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DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

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Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#211
To add a little data on this thread, here's a list of queries that I subsequently !g'ed over a 30 day period. Maybe Duck/Bing developers will find it useful: https://gist.github.com/typpo/605a7cd9da88c3be061c6958a31fa2...

Aside from a limited set of head queries where they've added their own custom stuff, DDG is a wrapper around Bing. The results are identical and any webmaster can tell you that Duckduckbot is not crawling the web like Google/Bing.

In the same way that "Google is an advertising company", I see DDG as a marketing company. They've done a good job marketing Bing results with a privacy wrapper. I recognize the value, but it's different from competing directly on search.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#213
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks more and more like Google wants to convert native search hits to paid clicks... Notice how often when you search for "company" you find the company's ad first and then below the native search result...

Agreed, and the ad is often immediately above the native search result 1-2. I'm guessing clicking the ad costs the company money per click, and the native search result doesn't? If I'm explicitly searching for a company, and I'd prefer that they don't have to incur an advertising penalty on my behalf, I'd need to scroll past the first result to the second.

Companies buy those ads on their own search results so a competitor can't target them for advertising

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#215
DDG is fantastic and now my preference. I tried it a couple years ago and was constantly second guessing their results.

To have come this far as to it now becoming my daily preference, the team has come a long way and has instilled great confidence that they will continue to improve the platform

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My story is the same! Also, when I want colouring pictures for my kids, DDG just lets met tap them and print them. That is nolonger possible using Google since some months. I also very much appreciate the code snippets when (already started typing "Googling"!) Searching for code related things.

Pretty sure that’s because google got hit with a lawsuit about hot linking. DDG will suffer the same fate once they get big (and rich) enough.

Yep, Getty Images sued them and Google had to remove the view images button, making the process of viewing the source image more difficult and convoluted.

I've now resorted to using DDG anytime I need to do an image search, and have been using it more and more myself when searching for anything related to IT or programming.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#220

A few years ago I switched my desktops to use DDG while leaving my phone using Google. At first I had to !g all the time. Now that’s rare. Now I’m starting to have the other problem. If I search for a company, product, person, etc., on DDG it’s the first hit. But on google I just get a wall of ads and videos, and it’s hard to tell where the actual homepage is for the thing I’m looking for. So as of now I would say, g…

I strongly suggest installing an ad blocker. Firefox for Android supports ad blockers like uBlock Origin.
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