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DuckDuckGo allows you to do a Google search by prepending "!g" to any query. So usually I do that for the last 5% of queries that DDG fails on.
by mrpf1ster 5y ago
DuckDuckGo allows you to do a Google search by prepending "!g" to any query. So usually I do that for the last 5% of queries that DDG fails on.
- zzyzxd 5y agoThe frustration I am talking about is: Check query result -> realize the result is bad -> scroll back to the search bar -> place cursor at the beginning of the query -> enter "!g" -> redirect to Google.com It is not too bad on desktop, but doing it once on a smartphone is more than enough to push me to switch back to Google.
- the-pigeon 5y agoPersonally I find it pretty predictable which queries duck duck go will fail on. Basically very niche ones. So I just prepend based on what I'm searching for to begin with instead of after a failure. But I've also been using duckduckgo as my default for over a decade so I've gotten used to it.
- amoshi 5y agoThe !g can be almost anywhere in the query, it just can't be followed by non-whitespace or prefixed by special signs.
- freedomben 5y agoThis is what I wanted to say. It's a life saver on mobile especially. Just append !g to the query (or !gi for google images, !gm for maps, etc)
- gnull 5y agoIf you use Tridactyl, you can quickly jump to the search bar with “gi”. That's what I do.
- tonyspiff 5y agoyou can easily create a command for it (and bind to key(s)): command ddgGoogleBang composite js (new URLSearchParams(window.location.search)).get('q') + ' !g' | urlmodify_js -q q | open
- fictorial 5y ago/ <c-e> !g <enter>
- smithza 5y agomost browsers support <c-l> to hop the cursor to the url bar for searches or url entries
- windowojji 5y agoI'm amazed that DDG/Brave don't understand that typing something immediately after a "!" on a smartphone is annoying and difficult. DDG only supports "!" after the character for a small subset of bangs. Thankfully "g!" is one of them, but it's immensely easier to type on smartphone.
- jonathansampson 5y agoYou can use !g on Brave Search too, or turn on Fallback Mixing in Brave Search Settings, which will anonymously call out to Google and pull in results as needed. This helps to train the nascent engine more rapidly. I hope this helps!
- JeremyBanks 5y agoIs that legal?
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoWhy wouldn't it be? Google scrapes the web to populate it's results, why wouldn't other search engines scrape the web as well? Google is a website.
- xpe 5y agoThis is naive. Web sites have various terms of service.
- therein 5y agoViolating a website's ToS is hardly illegal, though.
- xpe 5y ago> Violating a website's ToS is hardly illegal, though. Can you be more specific as to your claim? Not illegal in what sense(s)? And what is your basis for the claim? I'm not a lawyer, but saying "violating a website's ToS is hardly illegal" is fraught advice. While individuals may get some leeway when it comes to ToS violations (see [1] and [2]), I would expect companies scraping and/or extracting content would be treated differently. [1]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/07/court-violating-terms-service-not-crime-bypassing https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/07/court-violating-terms-... [2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/court-violating-a-sites-terms-of-service-isnt-criminal-hacking/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/court-violating-... [3]: https://www.octoparse.com/blog/10-myths-about-web-scraping https://www.octoparse.com/blog/10-myths-about-web-scraping [4]: https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/almID/1202610687621/?slreturn=20210523014130 https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/almID/1202610687621/?s...
- aazaa 5y agoIt redirects to Google. So the effect (including tracking) is identical to just doing a Google search.
- jonathansampson 5y agoThis is incorrect. Fallback-Mixing, if you have enabled it (which requires Brave), issues an anonymous query to Google, lacking any cookies or other persistent state for that domain. These results are then presented along with Brave Search's own results. There's no tracking involved. If you perform a direct Google search, you're passing along your cookies as well.
- Semaphor 5y agoThe user was replying to using DDG with !g In an indirect way, it’s possible by doing !sp on DDG, which redirects the search to startpage, which shows untracked google results.
- jonathansampson 5y agoAh, my apologies for any confusion. For what it's worth, the !sp bang is supported on Brave Search as well :)
- unicornporn 5y agoOr you could just use https://startpage.com/ https://startpage.com/ and get Google quality results 100% of the time.
- mackrevinack 5y agothat's also 100% reliant on google though. what would happen if that became a lot more popular than it is now? would google try to sabotage it in any way? i would rather support and spread the word about search engines that don't rely solely on google
- unicornporn 5y ago> that's also 100% reliant on google though. what would happen if that became a lot more popular than it is now? would google try to sabotage it in any way? Yes, same applies to DDG/Bing though.
- mastazi 5y agoAs I said in my other comment[1], you might be interested in using !sp which gives you the same results without Google tracking [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27598042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27598042
- Dah00n 5y agoStartpage is owned by an adtech company now.
- mastazi 5y agothat doesn't change the fact that there are no trackers and the fact that it uses Google results
- Dah00n 5y agoNo, but it does mean that you are likely to use it without knowing when they do start tracking you. Because of course an adtech company will (and of course they will deny until the day they change it).
- mastazi 5y ago> Because of course an adtech company will then it seems they're being quite slow, since the acquisition happened almost 2 years ago.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoThis is silly. 95% of what one can track on the front end can be done on the back end. If you hit Google's servers, you're being tracked. Period.