having the vast resources they have but again, it works because they know who you are. I also agree with what you said. People just need to be more specific with their search and yes, DDG is going better by the day.
- dontbenebby 7y ago

makecheck 7y ago

It’s still my default but results are becoming noticeably worse. For instance, I used to be able to search for uncommon names and have them surface; now DDG seems to try really hard to assume I meant some dictionary word (frankly, a search engine clearly ignoring your actual search term becomes useless really quickly). A critical feature though is that “g!” to Google will never return AMP pages; as long as that’s true I will always start from DDG.

frosted-flakes 7y ago
Searching an esoteric error message with lots of search terms never returns anything relevant on DDG, so that's usually when I add the !g. > A critical feature though is that “g!” to Google will never return AMP pages; Why is that?
FabHK 7y ago
> DDG seems to try really hard to assume I meant some dictionary word (frankly, a search engine clearly ignoring your actual search term becomes useless really quickly) I wonder whether that's due to users using mobile more and more, where typos are much more frequent. It is very annoying indeed, and coaxing it with quotes and/or plusses doesn't seem to yield consistent results.

rmtech 7y ago

Anecdotally I tried DuckDuckGo and found it really irritating. It is just a bad search engine and seems to not be very good at finding what you need unless what you need is something very common. Surprisingly, Google seems to listen to what you actually type.

ddffre 7y ago

I started using it recently, but it doesn't feel as comfortable as google for me.

PorterDuff 7y ago

I've been using startpage lately and seem to prefer it to DDG, but they both can give inferior search. At the risk of being repetitious, I think what I'd like is a completely private search engine that uses only a self-curated list of websites. A year or two of googling and using the good results from that would probably fix me for some time. As usual, switch to google if the results aren't good. Getting rid of the cruft would be a nice thing.

jypepin 7y ago

The main thing that made me go back to google is the smart results they offer. I search enough for things like "champions league", "PSG vs Inter", "Warriors", "US Open" expecting the smart result at the top (the little widget that embeds the info I want). Switching to DDG I missed that too much and decided to go back to google.

jraby3 7y ago
But you can always just add a !g and still get the smart results.

moneytide1 7y ago

The privacy aspect isn't necessarily what draws me in, but rather the simple arrow key search result parsing. Google used to have it but I cannot get it to work anymore. Allows me to very quickly skim many results using arrow down -> enter -> Alt+left -> repeat. Also the ! command is amazing, no more wasted seconds on the homepages of youtube, amazon, ebay (!yt, !a, !e). Now if only we can add arrow key selection to those sites :)

AriaMinaei 7y ago

I've had a very different experience. In most queries, I see better or equal results in DDG compared to Google, especially since DDG digs up less SEO heavy pages. But occasionally for certain queries, Google returns better results then DDG. I use the !g clause perhaps once a day.

utopcell 7y ago

I find it mind-boggling that privacy-conscious folks go for DDG. This is a company that hides in their FAQ that their results are also backed by Yandex [1], and the first thing they ask you to do when you go to their home page is install a Chrome extension, giving them full access to your machine, let alone your searches. [1] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...

newscracker 7y ago

I have degoogled myself heavily and don’t use anything other than Maps once in a while, but DDG is not the best answer as a replacement for people who just want to get things done. Instead of telling people to use DDG alone, it’s better to tell people to use DDG, Searx, and others so that there’s choice and freedom. I use DDG as my primary search engine, but the quality of search results and the rate of improvement leave much to be desired. So I tend to go to !s (search in startpage) or !g (search on Google). DDG would have to improve by leaps and bounds if it has to be the only search engine that I have to use (or rather, the only search engine who’s direct results I have to use). Apart from poorer search results, instant answers aren’t great either. DDG has currency conversions as well as stock quotes as instant answers. But both these are so highly hit or miss that I end up going to some other site anyway. For currency conversion, depending on where you put the currency symbol or code (as a prefix or suffix) or if you don’t leave a space between the currency and the numerical value, you may or may not get instant answers. For stock quotes, there are many symbols where, if you just type the symbol, you wouldn’t get instant answers. You’d have to type “<stock symbol> stock”. For some stocks just typing the stock symbol is enough.

sizzle 7y ago

DDG loads painfully slow on Android chrome browser compared to Google search for me. Does anyone know if this is deliberate on Google part? Is there a way to speed up DDG search? I'm using a vpn ad blocker, I wonder if it's something in my host file...

HeadsUpHigh 7y ago
Works fine on me. Might be device specific.

szatkus 7y ago

I use Duck on my desktop for about a year, I think. I noticed that Google got worse during that period to the point I switched default engine on my phone to DDG. The only drawback I see that DDG sometimes returns strange results for local searches. Even with Poland switch. For example if I typed some restaurant's name I most likely would get some restaurant in Warsaw with the same or similar name.

helph67 7y ago

I have been using DDG instead of Google but recently became aware of StartPage https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ They state they pay Google for their searches but don't track you.

klingonopera 7y ago

I've been on DDG since about November/December last year. I thought I'd probably change back to the Gman within a few days, but I still use it. And I only today found out about "!g" (I was literally typing "google.com/search?q=terms" into my address bar everytime). Averaging about 1 in 5 searches I need to go to Google to get my results. Mostly stuff regarding popularity and currentness, like memes e.g., or (admittingly bad and lazy) natural language queries where Google also has an edge.

tagawa 7y ago

> I seriously don't know what kind of usage DuckDuckGo has right now Still growing, thankfully. We make our search traffic public here: https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://duckduckgo.com/traffic

quickthrower2 7y ago

I’ve started the process: * move google analytics to stat counter. Might consider their no cookie option. * moved email to domain based plus zoho. Keeping web inbox zeroed so I’m not to dependent on web mail or zoho * did a google takeout so I access to old emails of my acc gets shut down. * Firefox/safari for home browsers * duck duck go default SE * ublock origin In the other direction: * using material design for a new side project!