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Switching to DuckDuckGo and Firefox

qwerjk.com

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Re: Switching to DuckDuckGo and Firefox

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need DDG for that. Both Firefox and Chrome support adding shortcut keywords for search boxes. For example, in Firefox all you have to do is to right click on a search box and select "Add Keyword for this Search". It's much better than DDG because: 1) if you care about privacy, then this is obviously the right way, as you don't have to redirect through a third-party's server 2) you can add shortcuts for what…

I haven't played with Firefox keywords really but isn't the saved search still going through whatever the default search engine is (in Firefox, Google)? [Update] I guess my point is that DDG has it ready to go and the syntax is usually easy enough to figure out without building up one's own keyword list. Maybe I'm missing something, but it just seems that DDG offers a better solution.

Example: I use the letter 'd' for DDG searches in the address bar. In the "Show all bookmarks" window for the DDG bookmark, I've filled in "Location: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s" and "Keyword: d" .

When I enter into the address bar: "d turkey trot [return]" Firefox turns that into "https://duckduckgo.com/?q=turkey trot" and initiates the DDG search.

But you can use the same FF keyword feature to auto-generate a URL for any site. If you go to BoingBoing a lot, you could just enter 'bb [return]'.

[Note: some of the DDG 'bangs' are out of date ... try !js]

Re: Switching to DuckDuckGo and Firefox

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need DDG for that. Both Firefox and Chrome support adding shortcut keywords for search boxes. For example, in Firefox all you have to do is to right click on a search box and select "Add Keyword for this Search". It's much better than DDG because: 1) if you care about privacy, then this is obviously the right way, as you don't have to redirect through a third-party's server 2) you can add shortcuts for what…

I haven't played with Firefox keywords really but isn't the saved search still going through whatever the default search engine is (in Firefox, Google)? [Update] I guess my point is that DDG has it ready to go and the syntax is usually easy enough to figure out without building up one's own keyword list. Maybe I'm missing something, but it just seems that DDG offers a better solution.

No, it doesn't go through default search engine, only one http direct get request to the target search engine.

Re: Switching to DuckDuckGo and Firefox

#93
post #65
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG is Bing with some front end work, why not just use Bing and then you can use quotes searches without problem [1] [1] http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/ff524480.aspx

It's not just Bing. "DuckDuckGo's results are a compilation of "about 50" sources, including Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, Bing, its own Web crawler, the DuckDuckBot, and others." [1] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duckduckgo#Features

It is a meta search engine with lions share of queries answered by Yahoo! BOSS (which is backed by Bing).

Re: Switching to DuckDuckGo and Firefox

#94
Over several years of comparing, I find DDG results are fine for reasonably common questions and recent stuff. Sometimes when doing deep searches for more arcane topics (especially farther back in history) Google will get to what I'm looking for sooner. But I usually use Google Books for that stuff (which is where they retain a -big- advantage).

Re: Switching to DuckDuckGo and Firefox

#97
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your point. If there were such a difference between Chromium and Chrome, then it would surely show up in a diff of the binaries' disassemblies. The size of the binaries doesn't matter, because (assuming you trust the Chromium source and your local system) only the difference between the two is relevant.

My point is that it will show up in a diff of the binaries.

Isn't that what I said?

I said that the binaries could be diffed, then you responded that finding a difference is unlikely because the binary is very large. I don't understand what the absolute size of the binaries has to do with being able to compare them.

Re: Switching to DuckDuckGo and Firefox

#98
post #59

I'm glad to see more and more people switching (back) to Firefox, as I admit I'm quite a Firefox fanboy. I've never made the full switch to Chrome. First, as a long time linux user, Firefox was never so bad on it (startup time, random freeze for i/o...). Second, when Chrome was (a lot) faster Firefox had way more addons. Now Chrome has kinda fixed that (I still miss some essential addons, like Tree Style Tab), but Fi…

same, everyone I know switched to Chrome, and always had said "why are you still using Firefox?". Because I've used it since 0.5 or whatever, I like the browser, I've stuck with it. It doesn't install a bunch of uninstallable tools into Windows either like any Google app does (Try and find where you uninstall the Google update binaries, it involves deleting folders, editing the registry, editing scheduled tasks)

Re: Switching to DuckDuckGo and Firefox

#99
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss the functionality from browser in Mozilla Suite. Basically, when you type something in the address bar it would show your history and add "Search for ..." as the last option. So, even if you had large history, it was enough to press the UP arrow and switch from address to searching. AFAIK, this is still the way it works on SeaMonkey.

This is exactly how Firefox currently works, but you just press enter instead of up and then enter. If what you've got in the address bar doesn't look like an address, it'll google it for you.

It'll actually use whatever you have the search bar set to.

Re: Switching to DuckDuckGo and Firefox

#100
I'm currently using DDG + Safari with Glims. I would love to switch to Firefox, the only thing that's holding me back is the lack of a good replacement to ClickToPlugin killers.

Those are little js that will remove the flash/silverlight video and replace it with an mp4. This also effectively kills youtube ads.

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