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Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

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Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#171

Post by PrivacyGirl »

mnm1 wrote: post #125
thesmallestcat wrote: post #40

> I'm getting a feeling that some day in future, DDG is going to become as big as Google, if not supersede it. Well, no, they don't even have their own search engine. > a search engine's results are only as accurate as the number of users who search and contribute to it That makes no sense. Anyway, we don't use DDG because its results are shitty.

The results are extremely shitty indeed, especially for tech and programming related topics. I tried DDG for months and I found myself running every search twice, normally and once with !g appended. That's beyond shitty.

That's not true. DuckDuckGo is good, though I prefer StartPage because it provides actual Google search results in privacy. But calling DDG shitty just isn't fair.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#172

Post by st3v3r »

macintux wrote: post #151
st3v3r wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I'm not willing to do that. I'm not willing to put up with inferior results on the promise that maybe, someday in the future, they might get better.

I remember how impossible searching was before Google. DDG at its worst is infinitely better than that.

It very well might be. But there's also something better. And I'd prefer to use the better option.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#173

Post by PrivacyGirl »

cptskippy wrote: post #47
thesmallestcat wrote: post #40

> I'm getting a feeling that some day in future, DDG is going to become as big as Google, if not supersede it. Well, no, they don't even have their own search engine. > a search engine's results are only as accurate as the number of users who search and contribute to it That makes no sense. Anyway, we don't use DDG because its results are shitty.

> Well, no, they don't even have their own search engine. Really? I've never heard this, do you have anymore information about it?

Here is information on a search engine blog I follow about a big relationship upgrade with Yahoo. Maybe this will bring good improvements: http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2016/12/13/duckduckgo-makes-se...

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#175

Post by qbaqbaqba »

ky738 wrote: post #10
collyw wrote: post #2

I use DuckDuck go as my default search on my machines, but I think the fact that Google is not anonymous does give them a big advantage. An obvious example of this is when I search for "Django" (I am primarily a Django developer). DuckDuckGo will return results about the film as the top hits, whereas Google already knows that I mean Django Web Framework and will return those as the top hits. I appreciate the fact tha…

And DuckDuckGo is not really comparable when you don't live in the US. Google is far more superior, even without your info.

...and if you don't use English it's pretty much useless.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#176

Post by ocdtrekkie »

jumpCastle wrote: post #106
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How were you trying to migrate? I've been doing a Gmail->FastMail migration and I definitely had no issues with original email dates.

It was a few months ago, so I don't remember exactly, but I believe I followed the instructions that fastmail provided. If you say you didn't have this problem then I will try again. Thanks for the answer

In my case, FWIW, I used an IMAP-compatible mail client (Outlook), and dragged my crud from one mailbox to the other. I did have some issues where mail conversations where different messages were under different labels ended up in not copying fully over, but that's partly because I migrated section by section.

Also, of course, note that if you have a mail message under two Gmail labels, and use IMAP to copy your folders, you'll probably end up with two copies of that message.

Migrating out of Gmail, FWIW, is still a pain because they are so nonstandard now.

But I never had an issue with the dates on the emails.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#177

Post by dethos »

keeganjw wrote: post #19

DDG has been my default search for the last few years and I only very rarely use it for it's native search results. The bang (!) search syntax is by far the biggest reason I use it. It allows me to search sooooo many websites directly from the address bar. If you want normal Google search results, use !g. If you want Google Images, use !gi. Amazon? !a. Wikipedia? !w. The list goes on and on and on. Edit: grammar.

Completely agree. I also have been using DDG for a few years and got used to the bangs.

The results for a general search usually are good enough, so don't I even bother to use Google directly.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#178

Post by aq3cn »

hedora wrote: post #144
aq3cn wrote: post #13

I use searx.me more often than any other search engine because along with giving the result it also display the search engine which it uses to fetch the result. I mean it is very important to know the areas where each of the search engine excel. Privacy is a concern for sure, but DuckDuckGo cannot win me over on the basis of privacy only. DuckDuckGo can be an answer to privacy concerned people, but it cannot beat Goo…

It would be great if they made ! more discoverable. For instance, it could tell you the ! code needed to limit searches to the engine that produced each "niche" blue link and gray box at the top of the screen (the one that inlines amazon product thumbnails/prices, wikipedia article synopses, stack overflow answers.", etc)

But the question is, why are we looking for a Swiss Army Knife?

I make all kinds of search queries but I only use privacy centric search engines when required for my particular concerns. In my opinion, the best way to stay anonymous is by disguising yourself as normal. Today's browser are capable of switching search engines with the use of a single letter before the search query to make use of a particular search engine. And one can easily visit Firefox search engine database to include it in their list.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?atype=4

I haven't use DuckDuckGo's bang features, so I really don't understand what are they trying to achieve other than proxying the search result which I already satisfactorily achieve by having multiple Firefox profile with different proxies.

I think this is never ending quest of integrating new search engines in DuckDuckGo. But it will never match the native use. For example, take Wolfram Alpha or TinEye(Reverse Image Search).

Bottom line is that there are million ways to stay anonymous while using native search engines instead of routing it through third party services.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#179

Post by nickpsecurity »

hedora wrote: post #167
nickpsecurity wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright. I even agree for most comments albeit less for this one. Let's try it your way so the feedback is specific, constructive, inclusive to audiences unfamiliar with grading search, and not profane. Here's my similar experience using the DuckDuckGo, search service after being a long-time user of the Google, search service. 1. I type search terms in text form into Google in an attempt to get a list of results that…

Thank you for the long response. I have done similar comparisons dozens of times, but only using search terms that duck duck go performs poorly on, and have had the opposite experience (this is a much harder test for ddg to pass than what you describe, making your comment more surprising). What search terms are you using? Ideally, could you provide some searches that perform poorly on ddg, but well if you prepend g!…

"What search terms are you using?"

Don't even remember. It was mostly technology, history, academic papers, games, movies, and so on. I'm someone whose good at working around search engines but has a bad memory. I'm unfortunately not a good test case for the input as I get good at unconsciously working around problems to make a better baseline. I did have to regularly switch over to Google, though.

"but well if you prepend g! to the term (which runs an anonymized google search)?"

I didn't know about that feature at all. Thanks for telling me. I was going to run search through DDG and Google next time I have trouble to document the difference. Now, I'm considering doing DDG, DDG w/ Google option, and Google itself to see what the per-user customizations bring vs anonymized Google.

"If the difference always comes down to google search personalization"

I didn't think about that angle with Google. Surprised I overlooked it. I don't think it was affecting my search as a lot of it should have a large number of searchers. The esoteric stuff definitely got better results in Google over DDG's default, esp CompSci papers. Before I had Search Link Fix, I would type them into DDGo to get an actual, non-Google link to the PDF. This usually worked but some papers didn't exist in DDG at all. Even though they probably should've indexed the site (eg a university). So, it was clearly a deficiency. Other times, it was an obscure site that's been around a while but maybe low traffic dropped it out of a cache or something. Google had it since they store pages & have been for long time. (shrug)

So, maybe I can collect these into a little pile of files to drop on the team for their debugging.

"so I filtered ddg on setuid about half way through my search there."

Worst-case scenario. It's happened to me on occasion when a common term, esp reported in any news outlet, flooded my results with garbage. Eliminate it hoping to filter the noise. Usually works but this time the signal went out with the noise. I'm not so harsh on search engines with things like that since people in support forums drop all kinds of jargon that may or may not be related during discussion of a specific problem. I think that causes the bad results.

Out of curiosity, though, I ran your example. Your example is weird. They get the same top result with next best on one being a StackOverflow answer while another looks at StackExchange. I don't know what you were trying to do where I can't gauge the effectiveness of the answer. Here's a pastebin with the top 5 results I'm getting as of today:

http://pastebin.com/c9VGrT87

Did one or both have the answer?

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#180

Post by steanne »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #4
collyw wrote: post #2

I use DuckDuck go as my default search on my machines, but I think the fact that Google is not anonymous does give them a big advantage. An obvious example of this is when I search for "Django" (I am primarily a Django developer). DuckDuckGo will return results about the film as the top hits, whereas Google already knows that I mean Django Web Framework and will return those as the top hits. I appreciate the fact tha…

They don't always do a good job of that, though. Yesterday I was searching for documentation for a JS validation library (Joi), and a specific search string ("Joi deny substring") returned some... pornier search results as the top five. It was somewhat redeemed with the sixth result being the one I was looking for. And this was with safe search on.

i searched for freezing eggs (for cooking) and then saw ads for fertility clinics for the next few weeks.
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