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>Generally yes. I default to DDG, but I when I don't find what I want I often just add the '!g' to the search. What's the advantage of that over just going to

>Generally yes. I default to DDG, but I when I don't find what I want I often just add the '!g' to the search. What's the advantage of that over just going to google.com?

anthony_romeo 10y ago
Well, most of the time I don't need to go to Google. But with '!g' the search defaults to encrypted mode (which you can do anyway at encrypted.google.com). Honestly, I mostly use ddg because the bang syntax is extremely helpful. Like if I want to search hacker news posts, I just add !hn or !hackernews to the search. They also have bang searches for documentation of many languages, like !java
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  You can also make DuckDuckGo the default search engine in Firefox' location bar. That way anything that is not a URL is treated as a search query. I particularly like !wen for Wikipedia and !wikt for Wiktionary.
  - wallacoloo 10y ago
    > That way anything that is not a URL is treated as a search query. And if your search query does look like a URL, you can just add the !ddg bang to it & you'll be sent to DuckDuckGo instead of having your browser try to navigate to the URL! (At least, that's the only semi-legitimate use for !ddg that I can find - when else could it be used?) Btw, you can also just use !w for Wikipedia.
    - Freak_NL 10y ago
      > Btw, you can also just use !w for Wikipedia. Yeah, but there is one caveat; !w will send you to the Wikipedia language matching the region DuckDuckGo is currently set at. So if you just did a search with the regional limiter set to The Netherlands, !w will send you to the Dutch Wikipedia. This is not usually what you would want for non-regional information. Without the region set it does take you to the English Wikipedia. !wen is always the English Wikipedia.
  - majewsky 10y ago
    Firefox actually has that feature built-in. It comes preloaded with the English Wikipedia, so you can type "wikipedia <term>" to search Wikipedia for "<term>". Other searches can be added from the addon store, or by right-clicking on a search box and defining a keyword.

>Generally yes. I default to DDG, but I when I don't find what I want I often just add the '!g' to the search. What's the advantage of that over just going to google.com?

anthony_romeo 10y ago

Well, most of the time I don't need to go to Google. But with '!g' the search defaults to encrypted mode (which you can do anyway at encrypted.google.com). Honestly, I mostly use ddg because the bang syntax is extremely helpful. Like if I want to search hacker news posts, I just add !hn or !hackernews to the search. They also have bang searches for documentation of many languages, like !java

Freak_NL 10y ago
You can also make DuckDuckGo the default search engine in Firefox' location bar. That way anything that is not a URL is treated as a search query. I particularly like !wen for Wikipedia and !wikt for Wiktionary.
- wallacoloo 10y ago
  > That way anything that is not a URL is treated as a search query. And if your search query does look like a URL, you can just add the !ddg bang to it & you'll be sent to DuckDuckGo instead of having your browser try to navigate to the URL! (At least, that's the only semi-legitimate use for !ddg that I can find - when else could it be used?) Btw, you can also just use !w for Wikipedia.
  - Freak_NL 10y ago
    > Btw, you can also just use !w for Wikipedia. Yeah, but there is one caveat; !w will send you to the Wikipedia language matching the region DuckDuckGo is currently set at. So if you just did a search with the regional limiter set to The Netherlands, !w will send you to the Dutch Wikipedia. This is not usually what you would want for non-regional information. Without the region set it does take you to the English Wikipedia. !wen is always the English Wikipedia.
- majewsky 10y ago
  Firefox actually has that feature built-in. It comes preloaded with the English Wikipedia, so you can type "wikipedia <term>" to search Wikipedia for "<term>". Other searches can be added from the addon store, or by right-clicking on a search box and defining a keyword.