6 ms·

Unironically switch to Bing

cft 7y ago
I did, first for any search that might include political bias, due to results' censorship, but then I accidentally discovered that programming related searches and other technical searches are often better in Bing too.
- phkahler 7y ago
  >> but then I accidentally discovered that programming related searches and other technical searches are often better in Bing too. They have gotten terrible at Google because the results are all ads. Any technical article explaining what an expert may want to know is not part of a corporate product page and therefore has no monetary value for anyone (Google included) to push it up in the results. Ask how to implement something and you'll get a bunch of results for products that implement that thing already.
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    Yeah I had to stop using Google entirely because I just couldn't find anything relevant to what I actually wanted to know. They've worked so hard to make the results relevant to someone with like 1 year of experience that the results are no longer actually relevant to someone who wants to go deeper or know more or who already knows everything on the first page of results but needs more information than a magic library. To be honest the Internet has gotten significantly less useful as a repository of information as it has aged, to the point where I now have to order books if I want to learn anything new in my field.
rkuykendall-com 7y ago
I hear Duck Duck Go is pretty good these days. I tried their image search after Google removed a feature I liked and it had a feature I didn't even realize I wanted.
- pb7 7y ago
  DuckDuckGo is mostly Bing.
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    They have a bunch of own infrastructure and data these days (I have read they don't use Bing at all now). Besides: It's cleaner, faster, has often useful instant answers (random, 10011001 in hex, 1 btc in xmr, 40 stones in kg), bangs (!g for Google, !gh for GitHub, !yt for YouTube, !w for Wikipedia) and actually respects your privacy. I think this feature could be much improved an expanded, but the location context switch is a really cool thing as well.
    - pb7 7y ago
      > I have read they don't use Bing at all now Got a link I can take a look at? > We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from a variety of partners, including Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) and Bing.[0] Yahoo is also powered by Bing last I checked. [0] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
      - GcVmvNhBsU 7y ago
        Here’s one: https://trypap.com/ https://trypap.com/
    - bduerst 7y ago
      >and actually respects your privacy. According to who? DDG is a privately-owned, for-profit corporation, whose code is closed source and doesn't undergo independent audits or validations of privacy.
      - Nextgrid 7y ago
        Their only selling point is privacy, so I feel like they have an incentive to keep their only lifeline going. If they break their promise it’s essentially the end of their business as they don’t have anything else compelling. Most other companies can get away with violating your privacy because they have something nobody else has (either because their product is so good or because of network effects) so you have no choice but to keep using them. DDG doesn’t have that luxury.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rb808 7y ago
Bing is great too because it encourages competition in the search space.
ZWoz 7y ago
Funny, that google UI change finally pushed me to set DuckDuckGo to default search provider in my work computer. Few times I have been little bit dissapointed with search results and did another search in google, but mostly ddg is pretty smooth experience. So, thanks google for that UI change.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  Personally I learn from DDG’s failures and am able to predict whether DDG is going to be good enough or if I need to add the “!g” shortcut so it automatically redirects me to Google, saving a few seconds in the process. Hopefully one day DDG becomes good enough that I never have to do that, though with the recent developments it’s more likely that Google will become worse enough to make current DDG be good in comparison as opposed to DDG actually becoming better than Google. Sad times for sure.
convFixb 7y ago
Unironically this. I switched at work because Google thought our proxy was evil or something, then I switched at home just because, and I honestly haven't missed Google at all. The only thing that strikes me as obviously worse (maybe?) is that Bing isn't very good at guessing what you mean when you misspell something badly.
sriram_sun 7y ago
For physical ailments, I use Brave + incognito (and search with DuckDuckGo), then manually look for webmd hits and such. Still, I have this feeling that 5 years later, I'll be reading about our ISPs ratting us out to insurance providers. Other suggestions welcome.

cft 7y ago

I did, first for any search that might include political bias, due to results' censorship, but then I accidentally discovered that programming related searches and other technical searches are often better in Bing too.

phkahler 7y ago
>> but then I accidentally discovered that programming related searches and other technical searches are often better in Bing too. They have gotten terrible at Google because the results are all ads. Any technical article explaining what an expert may want to know is not part of a corporate product page and therefore has no monetary value for anyone (Google included) to push it up in the results. Ask how to implement something and you'll get a bunch of results for products that implement that thing already.
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  Yeah I had to stop using Google entirely because I just couldn't find anything relevant to what I actually wanted to know. They've worked so hard to make the results relevant to someone with like 1 year of experience that the results are no longer actually relevant to someone who wants to go deeper or know more or who already knows everything on the first page of results but needs more information than a magic library. To be honest the Internet has gotten significantly less useful as a repository of information as it has aged, to the point where I now have to order books if I want to learn anything new in my field.

rkuykendall-com 7y ago

I hear Duck Duck Go is pretty good these days. I tried their image search after Google removed a feature I liked and it had a feature I didn't even realize I wanted.

pb7 7y ago
DuckDuckGo is mostly Bing.
- solarkraft 7y ago
  They have a bunch of own infrastructure and data these days (I have read they don't use Bing at all now). Besides: It's cleaner, faster, has often useful instant answers (random, 10011001 in hex, 1 btc in xmr, 40 stones in kg), bangs (!g for Google, !gh for GitHub, !yt for YouTube, !w for Wikipedia) and actually respects your privacy. I think this feature could be much improved an expanded, but the location context switch is a really cool thing as well.
  - pb7 7y ago
    > I have read they don't use Bing at all now Got a link I can take a look at? > We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from a variety of partners, including Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) and Bing.[0] Yahoo is also powered by Bing last I checked. [0] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
    - GcVmvNhBsU 7y ago
      Here’s one: https://trypap.com/ https://trypap.com/
  - bduerst 7y ago
    >and actually respects your privacy. According to who? DDG is a privately-owned, for-profit corporation, whose code is closed source and doesn't undergo independent audits or validations of privacy.
    - Nextgrid 7y ago
      Their only selling point is privacy, so I feel like they have an incentive to keep their only lifeline going. If they break their promise it’s essentially the end of their business as they don’t have anything else compelling. Most other companies can get away with violating your privacy because they have something nobody else has (either because their product is so good or because of network effects) so you have no choice but to keep using them. DDG doesn’t have that luxury.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rb808 7y ago

Bing is great too because it encourages competition in the search space.

ZWoz 7y ago

Funny, that google UI change finally pushed me to set DuckDuckGo to default search provider in my work computer. Few times I have been little bit dissapointed with search results and did another search in google, but mostly ddg is pretty smooth experience. So, thanks google for that UI change.

Nextgrid 7y ago
Personally I learn from DDG’s failures and am able to predict whether DDG is going to be good enough or if I need to add the “!g” shortcut so it automatically redirects me to Google, saving a few seconds in the process. Hopefully one day DDG becomes good enough that I never have to do that, though with the recent developments it’s more likely that Google will become worse enough to make current DDG be good in comparison as opposed to DDG actually becoming better than Google. Sad times for sure.

convFixb 7y ago

Unironically this. I switched at work because Google thought our proxy was evil or something, then I switched at home just because, and I honestly haven't missed Google at all. The only thing that strikes me as obviously worse (maybe?) is that Bing isn't very good at guessing what you mean when you misspell something badly.

sriram_sun 7y ago

For physical ailments, I use Brave + incognito (and search with DuckDuckGo), then manually look for webmd hits and such. Still, I have this feeling that 5 years later, I'll be reading about our ISPs ratting us out to insurance providers. Other suggestions welcome.