4 ms·

Unfortunately their results are pretty abysmal. https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ or ixquick is a better option in terms of results.

inanutshellus 10y ago
I've used them for years now and their search is rarely insufficient. When it is, I make my search more specific or I hop over to another engine for that specific search. Really, I just like using products of companies that try to do "the right thing". Anything from the Mozilla Foundation and DuckDuckGo are two examples. I'd say I do a Google search once or twice a month.
- chillingeffect 10y ago
  Same here. Been "ducking" for years now. I used to go to google when I couldn't find stuff on ddg, but lately I've noticed if it's not on ddg, it's not on google, either! I'd say about 1% of 1% of the time I find something on google that I couldn't find on google.
dredmorbius 10y ago
DDG has been my preferred search for years. I'd tried it pre-Snowden, off-and-on. Since Snowden or before it's been fully acceptible: 1. Results close to as good if not better than Google. 2. No tracking. 3. Bang searches. With the "too clever by half" search dialogs many sites are implementing (Wikipedia, Internet Archive, Google Ngram Viewer) it's often superior to the native on-site search as I don't have to set focus 2-4 times to actually type in the bloody search dialog. 4. No tracking. 5. Did I mention no tracking? 6. Proxy bang searches, e.g., StartPage. 7. Search customisations -- light page (good for console and commandline search), night mode, and others. 8. Unmangled URLs. I can copy/paste URLs straight from DDG. No-can-do with Google.
- grzm 10y ago
  > 6. Proxy bang searches, e.g., StartPage. Or even Google. I've seen comments online about DDG providing only an illusion of privacy. I haven't dug into this deeply. From what I've read this comes down to DDG (including bang searches like !g and !sp) stripping identifying information, which provides protection from tracking by entities like advertisers and social networks, but not law enforcement or agencies like the NSA that may have legal options or extralegal access. Is my understanding generally correct? Any corrections/additions/clarifications appreciated.
  - sambobeckingham 10y ago
    DDG don't track your IP or log activity against you. Bang searches are simply redirects as far as I'm aware and thus !g is equivalent to typing straight into Google. But if you're using Google through DDG you're probably missing the point.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Using Google through DDG is useful because of the bang searches. It's actually faster for me to get to, say, image, scholar, books, ngram, or maps (though I prefer OpenStreetMap) searches from DDG than it is through Google's own web interface. It's faster to do that, in further irony, on Firefox rather than Chrome (on Android), because Chrome/Android doesn't allow specifying DDG as a default search engine. (I prefer Firefox for multiple features including extensions (adblock, hul-fucking-lo), and Reader Mode, but motherlovin' heck is Firefox every laggy and slow on Android...) I'll run a DDG search, for all the reasons stated above, then re-run it to Google if I must. It's still faster than finding Google's search page and entering a search (and clicking past multiple nags and seeing multiple distracting animations). Two more reasons for Google: 1. Specific date-bounds on search. 2. Counts of results by domain (Desktop only)
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
__jal 10y ago
Startpage is nice, too. I personally really like DDG, though. I think people react that way to it because it is more literal, a la Google several years ago. I prefer that; I'm used to it and find that Google frustrates the hell out of me when I'm looking for something specific because of all the 'help' and the heavy bias towards recently changed pages. There have been times when I simply couldn't find things with Google that were much easier to locate in DDG. Still wish there were an engine with a clone of Lexis-style searching. Yes, you have to learn how to use it. But it is incredibly useful. And that's all before getting to Google's increasingly invasive behavior, and the reason why I refuse to use Chrome, block a lot of their utility-domains, etc.
- problems 10y ago
  Interesting, usually the searches I find Google is better at are very literal, but also very obscure things. Like when I'm trying to find a specific error message or obscure (often outdated and unavailable legitimately) pirated material. Maybe it just amounts to having more stuff in the index.

inanutshellus 10y ago

I've used them for years now and their search is rarely insufficient. When it is, I make my search more specific or I hop over to another engine for that specific search. Really, I just like using products of companies that try to do "the right thing". Anything from the Mozilla Foundation and DuckDuckGo are two examples. I'd say I do a Google search once or twice a month.

chillingeffect 10y ago
Same here. Been "ducking" for years now. I used to go to google when I couldn't find stuff on ddg, but lately I've noticed if it's not on ddg, it's not on google, either! I'd say about 1% of 1% of the time I find something on google that I couldn't find on google.

dredmorbius 10y ago

DDG has been my preferred search for years. I'd tried it pre-Snowden, off-and-on. Since Snowden or before it's been fully acceptible: 1. Results close to as good if not better than Google. 2. No tracking. 3. Bang searches. With the "too clever by half" search dialogs many sites are implementing (Wikipedia, Internet Archive, Google Ngram Viewer) it's often superior to the native on-site search as I don't have to set focus 2-4 times to actually type in the bloody search dialog. 4. No tracking. 5. Did I mention no tracking? 6. Proxy bang searches, e.g., StartPage. 7. Search customisations -- light page (good for console and commandline search), night mode, and others. 8. Unmangled URLs. I can copy/paste URLs straight from DDG. No-can-do with Google.

grzm 10y ago
> 6. Proxy bang searches, e.g., StartPage. Or even Google. I've seen comments online about DDG providing only an illusion of privacy. I haven't dug into this deeply. From what I've read this comes down to DDG (including bang searches like !g and !sp) stripping identifying information, which provides protection from tracking by entities like advertisers and social networks, but not law enforcement or agencies like the NSA that may have legal options or extralegal access. Is my understanding generally correct? Any corrections/additions/clarifications appreciated.
- sambobeckingham 10y ago
  DDG don't track your IP or log activity against you. Bang searches are simply redirects as far as I'm aware and thus !g is equivalent to typing straight into Google. But if you're using Google through DDG you're probably missing the point.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Using Google through DDG is useful because of the bang searches. It's actually faster for me to get to, say, image, scholar, books, ngram, or maps (though I prefer OpenStreetMap) searches from DDG than it is through Google's own web interface. It's faster to do that, in further irony, on Firefox rather than Chrome (on Android), because Chrome/Android doesn't allow specifying DDG as a default search engine. (I prefer Firefox for multiple features including extensions (adblock, hul-fucking-lo), and Reader Mode, but motherlovin' heck is Firefox every laggy and slow on Android...) I'll run a DDG search, for all the reasons stated above, then re-run it to Google if I must. It's still faster than finding Google's search page and entering a search (and clicking past multiple nags and seeing multiple distracting animations). Two more reasons for Google: 1. Specific date-bounds on search. 2. Counts of results by domain (Desktop only)
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

__jal 10y ago

Startpage is nice, too. I personally really like DDG, though. I think people react that way to it because it is more literal, a la Google several years ago. I prefer that; I'm used to it and find that Google frustrates the hell out of me when I'm looking for something specific because of all the 'help' and the heavy bias towards recently changed pages. There have been times when I simply couldn't find things with Google that were much easier to locate in DDG. Still wish there were an engine with a clone of Lexis-style searching. Yes, you have to learn how to use it. But it is incredibly useful. And that's all before getting to Google's increasingly invasive behavior, and the reason why I refuse to use Chrome, block a lot of their utility-domains, etc.

problems 10y ago
Interesting, usually the searches I find Google is better at are very literal, but also very obscure things. Like when I'm trying to find a specific error message or obscure (often outdated and unavailable legitimately) pirated material. Maybe it just amounts to having more stuff in the index.