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Rant seems extremely strong - how about we go with well thought through set of opinions that the CEO of Duck Duck Go is rigorously applying to his product. I p
by andy_ppp 8y ago
Rant seems extremely strong - how about we go with well thought through set of opinions that the CEO of Duck Duck Go is rigorously applying to his product.
I personally found his argument so persuasive I intend to set everything to DuckDuckGo again now.
- cbluth 8y agoYeah, I'm convinced now, too
- thelittleone 8y agoI made the switch to DDG about 12 months ago for all devices. It has been an entirely positive experience.
- isaiahg 8y agoBeen full DDG almost as long and now I can't go back. It gives me much better results than google does.
- Nebbers 8y agoWent to try it for a week to see if it was viable. Haven't looked back and have never needed to go to Google's search engine for a year now. Best feature is by far the Stack Overflow 'instant answers'!
- the_duke 8y agoI have it as my primary search engine now too, but I find myself constantly using !g because the results suck.
- hiccuphippo 8y agoTry !s instead of !g for startpage. Same results, less tracking.
- rovr138 8y agoSimilar results. Sometimes the Google bubble helps. But I agree. I check on DuckDuckGo, if I can't find what I'm looking for, most of the time, adding !s finds it. If not, I go back and switching to !g.
- enriquto 8y ago> I have it as my primary search engine now too, but I find myself constantly using !g because the results suck. It's the opposite for me. I use primarily google, but when the results suck (which is quite often), I switch to duckduckgo to obtain a sensible search.
- smbullet 8y agoSame. I use Firefox for Android which is helpful if you have searches you know for a fact DDG won't be able to figure because Firefox let's you select a different search engine instead from the bottom. I do this for sports and location specific searches.
- weaksauce 8y agoIt’s usually good enough for me 90-95% and if I need something that google does better I’ll just use !sp as a proxy to those results. !g is a last resort.
- technimad 8y agoWhen I moved to DDG, it took me more than a week to tune my searches for it. I was completely trained to the google interpreter and ddg works different. Now I use slightly different phrases, or ordering and it is great. I only use !g for very specific technical searches, like obscure errors.
- ge0rg 8y agoDo you have some hints on effectively using DDG, based on that experience?
- confounded 8y agoI would also find this interesting, I switched from DDG to StartPage.com (proxied Google results) for this reason.
- Too 8y agoJust use it. There are no special tricks or hints needed, it is that good. Biggest differences to me is that Google seems to handle natural questions like "how do i..." in a "smart" way whereas ddg seems to be more altavista like in that your keywords have higher weight rather than trying to outsmart you. Another difference is that Google is much better on local search thanks to its strong bonds with Google maps, like checking opening hours. For anything not maps related DDG has been my default for can't even remember how many years, over 5.
- Arcsech 8y agoIf you want to directly search other sites without having to choose a different engine in Firefox: if you search through DDG, you can put !g before or after your query and it’ll forward you to google. There are a bunch of these. !a forwards to Amazon, !w to Wikipedia, etc.
- philipswood 8y agoWhen a DDG search has results that seem unsatisfactory then just do a follow up Google bang with !g Often with technical searches the DDG results seem better.
- Strongerpass 8y agoThe "just" in having to analyze some results and come to the conclusion that I need to rerun the query with some prefix is not so convincing. I've already wasted time at that point.
- rovr138 8y agoYou still have to analyze results anyway. Or do you only take the first result that Google provides? As to rerun the query, that's what the back button is for. Simply hit back, add your bang and enter. Most browsers keep that page in cache so going back is pretty quick.
- eddie-spaghetti 8y agoThat probably helps them improve. If I were at DDG I would look at these queries and try to improve the results to match Google.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- utopcell 8y agoQuora is not a forum for product placement. The CEO ad was not answering the question.
- avip 8y agoQuora is a good place for product placement and is commonly used as such. In fact, I believe that’s Quora’s revenue generation model...
- utopcell 8y agoHang on, do you think Quora is being paid to allow such answers, or that they allow them because controversial answers are popular ?
- yeutterg 8y agoWhether or not companies are paying Quora, it's common for startup founders to answer questions there. Sometimes the posts are blatant ads that don't really answer the question, or they add nothing that was not already answered. But sometimes they do answer the question and provide value, while also subtly pointing to a product. I think the latter is acceptable, and I do it occasionally myself. (Example: https://www.quora.com/What-kinds-of-lights-are-best-to-combat-Seasonal-Affective-disorder https://www.quora.com/What-kinds-of-lights-are-best-to-comba...) Consider this: founders have the strongest conviction for solving a given problem. They often created a product because they saw a gap in the market, and they tend to be domain experts. So, they are highly qualified to answer questions within their area of expertise. If a post provides value and just so happens to offer a relevant solution with financial strings attached, I have absolutely no problem with it. I might even end up purchasing it, because by searching or asking questions on Quora, I am looking for a solution myself.
- utopcell 8y agoAgreed.
- 8y ago
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoI can’t get over ther branding. I know this is a terrible reason for not switching but I can’t stand their name or logo. If they were named something more modern and less annoying I’d consider. Call me shallow but branding is important if I’m going to use it every day.
- BonesJustice 8y agoIt’s a duck with a bow tie. It’s adorable. Are you not human?
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoI guess I am not. Something about a duck in a bow tie doesn’t sit well with me.
- amelius 8y agoIt looks like Disney's original version of Donald Duck. Knowing how Disney influenced copyright law doesn't help in liking the character.
- new_guy 8y agoBranding is easily the hardest part of a new project. Code is easy. Names are hard!
- andyidsinga 8y agoit isn't the reason I don't DDG (or is it?) ..but I had a similar reaction to the branding.
- barbecue_sauce 8y agoHow about something more like CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet?
- mrhappyunhappy 8y agoBetter.
- yellowapple 8y agoI've been using it for years (how many years I can't quite recall, but at least 4 or 5). Haven't looked back. If I really need Google results, I can always stick "!g " in front of the search.
- weaksauce 8y agoYou can stick !g or any of those at almost every place in the query. In fact, if it is at the end you can omit the space.
- yellowapple 8y agoYep. I always forget that, though, so I stick to the beginning as a force of habit.
- icotyl 8y agoI made the switch on all my devices about 6 weeks ago. I lasted 5 weeks. At least for quickly finding relevant programming documentation, I didn't think the results were on par with Google.
- gmueckl 8y agoIf you still want to support DuckDuckGo, you might want to use a browser that lets you prefix search quesies with a one or two letter combo for the search engine to use. Chrome and Vivaldi have this feature and I think Firefox does as well, although I exclusively use its search bar instead, so I am not completely sure.
- Secretmapper 8y agoYou can use the g! prefix and it will go to Google. I found DDG plenty good enough for my use case, and in the rare case I can't find it there I just use g! and bam.
- djsumdog 8y agoI often use the other ones to go directly to the search I want: !imdb, !w (wikipedia), !rt (rotten tomatoes), etc.
- tobr 8y agoI thought “g!” as opposed to “!g” was a typo, but TIL both ways work equally fine! Thanks!
- Mountain_Skies 8y agoBang commands are such a wonderful feature on DDG. Not just for searching other engines when the DDG results aren't what I'm looking for but also for ecommerce sites. The frontpage of most sites are extremely heavyweight and you have to go through a ton of garbage just to get to a search box. Being able to add !homedepot to a DDG search and have it send me to the search results page at Home Depot and not the DDG spidering of the site is pretty nifty feature. I do most of my searches of shopping sites that way now.