5 ms·

I switched to DuckDuckGo, made it maybe two weeks, and finally gave up and switched back to Google. Their search results are still vastly inferior to Google.

aembleton 7y ago
Can you give an example search that doesn't work for you?
- king_magic 7y ago
  No? I don't have a list handy, and I’m not the QA department for DDG. The point is - and yes, this is somewhat subjective - I found the quality of the results inferior to Google, and grudgingly switched back after a few weeks of disappointment.
  - dallbee 7y ago
    You're certainly not alone, but I've had such a wildly different experience. I switched to duckduckgo primarily because I preferred the search results. The privacy aspect was just a bonus. The only time I ever find myself using the !g escape hatch is when I'm searching something brand new (e.g. a breaking news story). Duckduckgo has a recency filter but it seems to take them a few days to ingest the content.
  - bestest 7y ago
    Same here. I'm still using duckduckgo on my private devices (phone and home laptop), at work I'm using google. I suppose the reason this works for me is at work I need GOOD results, thus google search there. At home I just need a search now and again, so duckduckgo is good enough for this. So, my private life stays my private life with duckduckgo. And at work — I don't really care what google does to my "js shortest path algorithm"-kind-of results history.
- Tomte 7y ago
  From earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19043565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19043565
  - godelski 7y ago
    "ED survivor" is a tricky term to search for. Is "ed" an acronym or the name Ed? But still the first result gives you an instagram link about eating disorders and body dysphoria. Since you were trying to figure out what this term meant, I'm assuming you could figure this out from context. I'll give you that the results aren't great[0] and that Google's results were __MUCH__ better here, but it did get you to the answer you wanted with the first link. Maybe we search different, but at least in my experience I don't frequently have results like this. Rarely do I reach for "!g" and usually when I do the searches are so niche that Google struggles too. [0] https://imgur.com/a/HvFTGT1 https://imgur.com/a/HvFTGT1
    - Tomte 7y ago
      Excuse me? I didn't get an answer in the first link; there wasn't something pointing me towards the answer in any of the results on the first result page. Incidentally, nowadays I'm using DDG much more than back then. I don't know whether the search results improved or whether I calibrated myself so that I know better how to phrase my searches. I'm still using many !g, but only maybe half of the time.
- jimhefferon 7y ago
  I'm teaching Kleene's Recursion Theorem. This morning I tried "exercises for recursion theorem" in both. DDG's first page results were not useful, Google's were.
kossae 7y ago
I'm still struggling. Out of principle I've set my default search engines (desktop/mobile) to DDG, but all too often I'm using the '!g' tag to get back to Google. Especially with programming-related queries I just don't get close to what I want in DDG. Google always seems to have the right information the first time. It's unfortunate, because I keep trying to use DDG as much as possible, but the quality just isn't there for me.
- troyvit 7y ago
  Somebody here taught me the !s bang. That sends you to startpage.com. startpage uses google's index but they don't store your data.
  - vezycash 7y ago
    >they don't store your data This might have changed because they've been bought by an ad company
    - cpeterso 7y ago
      Startpage was acquired by targeted ad company System1 in December 2018 (but neither company announced the acquisition until November 2019, for some reason). https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/ https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-gro...
      - smush 7y ago
        All true points, but I'd rather risk being tracked by a company that would be completely cratered even more than they've already been by being bought by Privacy One than just go straight to the devil himself, so I use the !s and just mentally treat it as if its a slightly better form of !g rather than before where startpage was all the benefits of Google search without most of the drawbacks.
        karinakarina 7y ago
mbesto 7y ago
Same. I'm about 70% DDG and 30% Google right now. Honestly, with "!g", I'm okay with it. Even though I don't get 100% privacy, its better than 0% privacy.

aembleton 7y ago

Can you give an example search that doesn't work for you?

king_magic 7y ago
No? I don't have a list handy, and I’m not the QA department for DDG. The point is - and yes, this is somewhat subjective - I found the quality of the results inferior to Google, and grudgingly switched back after a few weeks of disappointment.
- dallbee 7y ago
  You're certainly not alone, but I've had such a wildly different experience. I switched to duckduckgo primarily because I preferred the search results. The privacy aspect was just a bonus. The only time I ever find myself using the !g escape hatch is when I'm searching something brand new (e.g. a breaking news story). Duckduckgo has a recency filter but it seems to take them a few days to ingest the content.
- bestest 7y ago
  Same here. I'm still using duckduckgo on my private devices (phone and home laptop), at work I'm using google. I suppose the reason this works for me is at work I need GOOD results, thus google search there. At home I just need a search now and again, so duckduckgo is good enough for this. So, my private life stays my private life with duckduckgo. And at work — I don't really care what google does to my "js shortest path algorithm"-kind-of results history.
Tomte 7y ago
From earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19043565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19043565
- godelski 7y ago
  "ED survivor" is a tricky term to search for. Is "ed" an acronym or the name Ed? But still the first result gives you an instagram link about eating disorders and body dysphoria. Since you were trying to figure out what this term meant, I'm assuming you could figure this out from context. I'll give you that the results aren't great[0] and that Google's results were __MUCH__ better here, but it did get you to the answer you wanted with the first link. Maybe we search different, but at least in my experience I don't frequently have results like this. Rarely do I reach for "!g" and usually when I do the searches are so niche that Google struggles too. [0] https://imgur.com/a/HvFTGT1 https://imgur.com/a/HvFTGT1
  - Tomte 7y ago
    Excuse me? I didn't get an answer in the first link; there wasn't something pointing me towards the answer in any of the results on the first result page. Incidentally, nowadays I'm using DDG much more than back then. I don't know whether the search results improved or whether I calibrated myself so that I know better how to phrase my searches. I'm still using many !g, but only maybe half of the time.
jimhefferon 7y ago
I'm teaching Kleene's Recursion Theorem. This morning I tried "exercises for recursion theorem" in both. DDG's first page results were not useful, Google's were.

kossae 7y ago

I'm still struggling. Out of principle I've set my default search engines (desktop/mobile) to DDG, but all too often I'm using the '!g' tag to get back to Google. Especially with programming-related queries I just don't get close to what I want in DDG. Google always seems to have the right information the first time. It's unfortunate, because I keep trying to use DDG as much as possible, but the quality just isn't there for me.

troyvit 7y ago
Somebody here taught me the !s bang. That sends you to startpage.com. startpage uses google's index but they don't store your data.
- vezycash 7y ago
  >they don't store your data This might have changed because they've been bought by an ad company
  - cpeterso 7y ago
    Startpage was acquired by targeted ad company System1 in December 2018 (but neither company announced the acquisition until November 2019, for some reason). https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/ https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-gro...
    - smush 7y ago
      All true points, but I'd rather risk being tracked by a company that would be completely cratered even more than they've already been by being bought by Privacy One than just go straight to the devil himself, so I use the !s and just mentally treat it as if its a slightly better form of !g rather than before where startpage was all the benefits of Google search without most of the drawbacks.
      - karinakarina 7y ago

mbesto 7y ago

Same. I'm about 70% DDG and 30% Google right now. Honestly, with "!g", I'm okay with it. Even though I don't get 100% privacy, its better than 0% privacy.