4 ms·

This is entirely your opinion, and you don't even explain why. DDG's !bang syntax let's me get where I want to be way faster than a Google search + clicking a r

This is entirely your opinion, and you don't even explain why. DDG's !bang syntax let's me get where I want to be way faster than a Google search + clicking a result. The lack of user profiling means that I can get less biased results (biased meaning tailored to what Google thinks I want to see, which is NOT always what I want). Edit: Not to mention, I hate searching for something on a whim and then having ads served to me for the next few months as if that one random search query is a defining feature of me.

Tomte 7y ago
Last time someone argued that point I did a short test. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19043565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19043565 For example, just now, I came across "ED survivor". No idea what "ED" means here (it's eating disorder). I just put it into DDG and got nothing on the first page that looked like it could be pertinent: A user name "ED survivor" on Instagram posting about vegetarianism, Ed Stafford on Wikipedia, "ED: The Survivor" (a mod for a computer game evidently), Devil Survivor Full HD (a film obviously, no idea what ED means here), a few more in this vein, until the page ends with the TV series Survivor on Wikipedia. Google: First hit "Template:ED survivor" in Wikipedia (and that page contains the words "eating disorder". Second hit "Eating Disorder Survivors Wall", third hit "Surviving ED" from HealthyPlace (so it's health-related – and the snippet shown on the result page starts with "Eating Disorders recovery is a long road.). The rest of the results on Google are all similar, all of them(!) clearly tell me what ED means in this context. DDG gave me crap, none of the results(!) came even close to answering my question. This is not a singular occurence, just a thing I wanted to know a few minutes ago. I'd love to take DDG's search results, but when not narrowed down to specific origins with bang commands, the results are usually worthless. Edit: and before people tell me that I should have used quotation marks around my search terms, great, let's try that: Two results with "We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us.". From the top three results, one times out, one redirects to a sports betting site, and one to a product in an online apothecary (nothing to do with eating disorder). Then penis extension. Erectile dysfunction, something general about mental disorder, and again two results about penis enlargement.
- hoobler 7y ago
  I just typed "Eating disorder survivor" into DDG and got plenty relevant results. It's not going to work exactly the same as Google, and that's the point. Your "test" doesn't prove anything other than the fact that you're willing to sacrifice your user data for less keystrokes.
  - Tomte 7y ago
    Obviously, such a test isn't scientific, nor reproducible. But more importantly, the search term was "ED survivor". If you enter the solution, I'm not surprised the solution comes out again.
    - hoobler 7y ago
      You missed my point, which was that I don't mind being more specific in my searches if it means my privacy is respected. DDG doesn't work for you and you don't mind Google having a full profile of your web browsing habits in order to better target you for their advertising business? That's fine, but DDG is not without merit just because it doesn't work out of the box exactly as you expect it to. EDIT: And as a response to the other comment pointing our that you didn't know what ED was in the first place, Google is not the be all end all of knowledge... type "ED !w" and figure it out based on the listing in Wikipedia. This is an inconvenience that I don't mind, that's my entire point.
  - stordoff 7y ago
    You missed: > No idea what "ED" means here If you don't know what ED means, that doesn't help you.
    - hoobler 7y ago
      As I said below, Google is not the be all end all of knowledge, you can use !bang commands to use different resources. If this is too inconvenient for you, you are free to give your browsing habits up for a better product.
- 7y ago
inferiorhuman 7y ago
This is entirely your opinion, and you don't even explain why. For me one of the most consistent flaws is that DDG simply doesn't index some forums that Google does.
- hoobler 7y ago
  That's definitely a fair position to take. If the pages aren't index, the differences in search functionality are moot.
mehrdada 7y ago
> This is entirely your opinion, and you don't even explain why Theirs, and mine, and matches many other Google users. And thinking the opposite is somehow not your... opinion? FWIW, the world uses Google at large, so a theory that says DDG is not much worse than Google requires stronger evidence than the opposite. I would have loved to be able to use DDG/StartPage, but having frequently tried alternative search engines, I keep coming back to Google, unfortunately.

Tomte 7y ago

Last time someone argued that point I did a short test. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19043565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19043565 For example, just now, I came across "ED survivor". No idea what "ED" means here (it's eating disorder). I just put it into DDG and got nothing on the first page that looked like it could be pertinent: A user name "ED survivor" on Instagram posting about vegetarianism, Ed Stafford on Wikipedia, "ED: The Survivor" (a mod for a computer game evidently), Devil Survivor Full HD (a film obviously, no idea what ED means here), a few more in this vein, until the page ends with the TV series Survivor on Wikipedia. Google: First hit "Template:ED survivor" in Wikipedia (and that page contains the words "eating disorder". Second hit "Eating Disorder Survivors Wall", third hit "Surviving ED" from HealthyPlace (so it's health-related – and the snippet shown on the result page starts with "Eating Disorders recovery is a long road.). The rest of the results on Google are all similar, all of them(!) clearly tell me what ED means in this context. DDG gave me crap, none of the results(!) came even close to answering my question. This is not a singular occurence, just a thing I wanted to know a few minutes ago. I'd love to take DDG's search results, but when not narrowed down to specific origins with bang commands, the results are usually worthless. Edit: and before people tell me that I should have used quotation marks around my search terms, great, let's try that: Two results with "We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us.". From the top three results, one times out, one redirects to a sports betting site, and one to a product in an online apothecary (nothing to do with eating disorder). Then penis extension. Erectile dysfunction, something general about mental disorder, and again two results about penis enlargement.

hoobler 7y ago
I just typed "Eating disorder survivor" into DDG and got plenty relevant results. It's not going to work exactly the same as Google, and that's the point. Your "test" doesn't prove anything other than the fact that you're willing to sacrifice your user data for less keystrokes.
- Tomte 7y ago
  Obviously, such a test isn't scientific, nor reproducible. But more importantly, the search term was "ED survivor". If you enter the solution, I'm not surprised the solution comes out again.
  - hoobler 7y ago
    You missed my point, which was that I don't mind being more specific in my searches if it means my privacy is respected. DDG doesn't work for you and you don't mind Google having a full profile of your web browsing habits in order to better target you for their advertising business? That's fine, but DDG is not without merit just because it doesn't work out of the box exactly as you expect it to. EDIT: And as a response to the other comment pointing our that you didn't know what ED was in the first place, Google is not the be all end all of knowledge... type "ED !w" and figure it out based on the listing in Wikipedia. This is an inconvenience that I don't mind, that's my entire point.
- stordoff 7y ago
  You missed: > No idea what "ED" means here If you don't know what ED means, that doesn't help you.
  - hoobler 7y ago
    As I said below, Google is not the be all end all of knowledge, you can use !bang commands to use different resources. If this is too inconvenient for you, you are free to give your browsing habits up for a better product.
7y ago

inferiorhuman 7y ago

This is entirely your opinion, and you don't even explain why. For me one of the most consistent flaws is that DDG simply doesn't index some forums that Google does.

hoobler 7y ago
That's definitely a fair position to take. If the pages aren't index, the differences in search functionality are moot.

mehrdada 7y ago

> This is entirely your opinion, and you don't even explain why Theirs, and mine, and matches many other Google users. And thinking the opposite is somehow not your... opinion? FWIW, the world uses Google at large, so a theory that says DDG is not much worse than Google requires stronger evidence than the opposite. I would have loved to be able to use DDG/StartPage, but having frequently tried alternative search engines, I keep coming back to Google, unfortunately.