3 ms·

Definitely not nil for me. DDG still seems to struggle at looking up basic programing related information. Is that not the case for you?

soperj 9y ago
Not for me any more. If i don't find a result i want the first time, i just add a !so and then it searches only stackoverflow.
bitL 9y ago
DDG used to be much better half a year ago; recently they seem to have adopted "I know better than you what you want to search for" from Google and often even "" doesn't return anything useful until you start adding "-" to any terms that are out of whack. Friends at DDG, if you read this, please return back to what you had before, aping the leader with its warts is not going to make you more competitive, but definitely less useful.
- trophycase 9y ago
  Unfortunately, they are right most of the time that they know better. But it is sad that something gets ruined catering to people who can't properly formulate keywords.
simias 9y ago
I've been using DDG for a few years now and I have the reflex to immediately add "!g" after a query if I don't find what I'm looking for in the first screen of results. Nowadays I notice more and more that when DDG doesn't find what I'm looking for then google often doesn't either. I think the duck is pretty mature now, at least for my use cases. That being said I don't fool myself, DDG is free which means that if it ever becomes really mainstream it's going to turn "evil" at some point in order to monetize the users one way or an other. Let me pay for your bloody service, add a few gizmo premium features if you have to. I want to be the client, not the product.
- kristianc 9y ago
  People forget that Google was an enormously profitable business even when the tracking part of its operation was in its infancy. Search ads sold by intent will always be valuable
- dingaling 9y ago
  The bang-notation still irks me, it's like it is negating the g to indicate 'not Google results'
- majewsky 9y ago
  For me, the urge to "!g" has considerably weakened over the last few months (I've switched to DDG as daily driver about a year ago). So either they got a lot better in that time, or the subconscious part of my brain that composes search queries is gradient-descending into a local optimum without me noticing.

soperj 9y ago

Not for me any more. If i don't find a result i want the first time, i just add a !so and then it searches only stackoverflow.

bitL 9y ago

DDG used to be much better half a year ago; recently they seem to have adopted "I know better than you what you want to search for" from Google and often even "" doesn't return anything useful until you start adding "-" to any terms that are out of whack. Friends at DDG, if you read this, please return back to what you had before, aping the leader with its warts is not going to make you more competitive, but definitely less useful.

trophycase 9y ago
Unfortunately, they are right most of the time that they know better. But it is sad that something gets ruined catering to people who can't properly formulate keywords.

simias 9y ago

I've been using DDG for a few years now and I have the reflex to immediately add "!g" after a query if I don't find what I'm looking for in the first screen of results. Nowadays I notice more and more that when DDG doesn't find what I'm looking for then google often doesn't either. I think the duck is pretty mature now, at least for my use cases. That being said I don't fool myself, DDG is free which means that if it ever becomes really mainstream it's going to turn "evil" at some point in order to monetize the users one way or an other. Let me pay for your bloody service, add a few gizmo premium features if you have to. I want to be the client, not the product.

kristianc 9y ago
People forget that Google was an enormously profitable business even when the tracking part of its operation was in its infancy. Search ads sold by intent will always be valuable
dingaling 9y ago
The bang-notation still irks me, it's like it is negating the g to indicate 'not Google results'
majewsky 9y ago
For me, the urge to "!g" has considerably weakened over the last few months (I've switched to DDG as daily driver about a year ago). So either they got a lot better in that time, or the subconscious part of my brain that composes search queries is gradient-descending into a local optimum without me noticing.