3 ms·
Like a few other comments here, I switched to ddg a few months ago and only rarely need to go back to google. In fact, it's kind of nice to have a few places to
by bane 11y ago
Like a few other comments here, I switched to ddg a few months ago and only rarely need to go back to google. In fact, it's kind of nice to have a few places to search now (google, bing, ddg), reminds me of the old internet search engine war days.
Unlike the article, I didn't do it for security reasons, I actually gave it a go and found the search results better for most of the things I search for. And if I don't find what I want I can !g and it'll take me right to google's results so I get a direct like-for-like comparison.
I also generally like how DDG presents the results better than google. Little details like checkboxes next to places I've already been are super helpful and I miss those little touches in google. There's tons of little touches like that all over DDG.
I find about 1:30 searches I hit google for and maybe only half of those do I find anything anyway.
About the only think I don't like about DDG is the image search, google is far superior here still. And google sometimes does a better job bringing up maps of places I'm searching for. But I don't see changing back anytime soon and getting better personal security "for free" is a nice side effect.
It also brings into question how important google's personalized searches are for relevancy if DDG can provide equivalent results without needing that information.
- rpedroso 11y agoLittle details like checkboxes next to places I've already been are super helpful and I miss those little touches in google. Google does do this, and in a less subtle way -- it applies the classic, purple styling to visited links. Still, I find your comments compelling enough to give DDG a shot. I found the results inadequate when I last tried a year or so ago -- I found myself using !g more often than not, which led me to abandon DDG altogether.
- djent 11y agoI'm pretty sure that's a browser thing, not a Google-specific feature.
- jpatokal 11y agoWell, it's a CSS thing these days (a:visited), and something that an awful lot of other sites these days sacrifice in favor of looking more shiny and uniform.
- rpedroso 11y agoYes, it is a feature of the default browser stylesheet, but many websites override it. DuckDuckGo, for instance, keeps all of its links black and uses the :visited pseudo class to show the checkmark. Even if it's default browser behavior, keeping it around is a specific design decision.
- GeorgeOrr 11y agoFWIW, !image will use googles image search. I have a similar reaction to maps, and for that !maps does the trick.
- bestnameever 11y agoyou can also use !gi for google images and !gm to redirect to maps.