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DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for the past 7 months

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Re: DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for the past 7 months

#11

Post by magv »

I've been using DDG since the new privacy policy. There are two points I frequently bump into:

1. DDG has a spellchecker, but not a good one. For example, DDG correctly guesses "hcker news", but unlike Google it fails to correct e.g. "hooker news".

2. DDG is relatively good on general queries (like unique names), but not on specific ones (like phrases). Recent example: searching for "r6rs vote" on Google gives ratification votes as the first link, DDG can't find that link at all.

So while I'm not too dissatisfied, I'm not too impressed either.

Re: DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for the past 7 months

#12

Post by MikeCapone »

prakash wrote: post #3
MikeCapone wrote: post #2

Sounds good, but one thing I'd like to know is if the author of that article has any affiliations with DDG.

none. I wrote it since I really like DuckDuckGo.

Thank you. In this day and age, I think we should all be a bit skeptical of glowing reviews.

Thanks for taking the time to post this.

Re: DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for the past 7 months

#13

Post by ugh »

magv wrote: post #11

I've been using DDG since the new privacy policy. There are two points I frequently bump into: 1. DDG has a spellchecker, but not a good one. For example, DDG correctly guesses "hcker news", but unlike Google it fails to correct e.g. "hooker news". 2. DDG is relatively good on general queries (like unique names), but not on specific ones (like phrases). Recent example: searching for "r6rs vote" on Google gives ratifi…

DDG is a sometimes affair for me, too. I really like to use it for all those queries where I would get tons of spammy results with Google. DDG really works great for that kind of stuff!

Re: DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for the past 7 months

#14

Post by prakash »

MikeCapone wrote: post #12
prakash wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

none. I wrote it since I really like DuckDuckGo.

Thank you. In this day and age, I think we should all be a bit skeptical of glowing reviews. Thanks for taking the time to post this.

no worries :-)

Re: DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for the past 7 months

#16

Post by epi0Bauqu »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #5

I am thinking of trying DuckDuckGo for serious use, but I have still never seen it mentioned outside of HN. It may not be fully rational, but think it is a method many of us use: When you hear about something from two completely independent sources, then it is probably worth checking out.

It was on TC the other day. Does that count? Or how about this: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/cnn.pdf

Re: DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for the past 7 months

#17

Post by nfnaaron »

I've been using it for a week, I like it.

Health food features: (features that are generally good for you but which you don't notice specifically at each use)

  - Access via https, if you want.
  - Logs deleted quickly
  - Less data about you collected by Google.
Note: For Firefox, if you want to put the https version of DDG in your search box list, use the Add to Firefox link on the DDG page, rather than "Add Duck Duck Go" in Firefox's search box dropdown.

Immediately tasty features:

  - Clean results page.
  - Clean results page URL.
    - (Some Linux distros dirty it up in Firefox.)
  - If not many results, there's a link to the equivalent Google search.
    - This is so polite and helpful it's classy.
  - !Bang notation for alternate search engines.
The !Bang notation is enough by itself to use DDG as your default search box entry. I have alternate search engines in my Firefox search box, but I don't use them much because even "alt-downarrow ..." is just inconvenient enough to dissuade me from using it; then you have to switch it back. "!w" at the front of your query to signal a Wikipedia search is a pleasure.

https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html

Well done.

Re: DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for the past 7 months

#18

Post by helwr »

when i search for HN it displays it at 8th place after some irrelevant punk band and an obscure town in Montenegro.

When i search for my name (as i always do to test search engines) it doesn't show my linkedIn profile with 500+ connections at all. Even Bing learned to find it.

Summary: Not usable (yet).

Re: DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for the past 7 months

#19

Post by epi0Bauqu »

magv wrote: post #11

I've been using DDG since the new privacy policy. There are two points I frequently bump into: 1. DDG has a spellchecker, but not a good one. For example, DDG correctly guesses "hcker news", but unlike Google it fails to correct e.g. "hooker news". 2. DDG is relatively good on general queries (like unique names), but not on specific ones (like phrases). Recent example: searching for "r6rs vote" on Google gives ratifi…

On 1, I was planning to backfill with Bing. In fact, I'll move that to the top of the list and do this weekend. Side note: Bing doesn't catch "hooker news" either; and should they?

On 2, I actually have that link but have something in place to only show one per domain. Perhaps I should choose the more specific one be default. Also will change!

I hope in time, it will impress you :). Please keep sending me feedback so I can improve!

Re: DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine for the past 7 months

#20

Post by epi0Bauqu »

helwr wrote: post #18

when i search for HN it displays it at 8th place after some irrelevant punk band and an obscure town in Montenegro. When i search for my name (as i always do to test search engines) it doesn't show my linkedIn profile with 500+ connections at all. Even Bing learned to find it. Summary: Not usable (yet).

Thanks. HN gets a disambiguation page. Arguably, Hacker News should be higher. In fact, it's on my list to re-visit the ordering by popularity. It does a bit of this now, but of course could be improved.

What's your name? I should actually be promoting LinkedIn pages, so this may be a bug. I'd love to check it out.

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