3 ms·

Because going to Wikipedia, waiting for it to load and then searching is a two-step process, while writing a query with a !w is only one step.

• tucosan 11y ago
  Why not simply use quicksearch in Chrome/FF? Instead of having to go through ddg, I simply directly search wikipedia via `wp foo` or youtube via `y bar`.
  • contravariant 11y ago
    I use both, but the '!bang' syntax is more convenient when you simply want to repeat a search using a different search engine, or want to use an engine you don't have a quicksearch for (you could of course add them, but sometimes it's just not worth the trouble for the few times you need it).
  • r3bl 11y ago
    Because it won't work in every browser and making shortcuts the same across Firefox and Chrome is a hassle, plus you can never get up to thousands of shortcuts that DDG has. Sometimes, I'm just experimenting. I had no idea that DDG had a Flickr bang because I never had the need to use Flickr before, but I just added !f to my query and I got the results I was looking for.
  • sp332 11y ago
    DDG is my new-tab page, so that helps. Plus, if the wiki page is lacking, I can just go back and do a normal search or a Google search or a Stack Overflow search just by changing a couple characters at the end.
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]