Search Bangs

I've run into a few bangs that no longer work. I tried reporting the broken bangs on Twitter and the DDG bug reporter, but I received no reply and they're still broken.

I'm surprised DDG doesn't have automated monitoring of every bang API they use. They should have daily or hourly health check queries to confirm valid HTTP responses or even expected search results.

Re: Search Bangs

#5

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 25, 2016, 11:00 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Search Bangs

#6

Post by oldgun » Wed, May 25, 2016, 11:01 PM UTC

Good. Hat off to the Duckduckgo team. It's my major search engine now.

Re: Search Bangs

#7

Post by cisstrd » Wed, May 25, 2016, 11:05 PM UTC

Is there a really good in-depth up-to-date comparison somewhere between duckduckgo and google?

For example: I don't see any advantage in those search bangs, simply searching "shoes amazon" on google will do the job, or if I really want to search a specific site one can easily do "shoes site: amazon.com", and considering all the other things google can do...

duckduckgo might do some of those things, some of those even well, but I don't know, therefore the question about a detailed comparison... in google:

search literally by using quotation marks "to be or not to be", show weather, stocks, definitions, times, calculate anything, you can even do stuff like "notebook 200$..300$" which searches in that specific price range, currency and number conversion, exclude some search terms, flight information and lots more... whenever I read of something about supposedly awesome duckduckgo-features, it seems like the author(s) don't know a lot about google's capabilities... or I guess don't mention it on purpose. Many don't know about google's capabilities I guess, and then they might go "look what duckduckgo can do", ehm "google has been capable of that for x years"...

and by the way: last I checked google was immensely superior in search term results (even without the bubbling effect)

Re: Search Bangs

#8

Post by nerdy » Wed, May 25, 2016, 11:05 PM UTC

cheez wrote: post #3

My most used bangs: ! (go to the first result) and !g (perform search on Google). Occasionally, I'll use !w (Wikipedia). They really make it easy to get to where you wanted to go.

Anyone know how !g works, particularly in the context of Google's recent changes[1]?

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11625633

Re: Search Bangs

#9

Post by metasean » Wed, May 25, 2016, 11:09 PM UTC

cisstrd wrote: post #7

Is there a really good in-depth up-to-date comparison somewhere between duckduckgo and google? For example: I don't see any advantage in those search bangs, simply searching "shoes amazon" on google will do the job, or if I really want to search a specific site one can easily do "shoes site: amazon.com", and considering all the other things google can do... duckduckgo might do some of those things, some of those even…

I frequently use !js which searches only the JavaScript portion of the Mozilla Developer Network.

You can also always use the Google search results - without being profiled - by using !g (aka, best of both worlds)

Re: Search Bangs

#10

Post by neurobuddha » Wed, May 25, 2016, 11:09 PM UTC

Duck Go !Bang: http://duckgobang.com is a blog that tests bangs (some listed on Duck Duck Go are broken) and showcases the most useful ones.

Bangs are such a cool search hack, I wonder why more people don't use it.