4 ms·

I find DDG has pretty acceptable or even good results most of the time. The real power is in the "bangs", though; you can use the `!` to immediately jump to th

I find DDG has pretty acceptable or even good results most of the time. The real power is in the "bangs", though; you can use the `!` to immediately jump to the first search result without seeing a search page, or use `!g` to switch to Google for this particular query, among others. It enables a sort of power-user usage that one wouldn't get with Google.

bamboozled 7y ago
I don’t really get the logic, just use a good search engine in the first place ?
- S4M 7y ago
  The !bang feature I use the most is !w for wikipedia, however I don't use wikipedia enough to justify making it my default search engine on the nav bar.
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    Your browser can assign keywords to custom search engines so you could just type "wiki blah" to see Wikipedia or "jira 123" to load a specific ticket.
- striking 7y ago
  I'm saying that DDG can be "good enough", and that not having to click around on a results page can save you time if you know what you're doing. I understand that for some people that's not enough of a time savings to make a difference, but I know DDG well enough to be able to `!` things and almost always immediately get to a successful result. I treat it as an extension of my brain at this point.
- ben509 7y ago
  It's for when the good search engine is the site's own page. If I'm working on python and numpy and I want to look up `argsort`, I know I want to search the numpy page, so !numpy argsort takes me right there. Any kind of web dev is !mdn whatever and I don't have to scroll through a dozen BS tutorials, I just get the specs.
- tripzilch 7y ago
  The logic is when you made DDG your default search for the address bar. Then it becomes the zero-stop jump off point for all the other search engines they have !bang syntax for (which are thousands, I think). I used to configure those as search keywords in Firefox (and before, Opera), which do roughly the same without the exclamation point. But on a new browser, even just configuring your favourite top 5 searches is a lot of hassle compared to just setting DDG as the default search and using their bangs.

bamboozled 7y ago

I don’t really get the logic, just use a good search engine in the first place ?

S4M 7y ago
The !bang feature I use the most is !w for wikipedia, however I don't use wikipedia enough to justify making it my default search engine on the nav bar.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  Your browser can assign keywords to custom search engines so you could just type "wiki blah" to see Wikipedia or "jira 123" to load a specific ticket.
striking 7y ago
I'm saying that DDG can be "good enough", and that not having to click around on a results page can save you time if you know what you're doing. I understand that for some people that's not enough of a time savings to make a difference, but I know DDG well enough to be able to `!` things and almost always immediately get to a successful result. I treat it as an extension of my brain at this point.
ben509 7y ago
It's for when the good search engine is the site's own page. If I'm working on python and numpy and I want to look up `argsort`, I know I want to search the numpy page, so !numpy argsort takes me right there. Any kind of web dev is !mdn whatever and I don't have to scroll through a dozen BS tutorials, I just get the specs.
tripzilch 7y ago
The logic is when you made DDG your default search for the address bar. Then it becomes the zero-stop jump off point for all the other search engines they have !bang syntax for (which are thousands, I think). I used to configure those as search keywords in Firefox (and before, Opera), which do roughly the same without the exclamation point. But on a new browser, even just configuring your favourite top 5 searches is a lot of hassle compared to just setting DDG as the default search and using their bangs.