Shit prediction: Alphabet acquires DuckDuckGo for >10B
DuckDuckGo Traffic
201–210 of 251 posts
Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic
#202I switched my default to DDG yesterday. Very happy so far.
New Google SERPs are insulting to me as a user.
Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
I must not be really needing search much, because I almost never switch to another search engine (let alone google, which would be my last resort).
DDG is terrible at any location type search and extremely US centric. You can switch to country mode but then it stops including loads of results. A perfect example is when you search for a product or book or something. Without the switch, it returns the company website and amazon.com, the latter being utterly useless and irrelevant to anyone outside the US. But if you turn the switch on, the company website disappea…
Well, as DDG doesn't track you, you'll have to provide it a bit more context, such as the city you'd like to conduct the search for (or language or country), either in the search query itself, or using the switch displayed conveniently on top of every page of search results. I don't find that too onerous.
Conversely, I find it annoying when Google gives me Swedish results, just because my VPN happens to route through Uppsala today.
I've searched for books, bars, restaurants, opera, and plenty more in many countries (with VPN routed to plenty of other countries) in the last several years on DDG without any issues, and with no need to switch to other search engines.
Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic
#204Bang commands[0] really sealed DDG for me. I know Firefox had install-your-own search plugins forever, but the total lack of friction of typing “!yt badgerbadgerbadger” to get specifically YouTube results was fantastic. !g (search on Google) also makes it far easier to switch. Don’t like the results? Prefix !g and try again. My other favorites: !sr [name of subreddit] - much faster than “reddit.com/r/[name]” !r - Red…
This is an offshoot discussion and I have nothing against DDG or bang commands -- just presenting another side of convenient searches. > I know Firefox had install-your-own search plugins forever, but the total lack of friction of typing “!yt badgerbadgerbadger” to get specifically YouTube results was fantastic. I find "use your own search" to be much less friction than going through DDG since it takes me right to re…
Exactly. I like to do this for both speed and privacy.
You can even use DDG bangs as your keywords. I do this for the bangs that I use most frequently (e.g. !w) for both reduced latency and increased privacy. This means I keep the muscle memory for using bangs on other folks machines, but I still get improved privacy and speed on devices that have my bookmarks synced.
Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic
#205Bang commands[0] really sealed DDG for me. I know Firefox had install-your-own search plugins forever, but the total lack of friction of typing “!yt badgerbadgerbadger” to get specifically YouTube results was fantastic. !g (search on Google) also makes it far easier to switch. Don’t like the results? Prefix !g and try again. My other favorites: !sr [name of subreddit] - much faster than “reddit.com/r/[name]” !r - Red…
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Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic
#206Interesting: Regardless of the value of `Day Average` the graph remains (almost) same
Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic
#207Over the past 5 years I’ve tried DDG several times. Each time except the last I wanted to stick with it but the results simply didn’t stand up to what I’d see on Google. About 6 months ago (a year? I can’t remember) I switched and haven’t looked back. Now, when I look at google, the results actually look less relevant. As well, the ads on Google have become very obnoxious. I don’t feel like I’m being served the best…
I think I mentally give DDG a harder time than it deserves. When I search something and don't see the result I want I think "Wow ddg is shit, I'll try this on google" And then I still don't see what I want and think "The info I am looking for doesn't exist or my search was wrong" Despite both failing I tend to be a lot more lenient to google.
I think this is a great mentality to have. If I look back to the "Before Google Days", I was using Yahoo Search, AOL Search, whatever other search engines that existed. And not to sound like a cranky old man not hip with the kids these days, but having to shop around for what you're looking for doesn't seem like a bad thing to train the kids these days to do... now get off my lawn.
Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic
#208Over the past 5 years I’ve tried DDG several times. Each time except the last I wanted to stick with it but the results simply didn’t stand up to what I’d see on Google. About 6 months ago (a year? I can’t remember) I switched and haven’t looked back. Now, when I look at google, the results actually look less relevant. As well, the ads on Google have become very obnoxious. I don’t feel like I’m being served the best…
The only thing I prefer about google at this point is that occasionally if I search something where I just want an answer and not a result link, google will just give me the answer in that little box at the top of the result page. Something like "when are the oscars". It's a nice little convenience that saves me from having to click some article and scan for the info. If DDG had something like that, I'd never even miss google.
Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic
#209I've been using DDG for a bit more than one year in all my devices. At the beginning, DDG results in any non-English language was not very good, but it got improved a lot recently! I still use !g bang command if I don't find something, but it is nice to see that DDG gets better and better over time :-)
Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic
#210I have been using DDG for like ten years, I love it, but I still use google for country specific results. I live in Switzerland and if I want, for example, a toy for my kids, something I want to order locally (for free shipping or the like), I use google.ch with the country option set on. I hope for DDG to add a bang someday like !.ch to have only results from swiss domains (not only .ch but all domains registered to a Swiss address). Of course for all countries.