5 ms·

Because you can also add "!b" for bing, "!w" for wikipedia, "!a" for Amazon, etc. Unless you think typing URLs in google's search box is easier.

whalesalad 7y ago
I can type 'ama' + enter and get Amazon instantly. If I need something on wikipedia I can just search for it and the wiki page will generally be in the top 10 results from Google. As for bing... I have never knowingly or consciously used it to search for something.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- disconnected 7y ago
  You are missing the point. The point is that with DDG, you have a uniform syntax for searching multiple services that doesn't require any special cooperation from your browser or those services, doesn't require any setup apart from using DDG and only requires you to learn one new concept. And this will work anywhere where webpages work (like, say, lynx), and will work consistently. There are thousands of !bangs, from things ranging from amazon, to wikipedia, to maps, to dictionary definitions... You aren't limited to a handful of hand picked services that your browser decided to support out of the box, or that you decided to manually configure. Also, there is generally decent support to switch languages and regions for services that support it. For example, "!w" gets you "wikipedia", "!wsimple" gets you the "Simple English" version and "!wpt" gets you the Portuguese version. IMHO, this is all extremely convenient.
unicornporn 7y ago
You don't have to route all your searches through DDG to achieve that. https://support.mozilla.org/sv/kb/assign-shortcuts-search-engines https://support.mozilla.org/sv/kb/assign-shortcuts-search-en... https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ works. DDG does not.
- snailmailman 7y ago
  The thing i really like about bangs is that i can often just assume one exists, with zero setup, across all my devices. I don't search IMDB frequently enough to bother manually adding it in a menu somewhere, but on both desktop and mobile i can do `!imdb Brad Pitt` and get directly where I intended. It also works with less common sites, like I've been using `!stardew` lately to search the Stardew Valley Wiki directly. The most I've had to do is search the bangs documentation if i can't find the search engine i want. (for Terraria stuff i sometimes wanted `!terrg` rather than `!terraria`, and ended up searching to find the former)
  - unicornporn 7y ago
    With a good search engine you would just omit the exclamation mark and type "imdb brad pitt" (without quotation marks) and the first result would be as good here: https://www.startpage.com/do/search?query=IMDB+Brad+Pitt https://www.startpage.com/do/search?query=IMDB+Brad+Pitt As here: https://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=brad%20pitt https://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=brad%20pitt No bangs needed.
    - IceyEC 7y ago
      https://duckduckgo.com/?q=imdb+brad+pitt https://duckduckgo.com/?q=imdb+brad+pitt - the first link is to https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000093/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000093/

whalesalad 7y ago

I can type 'ama' + enter and get Amazon instantly. If I need something on wikipedia I can just search for it and the wiki page will generally be in the top 10 results from Google. As for bing... I have never knowingly or consciously used it to search for something.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
disconnected 7y ago
You are missing the point. The point is that with DDG, you have a uniform syntax for searching multiple services that doesn't require any special cooperation from your browser or those services, doesn't require any setup apart from using DDG and only requires you to learn one new concept. And this will work anywhere where webpages work (like, say, lynx), and will work consistently. There are thousands of !bangs, from things ranging from amazon, to wikipedia, to maps, to dictionary definitions... You aren't limited to a handful of hand picked services that your browser decided to support out of the box, or that you decided to manually configure. Also, there is generally decent support to switch languages and regions for services that support it. For example, "!w" gets you "wikipedia", "!wsimple" gets you the "Simple English" version and "!wpt" gets you the Portuguese version. IMHO, this is all extremely convenient.

unicornporn 7y ago

You don't have to route all your searches through DDG to achieve that. https://support.mozilla.org/sv/kb/assign-shortcuts-search-engines https://support.mozilla.org/sv/kb/assign-shortcuts-search-en... https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ works. DDG does not.

snailmailman 7y ago
The thing i really like about bangs is that i can often just assume one exists, with zero setup, across all my devices. I don't search IMDB frequently enough to bother manually adding it in a menu somewhere, but on both desktop and mobile i can do `!imdb Brad Pitt` and get directly where I intended. It also works with less common sites, like I've been using `!stardew` lately to search the Stardew Valley Wiki directly. The most I've had to do is search the bangs documentation if i can't find the search engine i want. (for Terraria stuff i sometimes wanted `!terrg` rather than `!terraria`, and ended up searching to find the former)
- unicornporn 7y ago
  With a good search engine you would just omit the exclamation mark and type "imdb brad pitt" (without quotation marks) and the first result would be as good here: https://www.startpage.com/do/search?query=IMDB+Brad+Pitt https://www.startpage.com/do/search?query=IMDB+Brad+Pitt As here: https://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=brad%20pitt https://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=brad%20pitt No bangs needed.
  - IceyEC 7y ago
    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=imdb+brad+pitt https://duckduckgo.com/?q=imdb+brad+pitt - the first link is to https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000093/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000093/