4 ms·

Why do people still use Google? https://duckduckgo.com/?q=basecamp https://duckduckgo.com/?q=basecamp

• The_rationalist 7y ago
  Why should I use an inferior product (duck) on so many metrics? If you really want to disable ads and tracking uBlock Origin fixe the issue.
  • theshrike79 7y ago
    80% of the time DDG results are "good enough" and I'm contributing zero data to the Alphabet Empire. If the first page of DDG doesn't yield results it's about a second's work to do the same search, but with !g appended anywhere in the query.
    • torstenvl 7y ago
      A process which is unnecessarily cumbersome. If DDG wanted people to use it, they'd make the top five or so bang switches clickable. Click and it redoes the current search pretended by a bang.
      • StavrosK 7y ago
        Ooh, seeing "if they wanted people to use it" and "clickable" in the same sentence gave me feelings. To me, having to take my hands off the keyboard is the exact opposite of usable.
        • torstenvl 7y ago
          Okay... If you scroll with your keyboard, how do you get back to the search field more quickly than with the mouse? If you scroll with the mouse, how is a one-click solution with the device you already have in your hand not more efficient? BL: DDG makes bang switches unwieldy. They should fix that. EDIT: The / key is DDG's shortcut for going back to the search box. That helps a little. Doesn't mean that a clickable button wouldn't help usability a ton. Additionally, since editing a search is probably the most common use case (rather than replacing the search terms entirely), going to the search box should start with the cursor at the beginning or end of the box, rather than with the whole field highlighted.
          • StavrosK 7y ago
            I use Vimium, I don't scroll, I just press the letter of the field I want to get to. However, pressing the / key will take you back to the search box no matter where on the page you are.
            • torstenvl 7y ago
              If you have a list of search results, and not all of them are on screen, it is necessary to scroll. I don't see what Vimium has to do with it, other than using j and k instead of the arrow keys. In any case, certainly you can recognize that a huge proportion of people scroll with a mouse, n'est-ce pas?
              • StavrosK 7y ago
                Sure, but on the other hand I recognize that DDG might not want to signal that its results are so useless that you need a prominent Google fallback right on the page. For me, it's not even the case, I rarely search with Google and I've been using DDG for years.
                • torstenvl 7y ago
                  I suppose I get that. However, allowing the established player as an easy fallback when you're the underdog usually helps adoption rather than hurting it. Look at Mac sales after Intel/BootCamp/Parallels. VirtualPC existed before but it wasn't easy or fast. When it became almost seamless to fall back to Windows when necessary, more people were willing to take the leap.
            • bussierem 7y ago
              So because you use Vim to navigate the web, you think DDG shouldn't add better mouse UX that will most likely increase their conversion rate and make the site better for everyone else?
              • StavrosK 7y ago
    • freediver 7y ago
      > 80% of the time DDG results are "good enough" and I'm contributing zero data to the Alphabet Empire. You probably still are if you use chrome. By default DDG searches keep the query in the URL which means your chrome history contains history of all your searches.
  • mrpopo 7y ago
    It's not an inferior product, it's just an effect of the "muscle memory" your brain applies when doing internet search. After a few weeks/months of usage, I found myself more comfortable with using DDG/ecosia for search results.
  • Vinnl 7y ago
    uBlock Origin can't prevent Google from tracking your search queries and linking them together.
    • jayalpha 7y ago
      Use startpage.com
      • Vinnl 7y ago
        Sure, or DDG. But GGP was complaining about using a different product - I was merely making the point that you cannot avoid that if you want to avoid tracking.
    • tiborsaas 7y ago
      And that's bad because...? You can also turn it off to save this data on you.
      • Vinnl 7y ago
        Well, often a reason for not wanting them to track it is because you don't want them (or the US government) to build a profile on you, which could be abused e.g. by hyper-targeting content to you and thereby influencing your world view. Using something like DDG is one of many measures you can take to step out of your filter bubble. But yes, you can turn that off in your Google preferences as well.
  • PopeDotNinja 7y ago
    I personally dislike DDG's infinite scrolling. I much prefer good ol' pagination.
    • frosted-flakes 7y ago
      There's a setting to disable infinite scrolling.
      • jspash 7y ago
        A minor pet-peeve of mine is when searching for videos on DDG, right-click or Cmd-click on the thumbnail doesn't open the "link" in a new tab. Yes, I could cmd-click on the title instead but people (me) are lazy. Bigger targets make for a better/quicker experience. They have a few other javascript enhancements like this that seem to break simple HTML functionality. Enough of them that I go back to using Google any time I venture into the DDG world.
  • Yizahi 7y ago
    I'm using it exclusively both at work and at home and doesn't feel any problems. It is all perception issues.
  • alpaca128 7y ago
    It takes some time(in my case about two weeks or so) until you "get" which search terms to use in a different search engine. And now after years of using DuckDuckGo I stopped using Google completely because I simply can't get find any usable results on the whole first one to two pages, sometimes there's even half of the first page filled with only Pinterest links. In short, no, DDG is definitely not inferior in my experience, it's all just a matter of getting used to it.
• defective 7y ago
  Probably because they prefer, or think they prefer, Google results to DDG results and don't realize that a decent company (ixquick developer) runs the domain StartPage.com https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ (which has a very AOLish, Web 1.0 sound to it). Startpage serves up Google results. DDG serves up everything but Google, I think.