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4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

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Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#31

Post by w1ntermute »

SpeakMouthWords wrote: post #8

The writer appears to be the wrong audience of !bang. As a physics student, I find !w tremendously helpful. Image searching is also much faster since it all can be done in the search bar rather than requiring the mouse. !wa for wolfram alpha is again great. It's far better for sites in which there is no better alternative than using their search bar, rather than the type of usage the article seemed to employ.

You can set up this sort of thing at the browser level to work directly with the site of interest (Wikipedia in your case):

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Smart%20keywords

You can set up the same sort of thing in Chrome by going to Settings -> Manage search engines, then editing the middle column to have just one or two letters of your choice.

Keyword bookmarking is also very useful: http://lifehacker.com/196779/hack-attack-firefox-and-the-art...

In fact, at this point, the number of times I have to manually type in a URL (when using my own computer) is probably fewer than 10 per day. I've never understood why people make such a big deal about !bang when instead you can search the sites directly with a keyword search, plus you're not limited to those DDG supports.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#32

Post by SpaceDragon »

SeanDav wrote: post #2

I find Googles' invasion of privacy a big turn off. I have long since stopped using Facebook for exactly this reason. I am not quite at the point with Google where I say I don't trust them, unlike Facebook. I regularly check out DuckDuckGo but its search results are not quite there yet for me, in comparison to Google. At this stage the gap is narrowing, both as a result of my increasing concerns over the invasion of…

Google's invasion of privacy will only get worse, as it becomes increasingly difficult to get off their teat.

"Do no evil" will soon become a rediculously bitter irony. Just wait.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#34

Post by notatoad »

13rules wrote: post #23

The fact that DuckDuckGo is even being compared to Google shows how much they have accomplished already ... it also shows that domain names do not matter AT ALL.

i don't think it shows that domain names don't matter. it just shows that DDG is good enough to overcome their terrible name. who knows where they'd be with a better name.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#35

Post by petercooper »

notatoad wrote: post #34
13rules wrote: post #23

The fact that DuckDuckGo is even being compared to Google shows how much they have accomplished already ... it also shows that domain names do not matter AT ALL.

i don't think it shows that domain names don't matter. it just shows that DDG is good enough to overcome their terrible name. who knows where they'd be with a better name.

Google had the same problem. I recall showing Google off to people (when it wasn't a household name) and they'd comment on what a stupid name it was and how they wouldn't remember it.

Similar "stupid!" name outrages occurred over Vista, Xbox, Wii, iPad.. but they got absorbed into pop culture anyway and no longer seem weird. C'est la vie :-)

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#36

Post by ek »

I was discussing this with a colleague recently and I figured I'd mention it on HN the next time DuckDuckGo came up.

I feel somewhat silly saying this, but DuckDuckGo is not that great of a name. I love the engine, and have gotten some great results from the few times I have used it, but I really, really wish it were not named DuckDuckGo. It seems tacky to me and it's hard to say. There's a support article that encourages users to "duck it". No thanks. I swear I would become a regular user of this product if it were named something more professional.

I know tech products often have whimsical names, and it's usually positive or at least tolerable, but something about "DuckDuckGo" rubs me the wrong way.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#37

Post by ph33r »

Last week I was searching for a: Sabian 18" HHX Chinese cymbal. I was considering buying one for my kit and wanted to see some reviews, video samples, prices etc.

DuckDuckGo: The top three results were American Ebay search results (I live in Canada), a drum shop in Memphis (15 hour drive), and various other online stores like discountdrumequipment.info... looks legit.

Google: The first page of results had links to the official Sabian product pages, Youtube videos of people playing it, and the most impressive thing was a 3 day old Kijiji ad (still popular in Canada) with the exact cymbal I wanted for a good price in a city just 45 minutes from me. I responded to the ad, drove the 45 minutes, and purchased it.

DuckDuckGo's stance on user privacy is admirable, but Google is going to be my primary search engine for a very long time with results like that... it's accuracy still impresses me.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#38

Post by hammersend »

rapind wrote: post #29
xpose2000 wrote: post #24

Search quality is more important than privacy, and Google is better at most of my searches. Also, Google crawls and index's new content within 1-3 minutes. DDG takes 10+ minutes.

I have to disagree with you there. Google may reach a point where I'm no longer comfortable sharing my information with them. If that happens then I'll be switching immediately. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion yet though.

I would expect that the more a search engine knows about me the more relevant my results will be. I have yet to see a compelling argument why that isn't the case. Since I use a search engine for the sole purpose of getting the result I'm looking for as quickly as possible, I am more than happy to make the trade off.

Re: 4 Weeks with DuckDuckGo

#40

Post by yuriyg »

Legion wrote: post #28

I love DuckDuckGo, even if a good half of my searches end up beginning with !g. Love the bang syntax for site-specific searching. I have set up my browser before to do this, but now it's far more convenient to just set my browser's default engine to DDG and !bang syntax search.

Google has provided this for years with the "site:" feature (e.g. search for "lists site:python.org"). In addition, Google uses its own results, since as the article correctly mentions "most site’s internal search engines suck".
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