13 ms·

Checkout Duck Duck Go, still not Google-level results, but it's still pretty good, and not Bing.

ams6110 9y ago
It really is as good as google for most things, in my experience. I use it by default and when it can't find what I'm looking for, Google usually doesn't do much better.
- dwighttk 9y ago
  one of the last areas I've found myself going back to google is when I'm searching for a gif... Duck Duck Go will return them, but it is usually a very small subset of the available gifs out there.
eps 9y ago
It is actually Bing, which DDG uses for the bulk of its results.
- jwilcoxson 9y ago
  Well, I learned something today.
- PrimHelios 9y ago
  It used Yahoo last I checked.
  - ancientworldnow 9y ago
    And Yahoo uses Bing.
    - PrimHelios 9y ago
      I didn't know that. TIL
  - helthanatos 9y ago
    Yandex?
    - supertramp_sid 9y ago
      http://techreport.com/news/17313/it-official-yahoo-will-use-bing-for-search http://techreport.com/news/17313/it-official-yahoo-will-use-...
      - omgtehlion 9y ago
        [2009] nowadays Yandex uses its own index even for “foreign” (non-Russian) sites.
Semaphor 9y ago
Can only second ddg. It's not perfect but I usually only have to use "!g" (ddg syntax for search on Google) every two days.
exergy 9y ago
Duckduckgo is a lovely idea with abhorrent search results. Like, unusably bad results, at least to the extent that I'm a reasonably tech savvy user. I'm often searching for papers as a grad student, or typing things "close enough" and hoping Google figures it out for me etc. Duckduckgo cannot keep up. I love Bangs, I love the idea, but the search is nigh-useless. That said, I use StartPage, who have a contract I believe with Google. It's Google's search results, minus the tracking. It's as much as I am willing to compromise on something as fundamental as search.
- eridius 9y ago
  Maybe you're searching for something really niche, but I use DDG and have no problem with its results. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I can always use !g to check google, and most of the time google doesn't have the answer either!
- eikenberry 9y ago
  You use DDG as your default engine. For most common searches it works fine, particularly nice is that if there is a wikipedia entry it will show it right there. When you have a tougher search and it doesn't work you just slap a '!g' or a '!b' on the end and turn it into a google/bing search.
- lucb1e 9y ago
  The results for localized stuff, e.g. a local store, are horrible. The results for complicated questions where the query is either not very specific or the page might not have all words, are also really bad. But if you have a good idea of what you're looking for, which is most of the time for me, it works very well. At least it's honest about not having results whereas Google presents 5 billion, all of which are missing one of the three keywords (which it notes in a small, light grey text, which you only notice after the first three results were completely unrelated and you were wondering what went wrong). For example, "new double c++" is the query I did most recently and in the top 3 there are 2 results that answer my question. Making something up at random like "torrent clients" gives me as top hit the Wikipedia article "comparison of bittorrent clients", which is better than expected. I can't seem to think of a vague query right now. "audio books" gives me sites with audio books; "psychology books" gives me articles of 'the best 50 psychology books' and such; and looking in my query history, "draw unicode" seems vague but the top hit (shapecatcher.com) is the one I was looking for. Something localized then: "drankwinkel echt" (where Echt is a place and drankwinkel a liquor store) indeed gives terrible results. The store name, surprisingly, works though: "gal & gal echt" gives similar results to google.nl.
vamsipk 9y ago
And specifically why not Bing?
- jwilcoxson 9y ago
  Bing just feels gross to me, just like Google. But as someone pointed out, I guess DDG uses Bing for some of its results, so I don't have much of an argument here.
monochromatic 9y ago
I tried Duck Duck Go exactly because of the AMP issue. Its search results are bad enough that I couldn't keep using it even though I wanted to. I'm on Bing for now.
- inopinatus 9y ago
  I get identical results from DDG and Bing, and that isn't surprising because DDG's search backend is Bing.
  - Retric 9y ago
    I really don't ex: "ice cream calories" share several but not all sites and use a different order for those they share, which just suggests similar algorithms. PS: DDG redirected image searches to bing, but not generic searches. Which honestly seems reasonable as doing image search well is incredibly hard, with minimal payoffs.
    - inopinatus 9y ago
      Nope, for that search I once again got the same results in the same order. It sounds like Bing is personalizing your results either by location or by adtech tracking, which is kinda antithetical to the point of DDG.
agumonkey 9y ago
After 2 attempts it's now my default search "portal". As other said, generic results are low grade. But the bangs and the "control" are worth this loss. I can search really fast on dedicated websites !yt !gi !gmaps !wbm (waybackmachine) and I don't have to worry about what's going on most of the time.
piyush_soni 9y ago
For past few years, I go to try DuckDuckGo every once in a while (especially when someone suggests that again on HN), but it disappoints me every time with the quality of search results. Also, if it is using Bing on inside, I'm not then sure why the results are still different than that(even at the places where there's no scope for personalization). For example type this line exactly in both bing and ddg: difference between std list and std set The first result DDG shows is of a difference between set and a vector - not only that, it also highlights that result in a Google Card inspired fashion (which is worse because Google does that only when they have a certain amount of confidence in the answer), while the first result Bing shows is an actual difference between list and a set. So either Bing is cheating DDG, or DDG is doing something stupid on top of its results. (Also, if you cover the above string in quotes, Bing still shows 'some' search results, while DDG doesn't). May be after using the '!' ninja techniques it'll be same as Google, but then I have also come to love the fact that I can type in 'my next flight' or 'Show me emails from ....' or 'remind me to ... ' and other personalized things on Google so may be my priorities are different here.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- wand3r 9y ago
  Sounds like your priorities are different; and that's fine. DDG doesn't parse your emails so it doesn't have your location, flight info nor a lot of user data to build personalized results. I like it a lot, it's gotten much better but it requires adaptation when coming from Google.. or just !g

It really is as good as google for most things, in my experience. I use it by default and when it can't find what I'm looking for, Google usually doesn't do much better.

dwighttk 9y ago
one of the last areas I've found myself going back to google is when I'm searching for a gif... Duck Duck Go will return them, but it is usually a very small subset of the available gifs out there.

eps 9y ago

It is actually Bing, which DDG uses for the bulk of its results.

jwilcoxson 9y ago
Well, I learned something today.
PrimHelios 9y ago
It used Yahoo last I checked.
- ancientworldnow 9y ago
  And Yahoo uses Bing.
  - PrimHelios 9y ago
    I didn't know that. TIL
- helthanatos 9y ago
  Yandex?
  - supertramp_sid 9y ago
    http://techreport.com/news/17313/it-official-yahoo-will-use-bing-for-search http://techreport.com/news/17313/it-official-yahoo-will-use-...
    - omgtehlion 9y ago
      [2009] nowadays Yandex uses its own index even for “foreign” (non-Russian) sites.

Semaphor 9y ago

Can only second ddg. It's not perfect but I usually only have to use "!g" (ddg syntax for search on Google) every two days.

exergy 9y ago

Duckduckgo is a lovely idea with abhorrent search results. Like, unusably bad results, at least to the extent that I'm a reasonably tech savvy user. I'm often searching for papers as a grad student, or typing things "close enough" and hoping Google figures it out for me etc. Duckduckgo cannot keep up. I love Bangs, I love the idea, but the search is nigh-useless. That said, I use StartPage, who have a contract I believe with Google. It's Google's search results, minus the tracking. It's as much as I am willing to compromise on something as fundamental as search.

eridius 9y ago
Maybe you're searching for something really niche, but I use DDG and have no problem with its results. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I can always use !g to check google, and most of the time google doesn't have the answer either!
eikenberry 9y ago
You use DDG as your default engine. For most common searches it works fine, particularly nice is that if there is a wikipedia entry it will show it right there. When you have a tougher search and it doesn't work you just slap a '!g' or a '!b' on the end and turn it into a google/bing search.
lucb1e 9y ago
The results for localized stuff, e.g. a local store, are horrible. The results for complicated questions where the query is either not very specific or the page might not have all words, are also really bad. But if you have a good idea of what you're looking for, which is most of the time for me, it works very well. At least it's honest about not having results whereas Google presents 5 billion, all of which are missing one of the three keywords (which it notes in a small, light grey text, which you only notice after the first three results were completely unrelated and you were wondering what went wrong). For example, "new double c++" is the query I did most recently and in the top 3 there are 2 results that answer my question. Making something up at random like "torrent clients" gives me as top hit the Wikipedia article "comparison of bittorrent clients", which is better than expected. I can't seem to think of a vague query right now. "audio books" gives me sites with audio books; "psychology books" gives me articles of 'the best 50 psychology books' and such; and looking in my query history, "draw unicode" seems vague but the top hit (shapecatcher.com) is the one I was looking for. Something localized then: "drankwinkel echt" (where Echt is a place and drankwinkel a liquor store) indeed gives terrible results. The store name, surprisingly, works though: "gal & gal echt" gives similar results to google.nl.

vamsipk 9y ago

And specifically why not Bing?

jwilcoxson 9y ago
Bing just feels gross to me, just like Google. But as someone pointed out, I guess DDG uses Bing for some of its results, so I don't have much of an argument here.

monochromatic 9y ago

I tried Duck Duck Go exactly because of the AMP issue. Its search results are bad enough that I couldn't keep using it even though I wanted to. I'm on Bing for now.

inopinatus 9y ago
I get identical results from DDG and Bing, and that isn't surprising because DDG's search backend is Bing.
- Retric 9y ago
  I really don't ex: "ice cream calories" share several but not all sites and use a different order for those they share, which just suggests similar algorithms. PS: DDG redirected image searches to bing, but not generic searches. Which honestly seems reasonable as doing image search well is incredibly hard, with minimal payoffs.
  - inopinatus 9y ago
    Nope, for that search I once again got the same results in the same order. It sounds like Bing is personalizing your results either by location or by adtech tracking, which is kinda antithetical to the point of DDG.

agumonkey 9y ago

After 2 attempts it's now my default search "portal". As other said, generic results are low grade. But the bangs and the "control" are worth this loss. I can search really fast on dedicated websites !yt !gi !gmaps !wbm (waybackmachine) and I don't have to worry about what's going on most of the time.

piyush_soni 9y ago

For past few years, I go to try DuckDuckGo every once in a while (especially when someone suggests that again on HN), but it disappoints me every time with the quality of search results. Also, if it is using Bing on inside, I'm not then sure why the results are still different than that(even at the places where there's no scope for personalization). For example type this line exactly in both bing and ddg: difference between std list and std set The first result DDG shows is of a difference between set and a vector - not only that, it also highlights that result in a Google Card inspired fashion (which is worse because Google does that only when they have a certain amount of confidence in the answer), while the first result Bing shows is an actual difference between list and a set. So either Bing is cheating DDG, or DDG is doing something stupid on top of its results. (Also, if you cover the above string in quotes, Bing still shows 'some' search results, while DDG doesn't). May be after using the '!' ninja techniques it'll be same as Google, but then I have also come to love the fact that I can type in 'my next flight' or 'Show me emails from ....' or 'remind me to ... ' and other personalized things on Google so may be my priorities are different here.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wand3r 9y ago
Sounds like your priorities are different; and that's fine. DDG doesn't parse your emails so it doesn't have your location, flight info nor a lot of user data to build personalized results. I like it a lot, it's gotten much better but it requires adaptation when coming from Google.. or just !g