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DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

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Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#171

Post by [deleted] »

ianbutler wrote: post #87
gonehome wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried it recently? I generally agree that people made excuses for DDG when it was clearly worse and unusable, but today it’s good enough to use instead (I think it’s better). I’d try it again if you haven’t for a while. Maybe your needs are different than mine, but since we’re both on HN there’s probably pretty good overlap. Small thing, but I really like how DDG results are primarily links to websites and I…

I have tried it recently and my co-founder and I are literally building a new search experience because we are deeply unsatisfied with the current ones.

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#172

Post by benhurmarcel »

vesinisa wrote: post #40

I don't know. I am using DDG from outside the U.S. but with English as the primary search language. The Google's localized results are just an order of magnitude better. I end up re-doing almost 10-20% of my searches in Google after being dissapointed with DDG results. Most of the time Google results are sadly superior. And don't get me even started in searching in my native language (Finnish). DDG is close to useles…

For the same reason I find DDG very useful when I don’t want localized results, which is hard to get with Google. I currently live in Spain and Google returns mostly Spanish results, even on unrelated queries like programming or a device review.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#173

Post by xigency »

Grimm1 wrote: post #157
ampdepolymerase wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any links to your new project?

Yup there is (alpha.whize.co) the question mark at the top links to a blog post with our broader goals though we've refined them a bit since that post. I'll warn you though, the alpha has a really limited index (github results) but was meant to showcase how we think we'll initially prioritize results and gauge people's interest versus this is the final version because as you can imagine crawling the larger internet i…

No offense, but I literally cannot find anything on GitHub with this search engine.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#174

Post by willturman »

ce4 wrote: post #155
burlesona wrote: post #116

A few years ago I switched my desktops to use DDG while leaving my phone using Google. At first I had to !g all the time. Now that’s rare. Now I’m starting to have the other problem. If I search for a company, product, person, etc., on DDG it’s the first hit. But on google I just get a wall of ads and videos, and it’s hard to tell where the actual homepage is for the thing I’m looking for. So as of now I would say, g…

It looks more and more like Google wants to convert native search hits to paid clicks... Notice how often when you search for "company" you find the company's ad first and then below the native search result...

Agreed, and the ad is often immediately above the native search result 1-2.

I'm guessing clicking the ad costs the company money per click, and the native search result doesn't? If I'm explicitly searching for a company, and I'd prefer that they don't have to incur an advertising penalty on my behalf, I'd need to scroll past the first result to the second.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#175

Post by mcyukon »

I've been using DDG for about the last 2 years. The only thing that throws me for a loop once in awhile is that some local businesses only have their open hours entered with Google. Searching for that business in DDG will show their address but not their open hours. Their hours are also not listed on facebook, Yelp, or TripAdvisor. Where as on Google, it's right there in their little knowledge panel on the right.

A business where this is happening: Pho 5 Star Vietnamese Cuisine - Whitehorse Yukon

Other than that, most of the time DDG gets me better results than Google. I work in the trades and look up a lot of tools/tool reviews and google results are a dumpster fire of bad results full of these odd adsites that all look similar, have obvious generated URLs, and clone amazon descriptions and reviews. They are also ranked high on page 1 of Googles search results, and the trust worthy sites are getting pushed down or even to the next page.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#178

Post by smichel17 »

4ad wrote: post #30
speps wrote: post #11

It's only good enough when you're in the US, I live in the UK and DDG consistently returns non local results even though the country is set correctly, it's especially annoying given how many US cities are named after their UK counterpart.

That means I should try DDG. I NEVER EVER want local results, and Google always gives me local results. If I'd want local results I would put my country or my city in the search query.

DDG has a toggle to choose whether to prioritize local results or not. Try a search, and then it's prominent enough that I don't think I need to describe its location; you'll find it if you're looking.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#179

Post by CmdrKrool »

svnpenn wrote: post #143
burkaman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn that off in the settings: https://duckduckgo.com/settings

No you cant. You can turn off auto loading, but you cant set it so that results are paginated.

This is true. Unfortunately DDG is flatly not interested in offering paginated results, if this 2 year old post by the staff member 'moollaza' on Reddit still applies.

https://old.reddit.com/r/duckduckgo/comments/757gde/how_to_m...

My post there as 'the_minion_in_red' details how turning off "Auto-Load" works inconsistently depending on how you scroll, anyway - a behaviour which I see is still present and incorrect today.

And the 'lite' and 'html' views I suggest for the benefit of another poster, I don't much like because they're doing something to make the address bar URL not change so I can't easily bookmark a search.

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