Google because it works. I don't remember last time I had to visit the second page to find something. Also it's fast, and obviously well integrated to Google Chrome.
Ask HN: Which search engine do you use, and why?
11–20 of 61 posts
Re: Ask HN: Which search engine do you use, and why?
#12Google. Inertia and "good enough" SERPs.
Re: Ask HN: Which search engine do you use, and why?
#13DuckDuckGo, because it gives me the answers I seek (if I'm not satisfied, I'll throw in a !g, but the efficacy of that has declined over the past years, as DDG has improved). The one exception is Google Scholar, which is still unmatched.
Re: Ask HN: Which search engine do you use, and why?
#14DuckDuckGo because I get good results and also because I want to give them more data so that they will have a better chance at staying competitive.
Re: Ask HN: Which search engine do you use, and why?
#15Bing because google is evil.
When I started becoming a bit more privacy-conscious, a couple of years ago, I started using uMatrix. I used it, amongst other things, to disable javascript. I thought DDG didn't work with javascript disabled (then I realized I had mis-configured uMatrix) and because of that I used Bing for 1yr+.
It's actually quite good. Very rarely I need Google.
After I managed to get DDG working without JS, I moved to DDG. Also quite good.
I think Google is no longer miles ahead of the competition, and I suspect hasn't been in a while.
Re: Ask HN: Which search engine do you use, and why?
#16Searx because its good in both local results and in other categories. I feel like Google has been focusing too much on local results and so their other results are kind of odd now, they don't make sense anymore. With Searx I get a mix of everything, its perfect for me. Right now I use searx.me but I've been looking around to see if its the fastest instance. There's a page where they sort all searx instances by ping (can't find it on mobile). Maybe I'll run my own public instance one day. Would be a nice project if not too costly.
Re: Ask HN: Which search engine do you use, and why?
#17Duckduckgo, because I don't memorize rarely used git commands/language and/or library features, and so when I search for how to do something, it gives me the answer instantaneously without having to wade through stackOverflow pages. I use Google rarely for very specific things(like to check the date a TV show's latest episode is going to air)
Re: Ask HN: Which search engine do you use, and why?
#18Duckduckgo. It's good enough now, I am slowly moving away from Google products (only Gmail left). Rarely, I will use !g to go to Google but it has gotten lesser and lesser recently.
Re: Ask HN: Which search engine do you use, and why?
#19Unfortunately, I think your results will be heavily skewed in a place like Hacker News, which may or may not be what you want.
So far, half of the replies are about DuckDuckGo, which doesn't even account for 0.1% of all searches globally.
Personally, I've switched to DDG about 2 weeks ago and it's been pretty much seamless. This depends mostly on what I search for; if it's something very specific, Google will provide better results. However, a lot of the time I simply search for standalone topics that do not require a lot of context, like 'Japan GDP' or 'blue shark'. In these cases, DDG is just as good as Google, given that you simply open the first result anyway.
I'd love to see more people switch to DDG, but most people simply don't care or are not tech savvy enough to understand how much tracking Google does.
Re: Ask HN: Which search engine do you use, and why?
#20Google.
I've tried to use DDG several times in the past, and while the product works well, Google has the "familiarity effect" baked into its search. I've been conditioned for nearly two decades by Google's layout and visual cues. At a moment when I'm uncertain of something and am searching for an answer, the last thing I want is to be uncertain/unfamiliar with the search tool itself. Those stacking of anxieties, however small, is why I think people continue to use Google.