4 ms·

I've switched my default browser search engine to DDG, but I still find myself missing Google results. I miss those knowledge graph results (or whatever Google

I've switched my default browser search engine to DDG, but I still find myself missing Google results. I miss those knowledge graph results (or whatever Google calls those sidebar boxes). Also, I've found that DDG cannot consistently display a weather forecast widget for the query "[zip code] weather". Sometimes it will show a weather forecast, and other times it will not display it--very frustrating. Any idea why? Even just refreshing the results will switch to displaying the weather widget, which leads me to think it's either a bug (I'm in Firefox), or they don't actually have the data for my zip code and are going to fetch it after I make my request?

sp332 7y ago
How about !weather instead of just weather? You can even pick your source: https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=weather https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=weather
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  When I search !weather it ships me off to weather.com. I REALLY don't want that to happen. If I wanted to go there, I would have just typed in that URL.
  - sp332 7y ago
    I don't see why it's worse. If you want to know what the weather is, why not go to a weather site? What's the advantage to seeing the same (or less) information on a search results page instead?
    - nullspace 7y ago
      Not OP, but I was so happy when weather was built into google a few years ago. Weather.com is pure evil when it comes to tracking and clickbait. It's also slow as hell.
      - sp332 7y ago
        Yeah but I covered that in the second part of my comment. See https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=weather https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=weather
        Consultant32452 7y ago
        I guess this boils down to what is my goal. Here's two plausible goals from my perspective. I go to DDG and ask for it to give me a sample of some sources from which I could find the weather. This is a traditional search. Or, I could go to DDG and ask it for the current weather. This is what I really want. There's no scenario in which I already know which weather source I want to use, memorize its ! command, navigate to DDG, then enter that ! command. That's too many jumps. If I want the weather from weather underground or whatever, why would I ever go to DDG to start with?
        sp332 7y ago
        I have DDG as my default search engine, so I just type "!wu 01234" in my address bar. This basically skips the DDG navigation and UI entirely. I like this type of shortcut for Wikipedia and IMDB too. Anyway this is just a workaround for when the weather infobox doesn't automatically show up in the DDG UI, which it normally does.
  - piffey 7y ago
    There are over two dozens weather bangs. !wu = weather underground !owm = open weather map !nws = national weather service to name a few alternatives.
    - sp332 7y ago
      Funny enough, it doesn't have a bang for Dark Sky, which is the source for the weather info box when it has one.
    - adjkant 7y ago
      I think the issue is they may not want to go to ANY other website - they want the widget. What do they do then?
      - jsjw7sbw 7y ago
        "$city weather" works for me every time. Even more specific regions of cities works.
      - swiley 7y ago
        Why bother launching a webbrowser then? Save ram: curl wttr.in
        adjkant 7y ago
        UI's have value, as does integration into a browser. Not everything is solved by a CLI for all
burlesona 7y ago
This is kinda silly but for me it always works if I do it in the other order: ie. “weather 12345” Maybe try that?

sp332 7y ago

How about !weather instead of just weather? You can even pick your source: https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=weather https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=weather

Consultant32452 7y ago
When I search !weather it ships me off to weather.com. I REALLY don't want that to happen. If I wanted to go there, I would have just typed in that URL.
- sp332 7y ago
  I don't see why it's worse. If you want to know what the weather is, why not go to a weather site? What's the advantage to seeing the same (or less) information on a search results page instead?
  - nullspace 7y ago
    Not OP, but I was so happy when weather was built into google a few years ago. Weather.com is pure evil when it comes to tracking and clickbait. It's also slow as hell.
    - sp332 7y ago
      Yeah but I covered that in the second part of my comment. See https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=weather https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=weather
      - Consultant32452 7y ago
        I guess this boils down to what is my goal. Here's two plausible goals from my perspective. I go to DDG and ask for it to give me a sample of some sources from which I could find the weather. This is a traditional search. Or, I could go to DDG and ask it for the current weather. This is what I really want. There's no scenario in which I already know which weather source I want to use, memorize its ! command, navigate to DDG, then enter that ! command. That's too many jumps. If I want the weather from weather underground or whatever, why would I ever go to DDG to start with?
        sp332 7y ago
        I have DDG as my default search engine, so I just type "!wu 01234" in my address bar. This basically skips the DDG navigation and UI entirely. I like this type of shortcut for Wikipedia and IMDB too. Anyway this is just a workaround for when the weather infobox doesn't automatically show up in the DDG UI, which it normally does.
- piffey 7y ago
  There are over two dozens weather bangs. !wu = weather underground !owm = open weather map !nws = national weather service to name a few alternatives.
  - sp332 7y ago
    Funny enough, it doesn't have a bang for Dark Sky, which is the source for the weather info box when it has one.
  - adjkant 7y ago
    I think the issue is they may not want to go to ANY other website - they want the widget. What do they do then?
    - jsjw7sbw 7y ago
      "$city weather" works for me every time. Even more specific regions of cities works.
    - swiley 7y ago
      Why bother launching a webbrowser then? Save ram: curl wttr.in
      - adjkant 7y ago
        UI's have value, as does integration into a browser. Not everything is solved by a CLI for all

burlesona 7y ago

This is kinda silly but for me it always works if I do it in the other order: ie. “weather 12345” Maybe try that?