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Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

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Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#151

Post by cfarm »

phatfish wrote: post #27

I have used it as a default for at least 2 years. I'd estimate drop back to Google for 20-25% of specific "subject matter" searches, mostly around technology. Probably a bit less than that for general searches. Most of the time I run the same search on Google the results are very similar for the top hits. But Google does seem to produce helpful results that are not exactly what I searched for more often. DDG also ske…

Is there any quantitative data that you can get to show how "good" the results are vs google?

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#152

Post by reitanqild »

utopcell wrote: post #135
reitanqild wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 person…

> 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.

In my case the price was higher and for a while the results were better.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#154

Post by klingonopera »

I've been on DDG since about November/December last year.

I thought I'd probably change back to the Gman within a few days, but I still use it.

And I only today found out about "!g" (I was literally typing "google.com/search?q=terms" into my address bar everytime).

Averaging about 1 in 5 searches I need to go to Google to get my results. Mostly stuff regarding popularity and currentness, like memes e.g., or (admittingly bad and lazy) natural language queries where Google also has an edge.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#156

Post by dontbenebby »

divbzero wrote: post #147
neltnerb wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By a huge margin the most frequent time I drop back to Google is because they have unit conversions built in. So I can send duckduckgo a query like "!g speed of light / 400nm in terahertz" and I get the calculated unit-correct answer immediately. It's basically replaced my TI-89 for years, I hate doing calculations with units by hand and it's super error prone to not include them in the calculations. For everything e…

DuckDuckGo does do unit conversions “100 JPY in EUR” [1] and unit-less calculations “2^32 - 1” [2]. [1]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=100+JPY+in+EUR [2]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=2%5E32-1 But like you I drop back for unit-aware calculations. For those an alternative to Google is Wolfram Alpha “!wa speed of light / 400nm in terahertz” [3] which also allows for symbolic computation “!wa integral of 2x” [4]. [3]: https://…

When DDG fails for a conversion I usually append !wa and Wolfram Alpha parses it easily

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#157

Post by dontbenebby »

phatfish wrote: post #27

I have used it as a default for at least 2 years. I'd estimate drop back to Google for 20-25% of specific "subject matter" searches, mostly around technology. Probably a bit less than that for general searches. Most of the time I run the same search on Google the results are very similar for the top hits. But Google does seem to produce helpful results that are not exactly what I searched for more often. DDG also ske…

>I'd estimate drop back to Google for 20-25% of specific "subject matter" searches

Why not use the Startpage bang? (!s)

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#158

Post by dontbenebby »

Timucin wrote: post #90
jplayer01 wrote: post #84

DDG's search results seem consistently terrible whenever I try to use it for an extended period of time. It's fine for really basic searches, but anything more specialized or niche is terrible (considering my interests, that's all of my searches). I mostly use Startpage nowadays instead, which seems to give me good enough results most of the time.

I believe having privacy puts the user at disadvantage since DDG doesn't keep your history or track who you are. i.e. Google knows definitely knows I am a developer and shows the tech related things first even when I search for super generic words. That's why people think DDG doesn't do a good job but I think it does if you can be more specific. Yet I agree it's not better than or equal to Google when it comes to ima…

>I believe having privacy puts the user at disadvantage since DDG doesn't keep your history or track who you are. i.e. Google knows definitely knows I am a developer and shows the tech related things first

One way to compensate is to be very specific.

Ex: "python programing language string slice" not just "python slice".

Most people have (without consciously thinking about it) learned to treat search terms as labels on a venn diagram with the center being the search results.

To get the most out of DDG search like it's 1999 - be specific and use operators

https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/syntax/

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#159

Post by [deleted] »

octosphere wrote: post #87
skellera wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What search engine do you use then?

I use a few. Putting all my eggs in one basket is a bad idea in general. If you must know, I do use DDG, but strictly with Tor and sometimes a VPN. In no order: https://eu.startpage.com https://www.searx.me/ https://www.ecosia.org/ https://millionshort.com/ https://www.mojeek.com/ https://www.qwant.com (All used with Tor and sometimes a VPN)

[deleted]
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