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Google Alternatives

justprivacy.org

191–200 of 247 posts

Re: Google Alternatives

#191

I've tried really hard to not use google for search. But DDG is bad. I have it set as my default search. I find myself either: 1) trying duck duck go and then immediately re-searching in google to actually get relevant answers. 2) skipping the search bar and going immediately to google when I know DDG just isn't going to work. Feels like back in the olden days when you had to try Altavista, Lycos and Yahoo to find wh…

I use DDG as my default and it gets me 90% of the way there. Sometimes when I search for programming syntax and I know there is one canonical answer that should be the top link, DDG doesn't show up but google does. My !g bangs have become rare now. Becoming used to a new search engine was worth the trade in privacy in my opinion.

Re: Google Alternatives

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That adds more time since the query is sent to DDG and then bounces the browser to Google. For searches where one prefers Google, using it directly (which is easier in Firefox for me) is a better option.

What’s even the point of using !g to go to google it just redirects me last I checked so it’s still giving you your personalized searches (thus not a solution for privacy.) Am I missing something here?

I think it lets DDG know you weren't satisfied with the results for a particular query.

Re: Google Alternatives

#194

I'm actually confused if this site was created ironically. * "Google search is malicious, send the same data to Russia with Yandex instead." * Apparently Google Chrome is a search engine. * "Google doesn’t care about users’ privacy that much. It collects your data and uses it for their own purposes." Might just be me, but this reads like a throwaway essay written by an 8th grader. * The site uses Google Analytics. De…

Sometimes I wonder how some random low quality article gets bumped up so fast, and then I think it's about keywords, but that doesn't explain the upvotes. Are people upvoting articles without reading both the article and the comments? I get the no-article part where you skip to the comments but if the comments shit on the article, why upvote?

[deleted]

Re: Google Alternatives

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been very pleased with https://www.runnaroo.com .

Yes I really like it as well. The only thing is their image search which doesn't really give me anything useful, so I still resort to google for that.

Yandex image search is way better in my experience. At least for "search by image"

Re: Google Alternatives

#196

I'm actually confused if this site was created ironically. * "Google search is malicious, send the same data to Russia with Yandex instead." * Apparently Google Chrome is a search engine. * "Google doesn’t care about users’ privacy that much. It collects your data and uses it for their own purposes." Might just be me, but this reads like a throwaway essay written by an 8th grader. * The site uses Google Analytics. De…

I remember this tune during 90s and 00s with Microsoft, it was so cool back then...

Re: Google Alternatives

#197

I've tried really hard to not use google for search. But DDG is bad. I have it set as my default search. I find myself either: 1) trying duck duck go and then immediately re-searching in google to actually get relevant answers. 2) skipping the search bar and going immediately to google when I know DDG just isn't going to work. Feels like back in the olden days when you had to try Altavista, Lycos and Yahoo to find wh…

Do you (or anyone else who finds Google significantly better than DDG) search Google as a logged-in user, and is perhaps this the reason you find their results to be better?

I never log in, since I mainly use the only sign-in-mandatory service, Gmail, on my phone. DDG and Bing suck balls compared to Google, sadly. Google has been worse too over the years .

The past few years, I'm sure I've wasted a lot of time searching on the net, looking for relevant articles while Google spouts out BS.

Re: Google Alternatives

#199
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made the exact same experience. Sometimes when I can't get satisfying results I try to use google, but in most cases the results are even worse. Googles search results just don't make any sense to me by now. There is one feature that google has which I can't find a good alternative for: Reverse search of images. Hands down, that's a good one, Google.

Yandex has it https://yandex.ru/images/touch/

And it's much better than google's. Google will only find same image (different resolution or very minor changes), yandex finds similar images in general. That said google's image search has some use because google's index is still bigger than yandex's. (For people who prefer English interface https://yandex.com/images/)

Re: Google Alternatives

#200
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, this in anecdotal, but i believe most of the cases where ddg lets me down are when the query is VERY specific. More general searches seem to have no diff between google and ddg results.

This is my intuition as well. As soon as the query gets too specific, I'll just tack on a "!g".

This is precisely my approach. I’m an engineer so sometimes need to make very esoteric searches, but I’ve been using DDG for coming up on 10y.
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