5 ms·

I don't get why people recommend DDG. It's mostly a different skin on bing search results. Why is relying on bing better than relying on google? If DDG had its

by bla2 8y ago

I don't get why people recommend DDG. It's mostly a different skin on bing search results. Why is relying on bing better than relying on google? If DDG had its own engine, I could see the "they're the small underdog focused solely on this" angle, but as-is, you have the choice of Microsoft or Google.

CaptainZapp 8y ago
There's that little thing that they don't track and bubble you.
sveme 8y ago
They do have their own engine.
- Kiro 8y ago
  Not for regular search results. https://duck.co/help/results/sources https://duck.co/help/results/sources
  - cpeterso 8y ago
    What is a "regular search result"? Your link says: "DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we source from Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex." I use DDG because I like its !bang searches and I genuinely prefer its Instant Answers and page layout over Google's.
    - Kiro 8y ago
      The last part of your quote is what most people associate search results with.
      - Kiro 8y ago
        I don't like to comment on downvotes on my posts but seriously? Do people really think that the actual links when you search are not the primary search results?
        cpeterso 8y ago
        Good question. (I didn't downvote you!) Reading DDG's FAQ, it's not clear to me if "more traditional links in the search results" means the search results (after the Instant Answers) after exclusively sourced from Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex or if they mean "mixed in" with links from the other sources. Is the web too big for a new search engine company to compete with its own crawler? Or are Google, Bing, Yandex, and Baidu the only search engine companies big enough to crawl the web effectively?
        Kiro 8y ago
        DDG themselves elaborated a bit about that in their previous Sources page: > Bing and Google each spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year crawling and indexing the deep Web. It costs so much that even big companies like Yahoo and Ask are giving up general crawling and indexing. Therefore, it seems silly to compete on crawling and, besides, we do not have the money to do so. Instead, we've focused on building a better search engine by concentrating on what we think are long-term value-adds -- having way more instant answers, way less spam, real privacy and a better overall search experience.
rogerbinns 8y ago
Look up filter bubbles[1]. The problem with a search engine that (helpfully) tailors its results to you, and keeps improving that tailoring over time, is that it will cut you off from results that others would see (unless the others are exactly like you). In the short term, having better results is great, but in the long term you are in a bubble. While DDG does use Bing (and others), the DDG searchers are getting the same results because Bing can't track and tailor your results. Many also like DDG's bang[2] which easily lets you direct your search elsewhere. For example if you search for "example" and don't like the results, then "example !g" sends it to Google. I like it for slightly more obscure stuff - eg "example !homedepot" does what you'd expect. For us python folk, it is nice to do "example !py2" or "example !py3" depending on the codebase. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble [2] https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang
- stuntkite 8y ago
  It took me forever to figure out that their bang feature exists. Not that I didn't want the privacy stuff eliminated when using search, but a filter bubble is REALLY useful for solving programming problems. Straight DDG gives terrible results for engineering questions. Especially when they are edge cases. Bang is rad. They should really make it more obvious when you're using the site.
  - rogerbinns 8y ago
    The problem DDG has is not understanding the search terms. eg "usb 3 voltage" will get you lots of results as though you had left out one or two of the words (there are far more pages about "usb voltage" than "usb 3 voltage"). You know the 3 is critical, but they don't. A general rule of thumb is that 3 or more words in your DDG search dramatically worsens the results. (Amazon search is even worse where two words begins the spiral of spectacularly bad results.) That said DDG often does get reasonable results. And if you don't like them, just add in !g to see what google gets. (Conceptually I like to give DDG first crack at a search, and then fallback to google if DDG didn't do well.) What I have noticed is google's results are getting worse, as sites are getting better at gaming google.

by bla2 8y ago

CaptainZapp 8y ago

There's that little thing that they don't track and bubble you.

sveme 8y ago

They do have their own engine.

Kiro 8y ago
Not for regular search results. https://duck.co/help/results/sources https://duck.co/help/results/sources
- cpeterso 8y ago
  What is a "regular search result"? Your link says: "DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we source from Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex." I use DDG because I like its !bang searches and I genuinely prefer its Instant Answers and page layout over Google's.
  - Kiro 8y ago
    The last part of your quote is what most people associate search results with.
    - Kiro 8y ago
      I don't like to comment on downvotes on my posts but seriously? Do people really think that the actual links when you search are not the primary search results?
      - cpeterso 8y ago
        Good question. (I didn't downvote you!) Reading DDG's FAQ, it's not clear to me if "more traditional links in the search results" means the search results (after the Instant Answers) after exclusively sourced from Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex or if they mean "mixed in" with links from the other sources. Is the web too big for a new search engine company to compete with its own crawler? Or are Google, Bing, Yandex, and Baidu the only search engine companies big enough to crawl the web effectively?
        Kiro 8y ago
        DDG themselves elaborated a bit about that in their previous Sources page: > Bing and Google each spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year crawling and indexing the deep Web. It costs so much that even big companies like Yahoo and Ask are giving up general crawling and indexing. Therefore, it seems silly to compete on crawling and, besides, we do not have the money to do so. Instead, we've focused on building a better search engine by concentrating on what we think are long-term value-adds -- having way more instant answers, way less spam, real privacy and a better overall search experience.

rogerbinns 8y ago

Look up filter bubbles[1]. The problem with a search engine that (helpfully) tailors its results to you, and keeps improving that tailoring over time, is that it will cut you off from results that others would see (unless the others are exactly like you). In the short term, having better results is great, but in the long term you are in a bubble. While DDG does use Bing (and others), the DDG searchers are getting the same results because Bing can't track and tailor your results. Many also like DDG's bang[2] which easily lets you direct your search elsewhere. For example if you search for "example" and don't like the results, then "example !g" sends it to Google. I like it for slightly more obscure stuff - eg "example !homedepot" does what you'd expect. For us python folk, it is nice to do "example !py2" or "example !py3" depending on the codebase. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble [2] https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang

stuntkite 8y ago
It took me forever to figure out that their bang feature exists. Not that I didn't want the privacy stuff eliminated when using search, but a filter bubble is REALLY useful for solving programming problems. Straight DDG gives terrible results for engineering questions. Especially when they are edge cases. Bang is rad. They should really make it more obvious when you're using the site.
- rogerbinns 8y ago
  The problem DDG has is not understanding the search terms. eg "usb 3 voltage" will get you lots of results as though you had left out one or two of the words (there are far more pages about "usb voltage" than "usb 3 voltage"). You know the 3 is critical, but they don't. A general rule of thumb is that 3 or more words in your DDG search dramatically worsens the results. (Amazon search is even worse where two words begins the spiral of spectacularly bad results.) That said DDG often does get reasonable results. And if you don't like them, just add in !g to see what google gets. (Conceptually I like to give DDG first crack at a search, and then fallback to google if DDG didn't do well.) What I have noticed is google's results are getting worse, as sites are getting better at gaming google.