5 ms·

I love the idea of DDG, but after using it for about a year, I realized that I'm redoing most of my searches with !g. DDG seems to be quite bad at searches that

I love the idea of DDG, but after using it for about a year, I realized that I'm redoing most of my searches with !g. DDG seems to be quite bad at searches that are in my native language and somehow also often doesn't find good results for programming related queries. I ended up switching back to Google. It was painful from a privacy standpoint, but what good is privacy if I don't get useful search results.

pabo 6y ago
I have a similar experience, though I stayed on DDG. It's a bit funny, but I built a habit to use !s. This means, I use DDG to use StartPage, which in turn uses Google.
OscarCunningham 6y ago
Was this recent? I had the same experience but recently tried again and found that DDG was now about as good as Google. When I do try !g because DDG failed to find something then usually Google doesn't find it either. Sadly I think that the way that DDG caught up was that Google got worse because of SEO spam, while only DDG got a little better.
- DanBC 6y ago
  The thing that really made Google harder to use was the switch to natural language questions rather than search terms. If you ask Google a question you get better results than if you carefully select some search terms.
  - ykevinator 6y ago
    Totally agree. Google assumes you and your mom are equally trained in logic and determinism.
fileeditview 6y ago
I use DDG now for over a year and similar to you I most of the time use !g. However I still stick to DDG because of all the other bangs i constantly use such as: !w, !yt, !godoc, !yc and more. You can find them all here: https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang?
Quarrelsome 6y ago
I've been using DDG since early 2010s and what you say was very true back then its much less so now. I still occasionally use !g but its way less of a factor than it once was.
sc11 6y ago
Maybe give startpage a shot. They use Google results but it adds a privacy layer inbetween, and have the added privacy benefit of not being US-based compared to DDG.
- float4 6y ago
  I liked Startpage, but a significant investor is US-based firm System1, which is, at least partially, an advertising / tracking company. They say they won't change privacy policies etc., but we've often seen that such words don't mean anything a few years down the road, so I'm a bit skeptical.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mkayokay 6y ago
    But currently they have not implemented any such changes (at least that I'm aware of) - thus I will continue to use Startpage.
- chris_f 6y ago
  Or better than StartPage, try Runnaroo. Organic results are also derived from Google. Search quality is subjective, but in this case I mean better because it respects your search terms, quotes work for phrases, and organic results are enhanced with additional data sources like Stack Overflow [0]. I am the creator of Runnaroo. [0] https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=react.js https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=react.js
  - jameshush 6y ago
    Out of curiosity how are you monetizing? I did a search for ”mortgages” but didn't see any ads.
    - chris_f 6y ago
      Three current ways: 1. Server rendered ads. They were there, you must have just missed them (it's on the SERP under the search bar). I don't have the search volume for context based ads (and none of the the available search ad networks are suitable), so the ads are just direct ads that display in rotation for a predetermined amount of time and do zero tracking (i.e. pay X and the ad is displayed for Y amount of time, win win for all). 2. Affiliate links. There is only one today, but I am testing it out to see if they are worth it. 3. Direct user monetization programs (i.e. Web Monetization protocol through Coil and the Brave publisher program). We are actually the first (and maybe still the only) search engine to integrate Web Monetization [0]. [0] https://webmonetization.org/ https://webmonetization.org/
mcv 6y ago
I often find DDG better at programming related questions. Google is frequently useless there.
- coding_lobster 6y ago
  My experience has been the exact opposite. As soon as I need to look up something very specific or niche DDG does not deliver and that's when I need it the most.
  - ricardo81 6y ago
    Google's index is 4x bigger (I can't recall the specific numbers but it was mentioned in a recent competition report in the UK)- I'd expect Google to be better at returning long tail stuff where perhaps Bing (and thus DDG) simply don't have the depth of documents to return. /edit here's the quote/source "We found that Google’s index is larger than that of Bing in terms of number of pages in the index. Based on submissions from these parties, Google’s index contains around [500 -600 billion] pages and Microsoft’s index contains around [100- 200 billion] pages." https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5efb1db6e90e075c5674db35/Appendix_I_-_search_quality_v.3.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5efb1db6e90e0...
  - ziml77 6y ago
    Not just that, but it feels like I get more results that are just rehosted StackOverflow answers when using DDG.
    - mcv 6y ago
      Really? I used to get those a lot on Google, and after switching to DDG I get real StackOverflow again. A lot of sites try to game their Google rankings. It's possible DDG is less subject to that.
- bumblebritches5 6y ago
  DDG is good for scripting, but shit for compiled languages. I have to use !g for programming.
nirse 6y ago
Indeed, I find that for my native language (Dutch) DDG is quite bad and no match for Google. I find that for simple, mainstream programming queries DDG is also fine, but if it's a little out of that mainstream, it doesn't produce anything. It seems to have a bias toward big corporate sites (eg microsoft docs) which isn't always helpful, perhaps that is due to a bias in Bing (from which it sources search results)?
fnord123 6y ago
>quite bad at searches that are in my native language Just say Estonian so people don't have to figure out what you're talking about.
nxpnsv 6y ago
I find !g minimally annoying to type....
BolexNOLA 6y ago
I think the hardest part for me is that I am so locked into Google Drive and Gmail at this point that getting off of them seems to be a nearly Herculean feat. My business runs on gdrive with over 1 TB of stuff on it currently, I’ve been on Gmail for over 10 years, I just don’t even know where to begin. I feel like if I actually want to reap the benefits of leaving chrome, not using Google search, etc. then I need to get out of their ecosystem entirely or it’s not really worth it.
cmehdy 6y ago
I have the opposite: I'm in Canada and from France, but if I search for anything in French on ANY google (.com/.ca/.fr) I get Quebec stuff, whereas if I put the "France" filter on DDG I do get actual results for France. It has become one of the most convenient things for me when trying to find some news in each country (similarly, selecting "Canada" when searching in English or French for Canada or Quebec).
- graeme 6y ago
  Oh I didn’t know about that, thanks. I tried researching a few covid things around the world and google gave me nothing but Canadian results. Even with -canada and the country name. Infuriating.
- gibspaulding 6y ago
  This has been coming up a lot in this thread and seems to be one of those bug vs feature situations. - Google sees you are speaking French and that you are located in Canada so they assume you want results from Quebec. - DDG sees you selected France, so you get French results. Google uses context/history/etc whereas DDG ignores all of that. From a privacy perspective DDG's less localized default results are a feature, and in your situation they are actually better results, but there are people in this thread who have run into issues where DDG just assumes US for any queries in English, or where switching location gives bad results for programing stuff. It's interesting seeing people's different reactions to this.
  - cmehdy 6y ago
    It is a difference in features indeed, and I believe the region settings can also be found when using google - they're just 2-3 clicks away in a menu and force you to reload, where DDG has them right on the homepage. Basically Google assumes that I want stuff that is tied to my region regardless of who I am or what I do to hide/block any history tracking or browser fingerprinting. That has its own logic, and really for the average en-US user that works well enough anyway. The user expectation becomes a bit different if you're British living in the US or Australia, or if you're Spanish living in Argentina, or if you're French living in Canada, etc. Or if you need to find help about a product that isn't dominated by the US, a programming language that isn't developed in English first, etc etc. Probably not the bulk of the requests from Google's perspective, I guess.
zwaps 6y ago
used to be the case for me a couple of years ago. Now I use DDG and DDG only for 80-90% of queries. It can even be better, since I can switch location and it doesn't have one page of commercial results before anything useful, like Google does!
paulcole 6y ago
This has been my experience 100%. I’d rather pay Google than use DDG for free. Which is exactly what I do. I trade them some of my privacy and data in exchange for the best search results available (in my opinion). It’s a fair trade for me.
- BolexNOLA 6y ago
  I’d agree it’s fair if we actually knew what all the gleaned from our searches and what they did with it. That’s sort of the crux of the problem. We aren’t fully consenting/aware of what is being harvested and where it’s going.
ColinHayhurst 6y ago
I tend to use the Firefox Search Box to access multiple search engines. Some may consider that a more convenient than using !bangs. DDG is one of the many options I have set-up but I can go straight to others from there. If you care about your privacy a lot then this in-depth independent review should be interesting. https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/search.html https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/search.html Full disclosure: I'm CEO of Mojeek
codeknight11 6y ago
Is google able to track you if you use !g via ddg?
- robin_reala 6y ago
  Yes, as it connects you to Google.
- vixen99 6y ago
  Of course it is. Using !g, Google knows that on one computer I use I have never agreed to the Google 'Before you continue'. Isn't agreeing to that, agreeing to be tracked?

pabo 6y ago

I have a similar experience, though I stayed on DDG. It's a bit funny, but I built a habit to use !s. This means, I use DDG to use StartPage, which in turn uses Google.

OscarCunningham 6y ago

Was this recent? I had the same experience but recently tried again and found that DDG was now about as good as Google. When I do try !g because DDG failed to find something then usually Google doesn't find it either. Sadly I think that the way that DDG caught up was that Google got worse because of SEO spam, while only DDG got a little better.

DanBC 6y ago
The thing that really made Google harder to use was the switch to natural language questions rather than search terms. If you ask Google a question you get better results than if you carefully select some search terms.
- ykevinator 6y ago
  Totally agree. Google assumes you and your mom are equally trained in logic and determinism.

fileeditview 6y ago

I use DDG now for over a year and similar to you I most of the time use !g. However I still stick to DDG because of all the other bangs i constantly use such as: !w, !yt, !godoc, !yc and more. You can find them all here: https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang?

Quarrelsome 6y ago

I've been using DDG since early 2010s and what you say was very true back then its much less so now. I still occasionally use !g but its way less of a factor than it once was.

sc11 6y ago

Maybe give startpage a shot. They use Google results but it adds a privacy layer inbetween, and have the added privacy benefit of not being US-based compared to DDG.

float4 6y ago
I liked Startpage, but a significant investor is US-based firm System1, which is, at least partially, an advertising / tracking company. They say they won't change privacy policies etc., but we've often seen that such words don't mean anything a few years down the road, so I'm a bit skeptical.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mkayokay 6y ago
  But currently they have not implemented any such changes (at least that I'm aware of) - thus I will continue to use Startpage.
chris_f 6y ago
Or better than StartPage, try Runnaroo. Organic results are also derived from Google. Search quality is subjective, but in this case I mean better because it respects your search terms, quotes work for phrases, and organic results are enhanced with additional data sources like Stack Overflow [0]. I am the creator of Runnaroo. [0] https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=react.js https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=react.js
- jameshush 6y ago
  Out of curiosity how are you monetizing? I did a search for ”mortgages” but didn't see any ads.
  - chris_f 6y ago
    Three current ways: 1. Server rendered ads. They were there, you must have just missed them (it's on the SERP under the search bar). I don't have the search volume for context based ads (and none of the the available search ad networks are suitable), so the ads are just direct ads that display in rotation for a predetermined amount of time and do zero tracking (i.e. pay X and the ad is displayed for Y amount of time, win win for all). 2. Affiliate links. There is only one today, but I am testing it out to see if they are worth it. 3. Direct user monetization programs (i.e. Web Monetization protocol through Coil and the Brave publisher program). We are actually the first (and maybe still the only) search engine to integrate Web Monetization [0]. [0] https://webmonetization.org/ https://webmonetization.org/

mcv 6y ago

I often find DDG better at programming related questions. Google is frequently useless there.

coding_lobster 6y ago
My experience has been the exact opposite. As soon as I need to look up something very specific or niche DDG does not deliver and that's when I need it the most.
- ricardo81 6y ago
  Google's index is 4x bigger (I can't recall the specific numbers but it was mentioned in a recent competition report in the UK)- I'd expect Google to be better at returning long tail stuff where perhaps Bing (and thus DDG) simply don't have the depth of documents to return. /edit here's the quote/source "We found that Google’s index is larger than that of Bing in terms of number of pages in the index. Based on submissions from these parties, Google’s index contains around [500 -600 billion] pages and Microsoft’s index contains around [100- 200 billion] pages." https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5efb1db6e90e075c5674db35/Appendix_I_-_search_quality_v.3.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5efb1db6e90e0...
- ziml77 6y ago
  Not just that, but it feels like I get more results that are just rehosted StackOverflow answers when using DDG.
  - mcv 6y ago
    Really? I used to get those a lot on Google, and after switching to DDG I get real StackOverflow again. A lot of sites try to game their Google rankings. It's possible DDG is less subject to that.
bumblebritches5 6y ago
DDG is good for scripting, but shit for compiled languages. I have to use !g for programming.

nirse 6y ago

Indeed, I find that for my native language (Dutch) DDG is quite bad and no match for Google. I find that for simple, mainstream programming queries DDG is also fine, but if it's a little out of that mainstream, it doesn't produce anything. It seems to have a bias toward big corporate sites (eg microsoft docs) which isn't always helpful, perhaps that is due to a bias in Bing (from which it sources search results)?

fnord123 6y ago

>quite bad at searches that are in my native language Just say Estonian so people don't have to figure out what you're talking about.

nxpnsv 6y ago

I find !g minimally annoying to type....

BolexNOLA 6y ago

I think the hardest part for me is that I am so locked into Google Drive and Gmail at this point that getting off of them seems to be a nearly Herculean feat. My business runs on gdrive with over 1 TB of stuff on it currently, I’ve been on Gmail for over 10 years, I just don’t even know where to begin. I feel like if I actually want to reap the benefits of leaving chrome, not using Google search, etc. then I need to get out of their ecosystem entirely or it’s not really worth it.

cmehdy 6y ago

I have the opposite: I'm in Canada and from France, but if I search for anything in French on ANY google (.com/.ca/.fr) I get Quebec stuff, whereas if I put the "France" filter on DDG I do get actual results for France. It has become one of the most convenient things for me when trying to find some news in each country (similarly, selecting "Canada" when searching in English or French for Canada or Quebec).

graeme 6y ago
Oh I didn’t know about that, thanks. I tried researching a few covid things around the world and google gave me nothing but Canadian results. Even with -canada and the country name. Infuriating.
gibspaulding 6y ago
This has been coming up a lot in this thread and seems to be one of those bug vs feature situations. - Google sees you are speaking French and that you are located in Canada so they assume you want results from Quebec. - DDG sees you selected France, so you get French results. Google uses context/history/etc whereas DDG ignores all of that. From a privacy perspective DDG's less localized default results are a feature, and in your situation they are actually better results, but there are people in this thread who have run into issues where DDG just assumes US for any queries in English, or where switching location gives bad results for programing stuff. It's interesting seeing people's different reactions to this.
- cmehdy 6y ago
  It is a difference in features indeed, and I believe the region settings can also be found when using google - they're just 2-3 clicks away in a menu and force you to reload, where DDG has them right on the homepage. Basically Google assumes that I want stuff that is tied to my region regardless of who I am or what I do to hide/block any history tracking or browser fingerprinting. That has its own logic, and really for the average en-US user that works well enough anyway. The user expectation becomes a bit different if you're British living in the US or Australia, or if you're Spanish living in Argentina, or if you're French living in Canada, etc. Or if you need to find help about a product that isn't dominated by the US, a programming language that isn't developed in English first, etc etc. Probably not the bulk of the requests from Google's perspective, I guess.

zwaps 6y ago

used to be the case for me a couple of years ago. Now I use DDG and DDG only for 80-90% of queries. It can even be better, since I can switch location and it doesn't have one page of commercial results before anything useful, like Google does!

paulcole 6y ago

This has been my experience 100%. I’d rather pay Google than use DDG for free. Which is exactly what I do. I trade them some of my privacy and data in exchange for the best search results available (in my opinion). It’s a fair trade for me.

BolexNOLA 6y ago
I’d agree it’s fair if we actually knew what all the gleaned from our searches and what they did with it. That’s sort of the crux of the problem. We aren’t fully consenting/aware of what is being harvested and where it’s going.

ColinHayhurst 6y ago

I tend to use the Firefox Search Box to access multiple search engines. Some may consider that a more convenient than using !bangs. DDG is one of the many options I have set-up but I can go straight to others from there. If you care about your privacy a lot then this in-depth independent review should be interesting. https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/search.html https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/search.html Full disclosure: I'm CEO of Mojeek

codeknight11 6y ago

Is google able to track you if you use !g via ddg?

robin_reala 6y ago
Yes, as it connects you to Google.
vixen99 6y ago
Of course it is. Using !g, Google knows that on one computer I use I have never agreed to the Google 'Before you continue'. Isn't agreeing to that, agreeing to be tracked?