6 ms·

And don't forget to use the bangs that can allow you to check other engines results fast if you need. For people afraid of getting off google, you can always s

And don't forget to use the bangs that can allow you to check other engines results fast if you need. For people afraid of getting off google, you can always search something like '!g my-search', it works the same for youtube(!yt), google image(!gi), or even hackernews(!hn) And of course the best bang is the 'I am feeling lucky' one (!), i.e.: 'hackernews !'

Fiaxhs 9y ago
It's worth noting that the !g bang redirects you to encrypted.google.com, it's more secure but results are often different from a regular www.google.com search. It bugged me for a while not knowing why some queries returned unusual results. ( more here https://duck.co/forum/thread/2880/remove-the-encrypted-subdomain-for-google-bang https://duck.co/forum/thread/2880/remove-the-encrypted-subdo... )
- sd8dgf8ds8g8dsg 9y ago
  www.google.com uses encryption too these days. You are linking to a ~5 year old thread that is discussing the state of things well before google switched everything over to ssl.
  - thisacctforreal 9y ago
    For a while I believe the difference was specifically that encrypted.google.com exclusively used PFS SSL cipher suites
- inetknght 9y ago
  > linking to encrypted.google.com not only is not necessary but it prevents local search results from being displayed. e.g. no google.ro search results, only google.com I can only see this as a good thing. If I want local search results, I'll add local qualifiers like "USA", "Texas", "Houston"
  - stefantheard 9y ago
    That was an odd one to read, being in Houston. I thought somehow you added wildcards that were auto filled with the users location, I then realized that I'm an idiot.
    - zeven7 9y ago
      You could also do searches for yourself like "Stefan" and "Theard" and even type your password in like "* * * * * * * *".
- kyrias 9y ago
  A lot of JavaScript things have been buggy for me with encrypted.google.com as well. For example the Google timer cards and such often just won't start at all, while they'll work fine on the regular google.com.
- l1feh4ck 9y ago
  It's a sad fact that regular google results are sometimes better than encrypted.google.com. It is like regular google knows what "I" want.
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  The difference isn't the encryption, but the fact that Google tracks your searches to give you "better" results.
notspanishflu 9y ago
It's better to use the '!s' bang. Is like using '!g' but with more privacy because uses startpage.com
- dhimes 9y ago
  I didn't realize google allowed this kind of thing.
- itsnotvalid 9y ago
  Then what's the difference between using !g and startpage.com ?
Freak_NL 9y ago
!ud → Urban Dictionary (what do you mean, she's 'office cute'?) !wen → Wikipedia English !w.. → Wikipedia (two letter language code, e.g., 'nl') !wikt Wiktionary So many useful bangs.
- the_duke 9y ago
  So many bangs for you duck!
  - pvdebbe 9y ago
    The best bang for your duck
- fenwick67 9y ago
  Just a plain !w gives me English Wikipedia. Usually if I need a certain engine I just guess the bang and it's usually supported and correct. !gm for google maps, !tineye for tineye, !wayback for the wayback machine...
  - Freak_NL 9y ago
    They are pretty predictable. I just tried !osm madagascar on a whim, and it opens OpenStreetMap, as expected. Setting DuckDuckGo as the search engine for your browser's address bar means all these bangs work right there whenever you open a new tab.
  - smnrchrds 9y ago
    It depends on language settings. I have set DDG region to Canada and language to Canadian French. As a result, !w redirects mne to French Wikipedia.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  !hn does something or another
- 0x4a42 9y ago
  Some might be less useful tho, try: !ddg google Or if you are feeling lucky: !!ddg google :) edit: typo
toxican 9y ago
I tried switching to DDG a few years ago, but I found myself using !ge more often than not, so I wasn't really sure what the point of using DDG was. For my needs, DDG's results are pretty mediocre. Which is a shame, becuase I'd rather support them over Google.
- jerf 9y ago
  Your needs a few years ago, or your needs now? As benbenhu says, it has gotten a lot better. Lately I've found that when DDG doesn't have the thing I want and I stick the !g in, Google doesn't necessarily do any better, which implies that it's just a hard search.
  - bleuarff 9y ago
    I second that. I rarely use the !g bang (no need for that, DDG has the anwsers), but when I do I don't get anything more significant.
a_dev_1234 9y ago
I'm tired of people mentioning !g. If you want to use google, just use google. Stop using duck duck go just to search google, and then say "but duck duck go is better" lo. no it isn't. clearly.
- unethical_ban 9y ago
  Yeah, if someone is just going to search Google all the time. If one is going to use DDG most of the time, but then pivots, it's worth noting. I use DDG to get to Wikipedia, Amazon, Google Images, and sometimes Google (for technical searches).
- striking 9y ago
  It's a way to wean yourself off of Google or quickly see results from a different perspective. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just an easy way out for people who don't trust ddg just yet.
  - makapuf 9y ago
    That and its a Good way To help ddg (recording used search queries) and getting google results
- ZoF 9y ago
  Googler detected
- malnourish 9y ago
  It's completely valid to use that when you are searching for something local. Something that ddg shouldn't really do.
- FabHK 9y ago
  With DDG as my default search engine (Safari, macOS & iOS), I can (in the rare cases that I need to) easily and quickly search on google or startpage or other sites (by appending !g or !s in the search box). If you're on Google as your default search engine, it's not so convenient to see other engine's results (plus you're being tracked all the time).
NuDinNou 9y ago
More bangs at https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang
Zhyl 9y ago
The 'I'm feeling lucky' one is great. '<Song name> !' or '<song name> youtube !' takes you right to it. I'd love a feature that opens the first result on a search engine like wikipedia does by default. Biggest use case for me would be imdb but there would be others.
- deltaprotocol 9y ago
  Well, lucky you! DuckDuckGo has that by using a backslash, a space and a search term (\ bed intruder youtube) or an exclamation a space and the search term (although I believe the former is the official way now). I use it all the time, it's like a superpower.
shpx 9y ago
I added bangs to google by defining custom search engines with a one or two letter prefix in chrome://settings/searchEngines Now if I type "h my-search" into the omnibar, it goes to google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+my-search which gives me only Google search results from HN. This is using google's algorithm (not the search bar built into whichever website like DDG) which is still the best, especially if you constrain it to one domain name. I also don't have to type the "!" The prefix messes up google's text prediction. I guess no one from the chromium team is using this feature, since it would be trivial to fix.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  That also works with bookmark keywords in Firefox. The setting is in each bookmark's properties; it takes variables (I leave it to the reader to look up the syntax).
- shpx 9y ago
  Here are the ones I actually use. w https://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Awikipedia.org+%s&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky https://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Awikipedia.org+%s&btn... first result from wikipedia h https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+%s https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+%... r https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Areddit.com+%s https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Areddit.com+%s reddit y https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s youtube m https://www.google.ca/maps/search/%s https://www.google.ca/maps/search/%s google maps b https://builtwith.com/?q=%s https://builtwith.com/?q=%s add "b " to a url to find out what tech is being used wo https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%s https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%s wolfram alpha i https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=%s https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=%s google image search g https://github.com/%s https://github.com/%s "g upspin/upspin" to jump to https://github.com/upspin/upspin.git https://github.com/upspin/upspin.git br https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formula/%s.rb https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formul... read homebrew formula c https://caniuse.com/#search=%s https://caniuse.com/#search=%s
Brakenshire 9y ago
Would be interested to hear what search engines people here use. I feel the promise of DDG is the ability to match your search engine to your purpose. Maybe if you want to search for a particular code snippet you can use a search engine that is friendly to programming syntax. Or if you want more lateral results, you use a search engine with an unusual algorithm. But I haven't yet been able to find alternatives, if they exist.
- dispo001 9y ago
  https://yacy.net https://yacy.net
roryisok 9y ago
I've been a happy ddg user for months now but never knew about this, thanks!

Fiaxhs 9y ago

It's worth noting that the !g bang redirects you to encrypted.google.com, it's more secure but results are often different from a regular www.google.com search. It bugged me for a while not knowing why some queries returned unusual results. ( more here https://duck.co/forum/thread/2880/remove-the-encrypted-subdomain-for-google-bang https://duck.co/forum/thread/2880/remove-the-encrypted-subdo... )

sd8dgf8ds8g8dsg 9y ago
www.google.com uses encryption too these days. You are linking to a ~5 year old thread that is discussing the state of things well before google switched everything over to ssl.
- thisacctforreal 9y ago
  For a while I believe the difference was specifically that encrypted.google.com exclusively used PFS SSL cipher suites
inetknght 9y ago
> linking to encrypted.google.com not only is not necessary but it prevents local search results from being displayed. e.g. no google.ro search results, only google.com I can only see this as a good thing. If I want local search results, I'll add local qualifiers like "USA", "Texas", "Houston"
- stefantheard 9y ago
  That was an odd one to read, being in Houston. I thought somehow you added wildcards that were auto filled with the users location, I then realized that I'm an idiot.
  - zeven7 9y ago
    You could also do searches for yourself like "Stefan" and "Theard" and even type your password in like "* * * * * * * *".
kyrias 9y ago
A lot of JavaScript things have been buggy for me with encrypted.google.com as well. For example the Google timer cards and such often just won't start at all, while they'll work fine on the regular google.com.
l1feh4ck 9y ago
It's a sad fact that regular google results are sometimes better than encrypted.google.com. It is like regular google knows what "I" want.
thomastjeffery 9y ago
The difference isn't the encryption, but the fact that Google tracks your searches to give you "better" results.

notspanishflu 9y ago

It's better to use the '!s' bang. Is like using '!g' but with more privacy because uses startpage.com

dhimes 9y ago
I didn't realize google allowed this kind of thing.
itsnotvalid 9y ago
Then what's the difference between using !g and startpage.com ?

Freak_NL 9y ago

!ud → Urban Dictionary (what do you mean, she's 'office cute'?) !wen → Wikipedia English !w.. → Wikipedia (two letter language code, e.g., 'nl') !wikt Wiktionary So many useful bangs.

the_duke 9y ago
So many bangs for you duck!
- pvdebbe 9y ago
  The best bang for your duck
fenwick67 9y ago
Just a plain !w gives me English Wikipedia. Usually if I need a certain engine I just guess the bang and it's usually supported and correct. !gm for google maps, !tineye for tineye, !wayback for the wayback machine...
- Freak_NL 9y ago
  They are pretty predictable. I just tried !osm madagascar on a whim, and it opens OpenStreetMap, as expected. Setting DuckDuckGo as the search engine for your browser's address bar means all these bangs work right there whenever you open a new tab.
- smnrchrds 9y ago
  It depends on language settings. I have set DDG region to Canada and language to Canadian French. As a result, !w redirects mne to French Wikipedia.
dredmorbius 9y ago
!hn does something or another
0x4a42 9y ago
Some might be less useful tho, try: !ddg google Or if you are feeling lucky: !!ddg google :) edit: typo

toxican 9y ago

I tried switching to DDG a few years ago, but I found myself using !ge more often than not, so I wasn't really sure what the point of using DDG was. For my needs, DDG's results are pretty mediocre. Which is a shame, becuase I'd rather support them over Google.

jerf 9y ago
Your needs a few years ago, or your needs now? As benbenhu says, it has gotten a lot better. Lately I've found that when DDG doesn't have the thing I want and I stick the !g in, Google doesn't necessarily do any better, which implies that it's just a hard search.
- bleuarff 9y ago
  I second that. I rarely use the !g bang (no need for that, DDG has the anwsers), but when I do I don't get anything more significant.

a_dev_1234 9y ago

I'm tired of people mentioning !g. If you want to use google, just use google. Stop using duck duck go just to search google, and then say "but duck duck go is better" lo. no it isn't. clearly.

unethical_ban 9y ago
Yeah, if someone is just going to search Google all the time. If one is going to use DDG most of the time, but then pivots, it's worth noting. I use DDG to get to Wikipedia, Amazon, Google Images, and sometimes Google (for technical searches).
striking 9y ago
It's a way to wean yourself off of Google or quickly see results from a different perspective. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just an easy way out for people who don't trust ddg just yet.
- makapuf 9y ago
  That and its a Good way To help ddg (recording used search queries) and getting google results
ZoF 9y ago
Googler detected
malnourish 9y ago
It's completely valid to use that when you are searching for something local. Something that ddg shouldn't really do.
FabHK 9y ago
With DDG as my default search engine (Safari, macOS & iOS), I can (in the rare cases that I need to) easily and quickly search on google or startpage or other sites (by appending !g or !s in the search box). If you're on Google as your default search engine, it's not so convenient to see other engine's results (plus you're being tracked all the time).

NuDinNou 9y ago

More bangs at https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang

Zhyl 9y ago

The 'I'm feeling lucky' one is great. '<Song name> !' or '<song name> youtube !' takes you right to it. I'd love a feature that opens the first result on a search engine like wikipedia does by default. Biggest use case for me would be imdb but there would be others.

deltaprotocol 9y ago
Well, lucky you! DuckDuckGo has that by using a backslash, a space and a search term (\ bed intruder youtube) or an exclamation a space and the search term (although I believe the former is the official way now). I use it all the time, it's like a superpower.

shpx 9y ago

I added bangs to google by defining custom search engines with a one or two letter prefix in chrome://settings/searchEngines Now if I type "h my-search" into the omnibar, it goes to google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+my-search which gives me only Google search results from HN. This is using google's algorithm (not the search bar built into whichever website like DDG) which is still the best, especially if you constrain it to one domain name. I also don't have to type the "!" The prefix messes up google's text prediction. I guess no one from the chromium team is using this feature, since it would be trivial to fix.

forapurpose 9y ago
That also works with bookmark keywords in Firefox. The setting is in each bookmark's properties; it takes variables (I leave it to the reader to look up the syntax).
shpx 9y ago
Here are the ones I actually use. w https://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Awikipedia.org+%s&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky https://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Awikipedia.org+%s&btn... first result from wikipedia h https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+%s https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+%... r https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Areddit.com+%s https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Areddit.com+%s reddit y https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s youtube m https://www.google.ca/maps/search/%s https://www.google.ca/maps/search/%s google maps b https://builtwith.com/?q=%s https://builtwith.com/?q=%s add "b " to a url to find out what tech is being used wo https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%s https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%s wolfram alpha i https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=%s https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=%s google image search g https://github.com/%s https://github.com/%s "g upspin/upspin" to jump to https://github.com/upspin/upspin.git https://github.com/upspin/upspin.git br https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formula/%s.rb https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formul... read homebrew formula c https://caniuse.com/#search=%s https://caniuse.com/#search=%s

Brakenshire 9y ago

Would be interested to hear what search engines people here use. I feel the promise of DDG is the ability to match your search engine to your purpose. Maybe if you want to search for a particular code snippet you can use a search engine that is friendly to programming syntax. Or if you want more lateral results, you use a search engine with an unusual algorithm. But I haven't yet been able to find alternatives, if they exist.

dispo001 9y ago
https://yacy.net https://yacy.net

roryisok 9y ago

I've been a happy ddg user for months now but never knew about this, thanks!