Nothing can stop DuckDuckGo. At least I hope so, I've been using it regularly for some years now and I love the Google-free experience.
Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway
121–130 of 252 posts
Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway
#122You know what can stop google? a search engine that assumes I want every word in my query, or even better a search engine that honors a string in quotes to mean these words in this order. When did google stop doing this? edit: This wouldn't stop google, it would just make that part of my life as easy as it was 10 years ago.
Google never stopped doing this.
I use quotes all the time for exact matches, and it always works. (Unless there are zero results, in which case it says so and falls back to unquoted.)
In fact, they were pretty public about this being the solution when they dropped "+" to mean required... to just surround in quotes instead.
Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's very much search topic related: * DDG is atrocious for anything other than English * Programing/IT searches often yield garbage on DDG while on Google a good result is within the first 3. I have it as my default now too, but "!g" is a constant companion. === Regarding Google and Amazon being unstoppable... it seemed the same once for Microsoft. Once they get too big/powerful (which they arguably already…
> "!g" is a constant companion. May I recommend an alternative bang? "!s" (for startpage.com) is my companion. It doesn't always work perfectly, but in theory [0] Startpage offers the same (edit: non-bubbled[1]) results as big G, while retaining your privacy. !s usually works for me. I always use !s before begrudgingly doing a !g. I have no other affiliation to Startpage or DDG. And to be fair, I think we have to sim…
Oh, thank you, kind stranger. I’ve long disliked that !g is a constant companion, and didn’t know about !s. You are my hero of the day.
Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway
#124Back in the day, before I just defaulted to using Google, I remember checking multiple search engines to find the thing I was looking for. You'd check Yahoo/Google/Lycos, try a couple of different phrasings, and then if that didn't work try searching on a few other search engines. Somewhere along the way, Google had won me over, because I almost always found my answer. I had stopped even considering other search engi…
> I find that I'm following a similar pattern
Situation is much different now. Most Internet users don't even know what's a search engine. They just type in the URL bar and the search is performed transparently. Google has majority share on two main platforms (Google Chrome on desktop and Android on mobile) ensuring that their search is the default for the majority of users and is something people would get used to.
If a user isn't aware that choice even exists, they have no choice.
I believe this was recognized by Google years ago and thus their move into Android and replacing Firefox. Looking back, those were really smart, well executed strategies.
Even if Google search were to drop quality, it's so entrenched that it would take enormous effort to replace it at #1 spot. You would have to build a mobile operating system, a browser and a search engine - and all three would have to better in some way for users to switch.
Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Two things I also miss are "site:url" filters (dont know if ddg provides this) How can you miss it when you haven't tried it? Yes, ddg supports it [0] It also supports limited date ranges, like last week, last month etc [1] [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+duckdu... [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=php+json+site%3Astackoverflow.com&...
Well stupid me. Thanks. site: doesn't work in my browser url bar at the start so I got used to prepend !g... I know, a terrible workaround.. Could not find a way to search within specific years which is very useful for overloaded terms. It says, they are working on it..
You can start your searches with a space :)
Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway
#126I've had more success finding TV shows on ddg. Google still a bit better for coding questions
Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's very much search topic related: * DDG is atrocious for anything other than English * Programing/IT searches often yield garbage on DDG while on Google a good result is within the first 3. I have it as my default now too, but "!g" is a constant companion. === Regarding Google and Amazon being unstoppable... it seemed the same once for Microsoft. Once they get too big/powerful (which they arguably already…
I wish I could tell ddg that I only care about postgresql. It seems heavily skewed to oracle/ms server when searching anything sql related. Perhaps because it's powered by Bing?
Add '!psql' to your search. A full list of these is at https://duckduckgo.com/bang .
Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without the personal information being recorded and sold. Kind of goes to show that the personal information we are giving away may not be that important when it comes to finding what we need, even as it makes us a bigger and juicier target for ads.
Yet still it is Bing search + Bing ads.
DuckDuckGo do have their own crawler, how much it’s used I don’t know.
Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway
#129I have always used DuckDuckGo instead of Google and to be fair, they both perform the same way except DuckDuckGo provides more privacy which is something that is important to people anyways.
Re: Nothing Can Stop Google. DuckDuckGo Is Trying Anyway
#130Google seems to have a strong hold on up-to-date news sources. I find myself going to !g when trying to find information on a current event.