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Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

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Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#131

Post by takeda »

DougN7 wrote: post #34
StevePerkins wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just disable your ad blocker for their site. They're not a philanthropy, they have a profitable ad-based business model.

They use Bing ads. It’s really unfortunate - I’d love to help them and advertise with them, but 99% of my ads will show on Bing and its other properties, which is not what I want to support.

Won't try to justify that Microsoft is no longer as bad as it was in 90s, but IMO Google needs competition.

TBH I miss 90s and early 00s when we had many search engines to choose from. They were only helping using the Internet instead changing it to make it more profitable for themselves.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#132

Post by FabHK »

epicide wrote: post #88
lucb1e wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who really doesn't like having to prefix that symbol and never types bangs? I type faster than most other tech people but putting my whole left hand on the left side of the keyboard to press Shift with my pinky and 1 with my ring finger is more trouble than adding a keyword for the search in Firefox ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches ). Especially because I type the G, Y, and W (goog…

> putting my whole left hand on the left side of the keyboard to press Shift with my pinky and 1 with my ring finger Try using your right pinky to press shift when typing a bang. If you want to just use one hand, try holding shift with pinky and hitting 1 with your middle finger. Slightly less stretching.

> Try using your right pinky to press shift when typing a bang.

That's the way I do it, and I'd have thought the only way to do it.... you assign fingers to keys, and if you need the shifted key, you use the other hand to press shift and the original designated finger to hit the key itself. The way GP describes it sounds painful.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#133

Post by FabHK »

viach wrote: post #21

Do you know that DDG is just a sophisticated proxy to another search engine under the hood, which probably has even lower standards for privacy than Google and using DDG you indirectly support it?

1. Yes, and that proxying provides value (privacy)

2. There's more to it, such as the bangs, keyboard-based result selection, etc.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#134

Post by takeda »

lawl wrote: post #18
cvnyw wrote: post #2

I've been using it for a few months and I find myself using !g for like 4 out of 5 requests. Also image search is VERY slow, images load like in a slideshow. I'll end up going back to Google. I like the idea of DDG and I have a strong dislike for Google but DDG is simply not there yet. Having said that it's better than it was five years ago, when it was simply insufferable. So, maybe in five years? ;)

When as that? Because I had the same experience of constantly using !g a few years ago. Decided to try ddg again around 6 months ago and it's gotten a lot better imo. Rarely use !g anymore and kept it as my default engine since. Sometimes ddg results are even straight up better. Most of the time I use !g is when looking up location sensitive stuff, e.g. non-english local government stuff etc.

I had similar experience, at least in my case, I think it is just due to being used to Google. Most of the time I issue !g (when DDG results aren't that good) Google also gives not much better ones.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#135

Post by utopcell »

reitanqild wrote: post #105
utopcell wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with falling back only 20% to 25% of the time is that you don't know what you've missed. By going to Google you already realize it is a better engine. What is the tangible gain of this self-sabotaging ?

> What is the tangible gain of this self-sabotaging ? Is it self sabotaging to not drive a Mercedes (or Audi or Tesla or what you think is best). Or is it a choice you made to go down a notch in quality to gain something else? Edit: besides I originally moved because I was really annoyed that Google couldn't respect my searches, so I didn't feel I lost much. Sadly lately DDG has been copying Googles bad habit of fuzz…

Yes it is, if is the same price as your Hyundai (that is, free). If however you moved because you found Google's results to be inferior, then that is a perfectly valid reason.

As for the "something else" gain, my concern with this is that it is only claimed, not observed. You don't know what DDG does with your data, you have their word for it. You might think that they don't use your data because you don't see personalized results, but what people forget is that DDG is not a search engine in itself but rather a wrapper around other search engines: Bing, and the Russian search engine Yandex. At least Bing does not provide personalized search results as-a-service.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#136

Post by hjek »

kitotik wrote: post #64
hjek wrote: post #28

DDG is just a proxy for Bing. Yes, let's degoogle our lives, but why not start using a free/libre metasearch engine (like Searx[0]), while you're at it? [0]: https://asciimoo.github.io/searx/

Citation needed. They use Bing Ads, but I’m not sure if their actual search results are just proxied Bing results.

I think nowadays they mix in some results from other search engines, but it started out as just Bing results. Doesn't change the point about it being just a proprietary interface to other proprietary search engines.

> We do use results from Bing. Our zero-click info and some other stuff we do, however, uses results from all over.[0]

[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20180910181021/https://duck.co/f...

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#137

Post by takeda »

ravenstine wrote: post #16
pseudoramble wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, I've been using it for a few years now and I've maybe used !g 4 or 5 times total in the past couple of years. I find the performance of image searches just fine myself. So it's always fascinating to see that people report such different experiences with DDG. It's hard to know for sure what's happening though. Maybe my searches are just very simple and don't need anything complex? Maybe I'm luckier a…

I alsmost never need !s or !g, and I tend to find what I'm looking for. Most of my searches tend to be related to coding, so it just could be that DDG is particularly good at those queries, but I still wonder what exactly it is that people are finding on Google that isn't on DDG. And I used to be one of those people who thought DDG was lousy.

Same, I think it might be something psychological like being used to the Google page.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#139

Post by utopcell »

I find it mind-boggling that privacy-conscious folks go for DDG. This is a company that hides in their FAQ that their results are also backed by Yandex [1], and the first thing they ask you to do when you go to their home page is install a Chrome extension, giving them full access to your machine, let alone your searches.

[1] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#140

Post by grimgrin »

lucb1e wrote: post #114
grimgrin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an odd complaint when I first read it Maybe it relates to hand pain and stuff You could use right shift, also, though that’d be tricky for my brain

Maybe it helps to know that I'm a Vim user and I notice the difference it makes when having to move my hand to the mouse (or even the arrow/home/page-up keys) to position my cursor as opposed to using Vim key bindings?

Doing a ! doesn’t really shift much from home row positioning. Certainly not as much as arrow keys would

I do understand the thought though. After doing a few years on a mac and learning to love pushing cmd with my thumb, which was a lot of actions like cut copy paste and more, I began to hate if I had to use left pinky for anything ctrl related

Even on linux or windows today I’ll map ctrl directly left of spacebar so I can keep the same habit up

It’s naturally great for me in vim too, be it moving up and down the page with ^d and ^u or some custom ^ mapping, etc

I think if you're a heavy command line user or even programmer, you'll be having to do ! and ` and ~ and so on, meaning -- it's some pretty solid muscle memory

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