DuckDuckGo vs Google • Hacker News Board

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#391

Post by earth_walker » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

I've used DDG on and off since the initial HN submission, and I have to agree with the 'like quitting smoking' comment.

In the past I would switch to it when I'm feeling some google-morning-after-shame (e.g. after seeing some targeted ads), I would stick with it for a day or two, but eventually go back to the 'what I wanted is on the first page' magic of google.

I've used DDG more consistently since changing the firefox search default, but there are still some things that I end up googling - sometimes DDG shows too many irrelevant results on the first page.

I think paying more attention to the bangs and moving away from 'keyword' searches will probably help - after all a tool is more useful if you learn how to use it properly - but for some topics (e.g. Haskell examples) if the first answer it finds isn't what I was looking for, the next couple of pages of results are usually useless too.

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#392

Post by kronos29296 » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 4:53 PM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #350

kronos29296 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite for common things but searching uncommon ones always throws it off. Searching for research publications in a specific domain or just haskell or some thing like just returns 1good result with 10 bad ones. So I use !g for those. Also the autocorrect really throws my search terms off while Google does is right most of the time.

Interesting: autocorrect on Google is almost always wrong for me. Every day, I need to add quotes to maybe 20 of my search queries.

Interestingly ddg requires quotes for me atleast twice a day. Still I have to use Google for stuff like Google scholar. So !g is pretty common for me.

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#393

Post by Brakenshire » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 4:53 PM UTC

benbenhu wrote: post #54

Lifesnoozer wrote: post #3

Recently switched over to DuckDuckGo on all my devices. Tried to do the same thing several years ago and found it didn't really work out, but this time around it is so much better, both when it comes to speed and results. If anyone has doubts because they tried it years ago, I'd say go for it again.

And don't forget to use the bangs that can allow you to check other engines results fast if you need. For people afraid of getting off google, you can always search something like '!g my-search', it works the same for youtube(!yt), google image(!gi), or even hackernews(!hn) And of course the best bang is the 'I am feeling lucky' one (!), i.e.: 'hackernews !'

Would be interested to hear what search engines people here use. I feel the promise of DDG is the ability to match your search engine to your purpose. Maybe if you want to search for a particular code snippet you can use a search engine that is friendly to programming syntax. Or if you want more lateral results, you use a search engine with an unusual algorithm. But I haven't yet been able to find alternatives, if they exist.

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#394

Post by tinus_hn » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 4:57 PM UTC

i_cant_speel wrote: post #374

Kiro wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's #6. Another movie called Baby Mama is #1.

Why would it be different for two different people if there isn't any tracking going on?

Not saying it is here but it could be dependent on your country.

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#395

Post by kllrnohj » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 4:58 PM UTC

Acalyptol wrote: post #339

kllrnohj wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to https://www.noppanit.com/how-to-index-all-wikipedia-english-... a search index for wikipedia's english site comes in at around 40GB. Laptops generally come in 128GB or 256GB capacities. So we're talking roughly 20-50% of an average laptop's storage just to hold the search index for wikipedia alone. Meaning it is not feasible to store a useful index of the web today on a laptop unless you want to dedicate…

Those are laptops with SSD. Laptops with HDD come in with 1TB+

Sure, but laptops with HDD are a niche case. That's not what your average user wants nor has and for good reason.

Your indexing performance would also sharply decline when subjected to the random access seek times of those 2.5" spinning metal.

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#396

Post by daxorid » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 4:59 PM UTC

endisukaj wrote: post #53

jankotek wrote: post #12

Bing, Seznam, Yandex, Baidu.. there are many other search engines with surprisingly good results. Give it try. I started using alternatives, for privacy, but also because they are often better. Google Maps can not even find near pharmacy in EU country.

You think Bing, Yandex, and especially Baidu are better for your privacy than Google?

With regard to Yandex and Baidu: there's the notion of threat proximity. Google is a US company, beholden to US laws. If you reside in the United States, you also reside in the jurisdiction of state actors with the capability to get at you.

If Putin himself showed up to Yandex HQ and demanded a full data dump of every search you made, he is still incapable of touching you, whereas J. Random Agent at the FBI can throw you in a 6x8 steel box.

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#397

Post by sanbor » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 5:05 PM UTC

andyhnj wrote: post #306

I use DDG everywhere except at work, where (for some reason) it's blocked. The one silly thing I miss about not having DDG at work: in DDG, I can type "new guid" and it gives me a new random guid. If there's a way to do that in Google, I haven't figured it out. (And yes I know there are a million other ways to get random guids. It's just convenient for me to get them this way.)

Also if you search "library genesis" it will include library genesis in the results.

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#398

Post by tinus_hn » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 5:09 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #107

Does anyone remember how back in the day, we had Lycos, Hotbot, Yahoo, Dogpile .. a whole host of search engines. You'd go to two or three to get an idea of what was out there. People had different indexes and there were a lot of players. Today, it's just Google. I've been using DDG for a few years, but about 1/3 of the time I add an !g because I don't find the results I need on DDG. The cost of entry to the search m…

Storage, computation and bandwidth costs have never been cheaper. The problem is that Google has an extremely high market share which makes it really difficult to get users.

Google climbed to the top because they focused on what matters: the right results, quickly, no fuss. Their competitors gave you unrelated spam for most queries and were slow and focusing on useless things.

Googles results are getting worse, there's more fuss than ever and it's getting slower all the time. So there definitely is an opportunity (which DuckDuckGo is taking).

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#399

Post by thehashrocket » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

AdamSC1 wrote: post #217

graphitezepp wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only miss google as a DDG user when DDG doesn't have a tool google has to give you an automatic result, i.e. when trying to look up some unit conversion ratio like lb to kg. But when you know that is what you want there is always !g.

Hey graphitezepp, We do have some of those tools, at DuckDuckGo they are called "Instant Answers." For example the query: "2 lb to kg" will bring you to this results page https://duckduckgo.com/?q=2+lb+to+kg&ia=answer You can see all our Instant Answers here: https://duck.co/ia If something isn't triggering for you - let us know with the feedback tool on the site! Disclaimer: DDG staff.

If you could get a "within the past year" search filter it would make me the happiest developer in the world. :)

Re: DuckDuckGo vs Google

#400

Post by cpeterso » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

I'm curious how DDG's affiliate revenue compares to search-based ads. The article glosses over affiliate programs, but they are an interesting revenue alternative to ads.