Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

mahdiyusuf.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 127 posts

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#11

Post by martingordon »

bob_kelso wrote: post #7

I tried DDG for little more than a week about a year a go and it made me realize how much I use the search suggestion feature in Chrome. The lack of that feature using DDG really annoyed me. Often I don't know the exact spelling of the thing I'm looking for or the best way to phrase my question (English being my third language), and the suggestions I get in chrome just by typing a few letters in the address bar is re…

The DDG + Google Suggest Plugin would be of interest to you: http://ddgg.nfriedly.com/

It gives you suggestions from Google but runs the search on DDG.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#12

Post by googletron »

SpeakMouthWords wrote: post #8

The writer appears to be the wrong audience of !bang. As a physics student, I find !w tremendously helpful. Image searching is also much faster since it all can be done in the search bar rather than requiring the mouse. !wa for wolfram alpha is again great. It's far better for sites in which there is no better alternative than using their search bar, rather than the type of usage the article seemed to employ.

Thats only because the search for wikipedia is good; but for example !python isn't as great. It is nice for convenience but relying on site's internal search is kind of a cop out, albeit smart for their purposes.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#13

Post by protolif »

I think the bubble trend is dangerous. For a while, I was comfortable with Google knowing so much about me. But since they're using that data to decide what I need to know, I decided that it was time to ween myself off their services, including Business Gmail.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#14

Post by zobzu »

protolif wrote: post #13

I think the bubble trend is dangerous. For a while, I was comfortable with Google knowing so much about me. But since they're using that data to decide what I need to know, I decided that it was time to ween myself off their services, including Business Gmail.

What I find interesting, if not sad (sorry), is that it was clear, obvious, simple, like a punch the face that Google would use the data.

Yet you and billion others decided to be comfortable with it. Today the trend is clearly changing and privacy starts to become important. People not getting/losing jobs over it and other such problems certainly don't help.

But still. Faith in humanity certainly doesn't fare very well these days ;-)

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#15

Post by Tyr42 »

googletron wrote: post #12
SpeakMouthWords wrote: post #8

The writer appears to be the wrong audience of !bang. As a physics student, I find !w tremendously helpful. Image searching is also much faster since it all can be done in the search bar rather than requiring the mouse. !wa for wolfram alpha is again great. It's far better for sites in which there is no better alternative than using their search bar, rather than the type of usage the article seemed to employ.

Thats only because the search for wikipedia is good; but for example !python isn't as great. It is nice for convenience but relying on site's internal search is kind of a cop out, albeit smart for their purposes.

Ok, !python, in particular, sucks. So don't ! the python. Everything else is a plus though. !hoogle is awesome.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#16

Post by reledi »

SpeakMouthWords wrote: post #8

The writer appears to be the wrong audience of !bang. As a physics student, I find !w tremendously helpful. Image searching is also much faster since it all can be done in the search bar rather than requiring the mouse. !wa for wolfram alpha is again great. It's far better for sites in which there is no better alternative than using their search bar, rather than the type of usage the article seemed to employ.

You can manage your search engines in Chrome to get the same !bang effect. Slightly better in my opinion, because you don't have to type the awkward '!' and you don't have to go to a website just to search another website.

For example, if I have the URL http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%s tied to the 'wa' keyword, I can now search Wolfram Alpha from the address bar by typing 'wa'.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#17

Post by protolif »

zobzu wrote: post #14
protolif wrote: post #13

I think the bubble trend is dangerous. For a while, I was comfortable with Google knowing so much about me. But since they're using that data to decide what I need to know, I decided that it was time to ween myself off their services, including Business Gmail.

What I find interesting, if not sad (sorry), is that it was clear, obvious, simple, like a punch the face that Google would use the data. Yet you and billion others decided to be comfortable with it. Today the trend is clearly changing and privacy starts to become important. People not getting/losing jobs over it and other such problems certainly don't help. But still. Faith in humanity certainly doesn't fare very we…

You're right. They were bound to use that data. I just assumed that it was for serving up more targeted averts. I'm not against making money. I just don't want to see what happened with newspaper and TV happen to the internet.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#18

Post by prezjordan »

jarcoal wrote: post #9
loverobots wrote: post #6

Google is better only with ads turned off. Otherwise DDG and Bing beat Google's ads anytime. Try surfing Google without an ad blocker to see what I'm talking about, they've gone way over what's acceptable. Either way I go the extra mile to give the underdog a chance.

Google has gone so far over the line with ads it's ridiculous. I didn't even realize it until recently when I disabled my ad blocker for a moment. I'm amazed Googlers can look at that every day at work and not feel like their company has lost it's way. Just checked it now with ad blocker off on my 13" macbook air screen. The organic results are barely above the fold... barely. Offensive.

Care to post a screenshot? I just disabled AdBlock and looks legitimately the same.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#20

Post by bob_kelso »

cemerick wrote: post #10
bob_kelso wrote: post #7

I tried DDG for little more than a week about a year a go and it made me realize how much I use the search suggestion feature in Chrome. The lack of that feature using DDG really annoyed me. Often I don't know the exact spelling of the thing I'm looking for or the best way to phrase my question (English being my third language), and the suggestions I get in chrome just by typing a few letters in the address bar is re…

You might like: http://ddgg.nfriedly.com/ Adds in a browser search engine option that targets duckduckgo, but uses google for autocomplete/suggestions.

Wow, thank you for pointing this out to me. I think it's time I give DDG a second chance.
Post reply on HN