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DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

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Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#481

Post by Eupolemos »

redwall_hp wrote: post #472
godshatter wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this same problem. I use the same "subject sub-subject (...) specific query" tactic I've been using since forever and Google search has been becoming less effective for me over the years. I switched to DDG a couple of years ago I think, and it's better for handling that sort of thing. Is there a search engine out there that respects quotes, and, or, case-insensitive when asked for, etc? In some ways I miss the…

What's going on is those of us who have been using the Web since Google was brand new (or earlier...remember AltaVista?) expect a search engine to find text on web pages. What the average user in the post-smartphone world expects a search engine to do is deliver an answer to a question. These are basically incompatible, and it seems like a progressively smaller circle of the Web is being surfaced by Google these days…

Just a heads up; post-smartphone means the era after the smartphone.

Maybe you intended to say this, then I'm really curious about your perspective?

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#482

Post by ChuckMcM »

copperx wrote: post #477
ChuckMcM wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW you would have had a similar experience using Bing. I built a script based on some principals that were in place at Google when I was there to measure search quality[1] and have watched Bing steadily improve over time. I attribute it to a combination of more click stream data as more traffic has been funneled their way (through DDG and others), and algorithm rot at Google which is putting more and more paid cont…

What about DDG? Has their quality increased by your metrics?

Without the !g tag DDG usually gets their results from Bing (sometimes Yandex). So they track Bing's increase in search quality nearly exactly :-)

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#483

Post by mneubrand »

I switched a few month back and it's still painful for me. Plain search results are OK but Google is so much better with deep integrations.

Some examples:

- I google a sports team, it shows me most recent results

- I google a flight number, it shows me flight status

- I google.g. nyse djia, it shows me the current stock value

Unlike the author of this post I very much miss these. Now this means having to click through and find this info on flightaware, ESPN, some finance page, etc. instead of just immediately getting what I want

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#484

Post by spurgu »

Schlaefer wrote: post #429
azinman2 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always had the opposite experience with DDG. Technical queries gave just garbage results, where as I got meaningful hits on google each time.

This thread made me change to DDG (again). A few minutes later gimp was crashing on me, so I did the lazy thing: C&P some of the error into the search engine. This is the result of my fist search switching to DDG: https://i.imgur.com/05LxLDv.png DDG results are utterly useless, while google gives three highly relevant results solving my issue within a few seconds. Happens all the time. DDG: I want, I just can't. PS:…

This query seems to work a lot better:

    "the program gimp received an x window system error"

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#485

Post by karinakarina »

ignoramous wrote: post #458
xingyzt wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startpage is a privacy-oriented proxy of Google search results.

Weren't they bought by an ad-company recently? I used their anonymous browsing extensively, even if it was slow. I've all but stopped using them now.

Hi - Startpage person here. Sorry to hear you stopped using Startpage. We hope you'll give us another chance. Here's more info on the investment by System1/Privacy One: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...

Just FYI: We don’t collect or share your personal information. The Startpage founders continue to run the company as before and they have control over the privacy components of Startpage. With this investment, we hope to further expand our privacy features & reach new users. You may have already seen some of these new initiatives taking place. 1) Unfiltered News Tab launched in November: https://www.startpage.com/blog/product-updates/launching-unp... 2) Privacy Please! Newsletter launched in last month: https://www.startpage.com/blog/company-updates/welcome-priva... 3) We're pushing out more info via our blog & social than before, giving greater insight into how we make money (https://www.startpage.com/blog/privacy-awareness/advertising...) and how we keep your search private (https://www.startpage.com/blog/privacy-awareness/how-does-st...)

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#486

Post by karinakarina »

m12k wrote: post #371
anderspitman wrote: post #15

I switched over to DDG a few weeks ago. I slowly regressed to more and more !g usage, and finally switched back to GOOG a couple days ago. Then just an hour ago I searched for "google fiber stadia", because I was curious how well they work together. The main reddit result opened in an amp page (and of course reddit pressured me to install the mobile app). I went back to the results and started scrolling down. I hones…

I tried DDG half a year ago when I also switched back to Firefox, but didn't like the results at the time, so I switched to Startpage. Then for the past couple weeks, Startpage has been having technical issues, so I tried out DDG again. And it's nice. Like I don't even think about it. I'm actually impressed

Hi! Startpage person here. Sorry to hear you've been experiencing issues with Startpage. You can always reach out to us via social or our support page: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit/Rend.... It helps us let our team know of any issues that may affect users at large.

FYI: We're rolling out new privacy features this year. We hope you'll give us another chance. Thanks!

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#487

Post by karinakarina »

Fnoord wrote: post #66
andrepd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try using a google mirror instead, like Startpage. The google results without the spying.

Startpage is in bed with an advertising company.

Startpage is a search engine so it doesn't really sleep, hence no need for a bed or any bed-sharing. And we don’t collect or share your personal information.

And yes, we announced last year that System1/Privacy One invested in Startpage. Rest assured, the Startpage founders continue to run the company as before and they have control over the privacy components of Startpage. With this investment, we hope to further expand our privacy features & reach new users. More info on the investment: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#488

Post by TallGuyShort »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #422
TallGuyShort wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like more of what WolframAlpha caters to. Personally, I don't like assuming an engine has interpreted what I'm looking for correctly - I'd prefer to maintain some of the load of personally understanding the source of information and it's context. So here is what I do: >> distance from Los Angeles to New York !m los angeles to new york >> Joe Biden age !w joe biden >> knives out cast !imdb knives out >> cap…

Google and Bing both list all three capitals of South Africa. They also write out how they've interpreted your query so you can tell if they're giving you the answer to the right question.

Color me impressed by them, then - but it's still not the kind of thing I entirely trust to an engine. Even though in this specific example we're discussing in detail, it's doing the right thing. Hard to know when it's not. The "explanation" of how it was interpreted isn't much.

I'm also biased by the fact that I'm constantly delighted by the random things I learn by consulting Wikipedia about virtually every topic I encounter.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#490

Post by inferiorhuman »

_coveredInBees wrote: post #302
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…

I've switched to ddg for a while, and the one area where I find it really lacking in comparison to Google is that it is very poor in surfacing relevant hits from threads on forums or stackoverflow. Which is frustrating, as I'm almost more interested in results from there when looking up technical stuff than some spammy blog. It's gotten to the point where I almost always automatically bang out to Google for those typ…

I've used DDG for a while and my impression is that it seems worse than it's been in a while. I've been looking up documentation for some rust crates and DDG has been particularly unhelpful.

What prompted me to comment was trying to find information about the latest SARS-COV-2 story from Iran that had been published on SFGate.com. DDG was turning up news sites like: Infowars, Washington Times, Daily Kos, Zero Hedge, Red State, etc.

Google put the Guardian and WaPo front and center.

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