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Unfortunately, it is my experience that DuckDuckGo excels on the desktop (lots of facts and technical questions), and falls short on many mobile use cases ("bes

Unfortunately, it is my experience that DuckDuckGo excels on the desktop (lots of facts and technical questions), and falls short on many mobile use cases ("best cafes in Some City," assistance with shopping or goods, maps, etc). I use it on my phone anyway, but I wind up using `!g` all the time. (yes, I made this same complaint on the DDG topic just a couple days ago)

mcjiggerlog 7y ago
Yeah, Google is far better at location-aware searches. To be honest most of those are usually done in Google Maps (sigh.. please somebody make a decent Google Maps alternative!) anyway, so it's not really an issue.
- Eric_WVGG 7y ago
  It's not just location-awareness. They also excel at weird fuzzy searches. random example: My girlfriend lost her laptop in airport security, and I wanted to find a picture of the specific scratch-and-sniff sticker she put on it for the claim form. Duck Duck Go search for "glossier blackberry sticker" didn't find it; Google Images did, first try. * this turned out to be a good move, I got a positive response from TSA within minutes
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > Yeah, Google is far better at location-aware searches. That's one of the reasons that I'm glad that I stopped using Google search. I've always hated location-aware searches.
- polar 7y ago
  > please somebody make a decent Google Maps alternative! https://wego.here.com/ https://wego.here.com/ ?
- loopz 7y ago
  On Duckduckgo there's a switch to turn on Region just below the search-field, or even choose Region manually. It helps alot!
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  One issue is that "a decent Google Maps alternative" would cost literally billions at this point. This kind of infrastructure is really the government's job, but they have struggled to keep pace...
amenod 7y ago
You can still try Qwant (pretty good in my experience), Bing or Startpage (which uses Google in the back - but I never had any trouble with AMP when using it). It's not like there is no choice. And of course, there should be no reason to support Chrome either, Firefox is a great alternative. EDIT: interesting, never thought such a comment would get a downvote... Google brigade?
- dang 7y ago
  > EDIT: interesting, never thought such a comment would get a downvote... Google brigade? It breaks more than one of the site guidelines to post like this. Would you mind reviewing them and following them when posting here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- kosmozaut 7y ago
  Startpage was recently bought by an ad company. https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/ https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/
  - amenod 7y ago
    Thank you very much, I wasn't aware of this! Changing my default search engine... again.

mcjiggerlog 7y ago

Yeah, Google is far better at location-aware searches. To be honest most of those are usually done in Google Maps (sigh.. please somebody make a decent Google Maps alternative!) anyway, so it's not really an issue.

Eric_WVGG 7y ago
It's not just location-awareness. They also excel at weird fuzzy searches. random example: My girlfriend lost her laptop in airport security, and I wanted to find a picture of the specific scratch-and-sniff sticker she put on it for the claim form. Duck Duck Go search for "glossier blackberry sticker" didn't find it; Google Images did, first try. * this turned out to be a good move, I got a positive response from TSA within minutes
JohnFen 7y ago
> Yeah, Google is far better at location-aware searches. That's one of the reasons that I'm glad that I stopped using Google search. I've always hated location-aware searches.
polar 7y ago
> please somebody make a decent Google Maps alternative! https://wego.here.com/ https://wego.here.com/ ?
loopz 7y ago
On Duckduckgo there's a switch to turn on Region just below the search-field, or even choose Region manually. It helps alot!
BlueTemplar 7y ago
One issue is that "a decent Google Maps alternative" would cost literally billions at this point. This kind of infrastructure is really the government's job, but they have struggled to keep pace...

amenod 7y ago

You can still try Qwant (pretty good in my experience), Bing or Startpage (which uses Google in the back - but I never had any trouble with AMP when using it). It's not like there is no choice. And of course, there should be no reason to support Chrome either, Firefox is a great alternative. EDIT: interesting, never thought such a comment would get a downvote... Google brigade?

dang 7y ago
> EDIT: interesting, never thought such a comment would get a downvote... Google brigade? It breaks more than one of the site guidelines to post like this. Would you mind reviewing them and following them when posting here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
kosmozaut 7y ago
Startpage was recently bought by an ad company. https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/ https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/
- amenod 7y ago
  Thank you very much, I wasn't aware of this! Changing my default search engine... again.