DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use • Hacker News Board

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#221

Post by stuaxo » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

chuckgreenman wrote: post #25

I think I've figured out what is happening when people tell me that DuckDuckGo's results "aren't good enough". What's really happening is that they've been trained to search a certain way to using Google and because DDG doesn't have all the historical data of your searches on their platform they can't fill in the gaps as well. After a couple days using DDG I found the right vocabulary to get good local results and wh…

I use it regularly, but for some programming queries the results could be better and I have to use the Goog.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#222

Post by giantrobot » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

I switched to DDG soon after they launched. I've been using search engines since the days of WebCrawler and out of habit still search today like I did back then. I don't do natural language queries, I search for keywords and want to use logical operators to narrow down my search. I also usually know some sites to search for things so I regularly limit searched with "site:...".

For most of the past decade Google's support for the way I think about searching has sucked. They got obsessed with tailoring results to users and linking everything to their profiles. They also went nuts with natural language search, filling results pages with bullshit, and letting paid placement overtake meaningful search results.

For me this was all made worse because I don't stay logged into accounts and I don't use GMail as my primary e-mail. When I need to log into account I do so in a private browser window. I also use ad blockers and have for decades now.

This all adds together to make Google useless for me. I'm sure plenty of people like their features but they don't do me any good.

It's aggravating to me because for a while in the 00s, before the DoubleClick reverse buyout, Google's search was vastly superior to the competition. Where all others were inundated with keyword spam and other early SEO bullshit Google returned germane results for just about everything. Their search page ads were even relevant because they were looking at what I had searched for instead of some historical profile.

DDG is closest to what old Google search used to be. I don't want to ask questions in an NLP search box most of the time. When I do I'll go to WolframAlpha. I'm really interested in just a full text search of the web with good result sorting. This is what old Google did fantastically and current DDG does well enough for my needs.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#223

Post by Doctor_Fegg » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

AdamSC1 wrote: post #93

speps wrote: post #11

It's only good enough when you're in the US, I live in the UK and DDG consistently returns non local results even though the country is set correctly, it's especially annoying given how many US cities are named after their UK counterpart.

Do you have the UK toggle turned on? Improving local results internationally is a major priority for the team currently - if you find queries where this isn't working well, hitting the feedback button in the bottom right of the screen is a huge help!

Why not default to having the UK toggle on for UK users?

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#224

Post by wolco » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

godshatter wrote: post #181

hedora wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google gives me bad results. It ignores some of the words in my queries, and the context boxes are generally spammy and irrelevant. Even if the correct information is somewhere in the results page, I bounce before I can find it. From what I can tell from the article, this might be because I type too much stuff into the search bar, and because Google’s manually curated semantic web stuff is not relevant to me. However…

I have this same problem. I use the same "subject sub-subject (...) specific query" tactic I've been using since forever and Google search has been becoming less effective for me over the years. I switched to DDG a couple of years ago I think, and it's better for handling that sort of thing. Is there a search engine out there that respects quotes, and, or, case-insensitive when asked for, etc? In some ways I miss the…

Go into google search options and select verbatam to include all search terms.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#225

Post by chuckgreenman » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

whalesalad wrote: post #46

chuckgreenman wrote: post #25

I think I've figured out what is happening when people tell me that DuckDuckGo's results "aren't good enough". What's really happening is that they've been trained to search a certain way to using Google and because DDG doesn't have all the historical data of your searches on their platform they can't fill in the gaps as well. After a couple days using DDG I found the right vocabulary to get good local results and wh…

A lot of DDG fans on HN blame the user or social conditioning and use that as a crutch. It’s BS. You need to provide clear examples of the differences in order to really make this argument to someone who might switch. What specifically are the differences? The last time this topic came up someone told me I was a total noob because I didn’t know how to use search and that was basically the extent of it.

Let's say there's a new can opener in the drawer [1], it's the same size and shape as a can opener but because it's not what you're used to you try to use it in the normal orientation and it doesn't work.

Even though the tool can open cans, rounds off the sharp edges and requires less grip force you reply with: a lot of OXO folks blame the user or social conditioning. It's BS.

Is that a reasonable response?

I'd argue that it isn't.

But to answer your question I use more precise language for what I'm looking for, specifying the city and state I want results from, specifying the type of thing that I want.

A lot of my searches are !bangs,

!godoc - for searching Go packages !gems - for searching ruby gems !sx - for getting only stack overflow results !w - for jumping to a Wikipedia article !gh - for searching github

- [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000079XW2?tag=duckduckgo-ffab-20&...

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#226

Post by incanus77 » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

Google search was an unfortunate period in my life between my otherwise great search history bookends of AltaVista and DuckDuckGo. I think I’ve been on DDG for probably 5-6 years now. Results are absolutely good enough.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#227

Post by SeekingMeaning » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

robotnikman wrote: post #216

lobotryas wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For those interested there’s an open-source Chrome extension that brings back the View Image button:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/view-image/jpcmhce...

https://github.com/bijij/ViewImage

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#228

Post by rcarmo » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

I switched six months ago and never looked back. I will occasionally use other engines deliberately (Google when I’m looking for more obscure things that warrant wading through pages of ads and Bing for image searches), but it is now my default on most devices.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#229

Post by vstuart » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

Non-Docker Local Installation of searX on Linux | https://persagen.com/2020/02/02/searx.html

searX is a free metasearch engine with the aim of protecting the privacy of its users.

    * searX does not share users’ IP addresses or search history.
    * Tracking cookies served by the search engines are blocked.
    * searX queries do not appear in search engine webserver logs.

In addition to the general search, the engine also features tabs to search within specific domains:

Notably:

    * Each search result is given as a direct link to the respective site,
      rather than a tracked redirect link as used by Google.

    * When available, these direct links are accompanied by “cached” and/or
      “proxied” links that allow viewing results pages without 
      actually visiting the sites in question.

    * The “cached” links point to saved versions of a page on archive.org, while
      the “proxied” links allow viewing the current live page
      via a searX-based web proxy.

Tip: I do a lot of technical searches (StackOverflow …) and in my preliminary use of searX

I find that selecting “General” (only) as the Default Category (in Preferences) gives the best results.

Re: DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use

#230

Post by TheRealPomax » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

It really isn't. It was great for a while but has become progressively less useful and more nonsense filled in its results over the last 2 years to the point where today I still have it set as default search engine, but for almost everything immediately go "oh ffs" and research with !g added.