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> I mean, DDG worked fine for 95% of time, but the remaining 5% failure often led to some extreme frustration that I just couldn't stand. Is 95% really not acc

> I mean, DDG worked fine for 95% of time, but the remaining 5% failure often led to some extreme frustration that I just couldn't stand. Is 95% really not acceptable?My experience is quite different though. When I don’t get the results I hoped I just use !g. Easy. But the result are rarely any better

mbauman 5y ago
> When I don’t get the results I hoped I just use !g. Easy. But the result are rarely any better This is exactly my experience. I have a "failed" search probably about a quarter of the time. Changing around the keywords can sometimes fix those failures... maybe about a quarter again are still stuck. So, yeah, ~5% failure rate. I inevitably try !g and am inevitably disappointed with effectively the same results (or lack thereof). Google successfully recovers a failed search maybe 10% of the time.
tobr 5y ago
I used to do this, but at some point I just stopped. Google is not better than DDG. More SEO spam and much more hostile UX. Brave has a culture of user-hostile UX too so I don’t have any big hopes for this. I like the idea of paying for a search engine, though. I would seriously consider that if DDG offered it.
- burn 5y ago
  Why not try Neeva? They are going the route of a paid search engine.
  - eitland 5y ago
    Upvoted, but here is the reason why I don't use it, some people haven't yet fully realized that Internet doesn't have borders: > We will be in touch when we are ready to release Neeva in your country. Thank you for being part of the Neeva team, we are so excited to build the future of search with you.
  - kmonsen 5y ago
    I’m using Neeva. I like the team and the idea, but at least for me there is a drastic drop off in search quality from google. It is pretty far from 95% as good.
- jonathansampson 5y ago
  Can you elaborate on how you feel "Brave has a culture of user-hostile UX"? You're not talking about the first version of the User Tipping feature from 2018 (where Brave gave BAT to its users and asked them to give mark which creator(s) they'd like to support) are you?
  - tobr 5y ago
    Generally the same type of problems as a lot of UX has today, especially on mobile: various messages and modals and controls that seem to be motivated by Brave’s needs, not mine. Sponsored images, trying to get me to set it as standard browser, “Brave rewards” whatever that is being a permanent part of the UI and turning itself on without me asking it to. These might be small things compared to Google, but I’ve never experienced that DuckDuckGo did anything like it, so my trust in them is higher.
    - tobr 5y ago
      Let me expand a little on why I think this is so corrosive to my trust in Brave, because this is interesting stuff. When I use the Brave browser, I have to second-guess everything in the UI to consider why a control or message is there, if it’s in my interest or if you’re trying to get me to do something that’s in your interest. My eyes have to scan the UI in much the same way I do with ads in search results or spam in my inbox; having to actively filter out the potential harms from the things that are useful. It’s like I can feel my eyes getting more tense as I do this. That means that every single time I use the browser, the impression that Brave should not be trusted is reinforced in a very physical way. It’s not just a “brand impression” but a muscle memory.
      - rattray 5y ago
        Yep, agreed. I ended up switching to Firefox as a result of things like this, which was good in many ways but took a lot more configuration.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  > Brave has a culture of user-hostile UX Yep. The missteps that they've made over the past few years do not give me any confidence in the future of the project.
  - jonathansampson 5y ago
    What missteps? The only notable UX issue we've had was years ago, and was a matter of naïve design. When we were made aware of the issue, it was corrected within 48 hours. Hard to portray that as a "culture of hostile UX".
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Maybe you could start by listening instead of accosting every comment that you find. Your incessant reply-bombing is childish and unprofessional, nobody wants to engage with someone who defends a browser like it's their sole lifeline. Furthermore, you don't get to choose what your "UX issues" are. "UX" quite literally stands for "users experience", which is on the other side of the spectrum from "developer experience". As a dev myself, I know it's difficult not to conflate the two, but acting like issues straight up don't exist is blatantly hostile. I have no personal qualms against Brave. I'm just another developer who wants a browser, and Brave's naive featureset doesn't appeal to me: that's fine. I'm just helping other, similar users make the right choice.
      - jonathansampson 5y ago
        I'm responding to users. You happen to have numerous comments here which aren't entirely accurate or fair, so I have responded to you a few times. Don't take it personal; if you publish something I feel is inaccurate, I'll post a response. Regarding user experience, I'm not just a developer of Brave, but I'm a user also ;-) Not only that, but I spend a lot of time speaking with users all across the Web, so as to understand how they're using Brave, what works, and what doesn't. I do feel uniquely qualified to talk about matter of UX when it comes to Brave.
        5y ago
ElijahLynn 5y ago
It isn't acceptable, no. I tried Duck Search (aka Bing) for a couple weeks and in the beginning I wouldn't know that I wasn't getting the results I was looking for and eventually realized that the results just sucked compared to Google. I found myself having to second guess the results and then did a Duck / Google hybrid for a while, going to Google when I didn't get what I was looking for and eventually it was too much friction. I equate it with when I used to use two different text editors, one for speed (Sublime) and another (IntelliJ)for step-debugging because Sublime didn't have that part well implemented and it was just maddening to have to switch back and forth all the time and learn/maintain two sets of keyboard shortcuts etc.
fowlie 5y ago
After using the duck for a couple of years, I have become better at two things: - Reading man pages or official documentation sites before opening a search engine - Thinking of more precise search keywords, as I got used to duck not helping me as much as google
- cturtle 5y ago
  Along these lines I use ddg’s bangs for the same benefit. So many searches for Python help are filled with very shallow intros on tutorial sites of varying quality with the official docs rarely the first result. Now I just prefix my query with !py and I’m immediately taken to the docs.
  - r-w 5y ago
    Brave Search supports !bangs ;)
    - jonathansampson 5y ago
      Indeed, including nearly all of DDG's !bangs :) We also add in some others, such as !so for StackOverflow, !gh for GitHub, and !mdn for the Mozilla Developer Network.
      - striking 5y ago
        Those are also in DDG.
        jonathansampson 5y ago
        Wouldn't surprise me; DDG has an impressive list of !bangs (more than 13K, IIRC). Thanks for the clarification!
      - 0x49d1 5y ago
        And is there any list of all available bangs + also do we have an ability to add new ones?
dopidopHN 5y ago
For me it's random technical dumb stuff, like library version compatibility. Or a specific syntax I know exist but I can't figure out. Now when I don't find what I need, I double check with g! ... once every 2 or 3 times, google do find what I'm vaguely remember exist and is out there. Is never actual content, it's when I look for a specific one liner to copy paste and DDG do not deliver. I can live with that.
mastazi 5y ago
> When I don’t get the results I hoped I just use !g I use !sp instead, same results and no Google tracking (!sp searches on Startpage which in turn uses results from Google; according to both Privacy Badger and Brave Shields there are no trackers on SP)
GendingMachine 5y ago
Honestly the main reason I ended up abandoning DDG is because you can't see the publish date on search results. I know it's a fairly minor feature and one manipulated often by some websites, but I've still found it massively increases my chances of picking a relevant and up to date result. I didn't even realise how much I used it until I found myself getting extremely frustrated about its absence in DDG.
nh2 5y ago
> Is 95% really not acceptable? No: When you use web search for professional work, such as searching for error messages or description of bugs of some software, any miss of somebod having encountered and solved them before can cost you days of work. From my experience, Google is currently still the best at finding those.
- brundolf 5y ago
  I use DDG on personal devices and Google at work. I have a work-issued Google account, so privacy isn't really tractable for work stuff anyway
- mkl 5y ago
  I think before you spend days of work on something DDG can't find, taking a few seconds to add !g and check Google's results would be sensible. Usually when I try that, though, Google isn't any better.
bscphil 5y ago
> Is 95% really not acceptable? Moreover, is any search engine really at 95% success rate? I certainly have never gotten that high with Google, even back in the days when Google Search was good. Nowadays it's like 85% or so. About the same as DuckDuckGo for me. No matter which one I made my default, I'd have to check the other occasionally. (Incidentally, the same is true of satellite imagery. Sometimes Bing Maps is just much better for no obvious reason.)
basq 5y ago
In my experience, without use of g! DDG isn't serviceable.
tjpnz 5y ago
I sometimes wonder if that 5% is something DDG and others can realistically solve. Perhaps the issue has less to do with engineering and more to do with Google being the dominant player over the previous 20-years (give or take). That's an awfully long time for one company to effectively own a product category and build expectations among users about how it should work. FWIW I do get good results from DDG (sometimes better than Google) but that does require me to be a bit more thoughtful with my queries.
- dannyw 5y ago
  While I think there's merits to what you are saying, also keep in mind that Google SERPs have dramatically changed over the past few years. It's very much a different search engine to Google of the 2010s. The most visible examples are that Google is editorialising specific results, and specifically boosting what it considers "credible sources". It also means wilfully not giving you what you want to search for. Try to search for "8kun" on Google, and you won't find a single link to 8kun. Try to search for "8kun" on Bing, and the #1 result is 8kun.top.
cfn 5y ago
I am on the third or forth trial to change to DDG and this time it is working not because DDG is better but because Google's search is degrading so much.
gentleman11 5y ago
I tried brave search today and the results were rather good. I have no idea what 95% working means but this is a nice start

mbauman 5y ago

> When I don’t get the results I hoped I just use !g. Easy. But the result are rarely any better This is exactly my experience. I have a "failed" search probably about a quarter of the time. Changing around the keywords can sometimes fix those failures... maybe about a quarter again are still stuck. So, yeah, ~5% failure rate. I inevitably try !g and am inevitably disappointed with effectively the same results (or lack thereof). Google successfully recovers a failed search maybe 10% of the time.

tobr 5y ago

I used to do this, but at some point I just stopped. Google is not better than DDG. More SEO spam and much more hostile UX. Brave has a culture of user-hostile UX too so I don’t have any big hopes for this. I like the idea of paying for a search engine, though. I would seriously consider that if DDG offered it.

burn 5y ago
Why not try Neeva? They are going the route of a paid search engine.
- eitland 5y ago
  Upvoted, but here is the reason why I don't use it, some people haven't yet fully realized that Internet doesn't have borders: > We will be in touch when we are ready to release Neeva in your country. Thank you for being part of the Neeva team, we are so excited to build the future of search with you.
- kmonsen 5y ago
  I’m using Neeva. I like the team and the idea, but at least for me there is a drastic drop off in search quality from google. It is pretty far from 95% as good.
jonathansampson 5y ago
Can you elaborate on how you feel "Brave has a culture of user-hostile UX"? You're not talking about the first version of the User Tipping feature from 2018 (where Brave gave BAT to its users and asked them to give mark which creator(s) they'd like to support) are you?
- tobr 5y ago
  Generally the same type of problems as a lot of UX has today, especially on mobile: various messages and modals and controls that seem to be motivated by Brave’s needs, not mine. Sponsored images, trying to get me to set it as standard browser, “Brave rewards” whatever that is being a permanent part of the UI and turning itself on without me asking it to. These might be small things compared to Google, but I’ve never experienced that DuckDuckGo did anything like it, so my trust in them is higher.
  - tobr 5y ago
    Let me expand a little on why I think this is so corrosive to my trust in Brave, because this is interesting stuff. When I use the Brave browser, I have to second-guess everything in the UI to consider why a control or message is there, if it’s in my interest or if you’re trying to get me to do something that’s in your interest. My eyes have to scan the UI in much the same way I do with ads in search results or spam in my inbox; having to actively filter out the potential harms from the things that are useful. It’s like I can feel my eyes getting more tense as I do this. That means that every single time I use the browser, the impression that Brave should not be trusted is reinforced in a very physical way. It’s not just a “brand impression” but a muscle memory.
    - rattray 5y ago
      Yep, agreed. I ended up switching to Firefox as a result of things like this, which was good in many ways but took a lot more configuration.
smoldesu 5y ago
> Brave has a culture of user-hostile UX Yep. The missteps that they've made over the past few years do not give me any confidence in the future of the project.
- jonathansampson 5y ago
  What missteps? The only notable UX issue we've had was years ago, and was a matter of naïve design. When we were made aware of the issue, it was corrected within 48 hours. Hard to portray that as a "culture of hostile UX".
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Maybe you could start by listening instead of accosting every comment that you find. Your incessant reply-bombing is childish and unprofessional, nobody wants to engage with someone who defends a browser like it's their sole lifeline. Furthermore, you don't get to choose what your "UX issues" are. "UX" quite literally stands for "users experience", which is on the other side of the spectrum from "developer experience". As a dev myself, I know it's difficult not to conflate the two, but acting like issues straight up don't exist is blatantly hostile. I have no personal qualms against Brave. I'm just another developer who wants a browser, and Brave's naive featureset doesn't appeal to me: that's fine. I'm just helping other, similar users make the right choice.
    - jonathansampson 5y ago
      I'm responding to users. You happen to have numerous comments here which aren't entirely accurate or fair, so I have responded to you a few times. Don't take it personal; if you publish something I feel is inaccurate, I'll post a response. Regarding user experience, I'm not just a developer of Brave, but I'm a user also ;-) Not only that, but I spend a lot of time speaking with users all across the Web, so as to understand how they're using Brave, what works, and what doesn't. I do feel uniquely qualified to talk about matter of UX when it comes to Brave.
      - 5y ago

ElijahLynn 5y ago

It isn't acceptable, no. I tried Duck Search (aka Bing) for a couple weeks and in the beginning I wouldn't know that I wasn't getting the results I was looking for and eventually realized that the results just sucked compared to Google. I found myself having to second guess the results and then did a Duck / Google hybrid for a while, going to Google when I didn't get what I was looking for and eventually it was too much friction. I equate it with when I used to use two different text editors, one for speed (Sublime) and another (IntelliJ)for step-debugging because Sublime didn't have that part well implemented and it was just maddening to have to switch back and forth all the time and learn/maintain two sets of keyboard shortcuts etc.

fowlie 5y ago

After using the duck for a couple of years, I have become better at two things: - Reading man pages or official documentation sites before opening a search engine - Thinking of more precise search keywords, as I got used to duck not helping me as much as google

cturtle 5y ago
Along these lines I use ddg’s bangs for the same benefit. So many searches for Python help are filled with very shallow intros on tutorial sites of varying quality with the official docs rarely the first result. Now I just prefix my query with !py and I’m immediately taken to the docs.
- r-w 5y ago
  Brave Search supports !bangs ;)
  - jonathansampson 5y ago
    Indeed, including nearly all of DDG's !bangs :) We also add in some others, such as !so for StackOverflow, !gh for GitHub, and !mdn for the Mozilla Developer Network.
    - striking 5y ago
      Those are also in DDG.
      - jonathansampson 5y ago
        Wouldn't surprise me; DDG has an impressive list of !bangs (more than 13K, IIRC). Thanks for the clarification!
    - 0x49d1 5y ago
      And is there any list of all available bangs + also do we have an ability to add new ones?

dopidopHN 5y ago

For me it's random technical dumb stuff, like library version compatibility. Or a specific syntax I know exist but I can't figure out. Now when I don't find what I need, I double check with g! ... once every 2 or 3 times, google do find what I'm vaguely remember exist and is out there. Is never actual content, it's when I look for a specific one liner to copy paste and DDG do not deliver. I can live with that.

mastazi 5y ago

> When I don’t get the results I hoped I just use !g I use !sp instead, same results and no Google tracking (!sp searches on Startpage which in turn uses results from Google; according to both Privacy Badger and Brave Shields there are no trackers on SP)

GendingMachine 5y ago

Honestly the main reason I ended up abandoning DDG is because you can't see the publish date on search results. I know it's a fairly minor feature and one manipulated often by some websites, but I've still found it massively increases my chances of picking a relevant and up to date result. I didn't even realise how much I used it until I found myself getting extremely frustrated about its absence in DDG.

nh2 5y ago

> Is 95% really not acceptable? No: When you use web search for professional work, such as searching for error messages or description of bugs of some software, any miss of somebod having encountered and solved them before can cost you days of work. From my experience, Google is currently still the best at finding those.

brundolf 5y ago
I use DDG on personal devices and Google at work. I have a work-issued Google account, so privacy isn't really tractable for work stuff anyway
mkl 5y ago
I think before you spend days of work on something DDG can't find, taking a few seconds to add !g and check Google's results would be sensible. Usually when I try that, though, Google isn't any better.

bscphil 5y ago

> Is 95% really not acceptable? Moreover, is any search engine really at 95% success rate? I certainly have never gotten that high with Google, even back in the days when Google Search was good. Nowadays it's like 85% or so. About the same as DuckDuckGo for me. No matter which one I made my default, I'd have to check the other occasionally. (Incidentally, the same is true of satellite imagery. Sometimes Bing Maps is just much better for no obvious reason.)

basq 5y ago

In my experience, without use of g! DDG isn't serviceable.

tjpnz 5y ago

I sometimes wonder if that 5% is something DDG and others can realistically solve. Perhaps the issue has less to do with engineering and more to do with Google being the dominant player over the previous 20-years (give or take). That's an awfully long time for one company to effectively own a product category and build expectations among users about how it should work. FWIW I do get good results from DDG (sometimes better than Google) but that does require me to be a bit more thoughtful with my queries.

dannyw 5y ago
While I think there's merits to what you are saying, also keep in mind that Google SERPs have dramatically changed over the past few years. It's very much a different search engine to Google of the 2010s. The most visible examples are that Google is editorialising specific results, and specifically boosting what it considers "credible sources". It also means wilfully not giving you what you want to search for. Try to search for "8kun" on Google, and you won't find a single link to 8kun. Try to search for "8kun" on Bing, and the #1 result is 8kun.top.

cfn 5y ago

I am on the third or forth trial to change to DDG and this time it is working not because DDG is better but because Google's search is degrading so much.

gentleman11 5y ago

I tried brave search today and the results were rather good. I have no idea what 95% working means but this is a nice start