3 ms·

Ask HN: Qwant or DuckDuckGo?

3 points by jesuisuncaillou 8y ago

I'm willing to stop using Google as my default search engine, and I would like to know what the HN community thinks about alternatives. I'm currently hesitating between Qwant & DuckDuckGo, but feel free to advise another search engine if you like it better. Thanks people ! :)

kuratkull 8y ago
DDG
- jesuisuncaillou 8y ago
  Ok, but why ?
  - wingi 8y ago
    I switched 2 years ago to DDG and I am happy with the search results. Only 2 times I re-searched directly on google. Reasons on switching was the common german privacy understanding to keep my search history private.
    - jesuisuncaillou 8y ago
      Thanks for the details :)
    - jags-v 8y ago
      Me too
intertextuality 8y ago
DDG: Due to privacy concerns and bang functionality. !a <term> searches amazon, !yt for youtube, !w wikipedia, etc etc. If DDG's results are not satisfactory, you can easily type !g to do an encrypted google search. I see no real downside other than DDG being a bit slower than google sometimes.
- jesuisuncaillou 8y ago
  Ok, but why ?
  - intertextuality 8y ago
    Updated. Overall I find the functionality nice and there's no real downside.
    - jesuisuncaillou 8y ago
      Thank you very much for explaining :)
BananaShoes 8y ago
Startpage. https://new.startpage.com https://new.startpage.com DDG gets all the publicity but, truth is, their search results are pretty poor. SP is Google Search anonymised. It also looks better. DDG's shebangs are great though. I wish SP would copy them.
philonoist 8y ago
DDG. I've never heard about Qwant and did a little research about it by typing "!hn qwant" using DDG. Needless to say, the criticism leveled by HN community against Qwant is what exactly makes me thank DDG [news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631473]. The functionality of DDG coupled with some add-ons like like VimFx on Firefox gave me no reason to take a look back. Previous to these, I used to have accrued guilt at my browser looking at me impatiently and now, I am the one irritated at my browser's execution. I don't blame her. Its the processor speed, after all. :) If you want near google like results, use "!s <query>" for it to redirect to Startpage, which is another privacy aiming Search site. Or, if you are adamant on using Qwant, you have DDG getting as meta as it can get by using "!qwt <query>" or if you want a detailed list of Qwant's functionality and its specialized searches, hit up "!bang Qwant" and read on!
guilhas 8y ago
I am not sure which is best. But searx also looks interesting. https://www.searx.me https://www.searx.me