7 ms·

Any recommendation? I use ddg but it's Bing based and the results are no better.

by omnicognate 5y ago

TrueDuality 5y ago
DuckDuckGo is not Bing based.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- matheweis 5y ago
  It does in fact use the Bing backend for the majority of its web searches: > DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from multiple partners, though most commonly from Bing (and none from Google). https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
  - TrueDuality 5y ago
    Of their additional sources they receive the commonly from Bing, but that is only from their additional sources. They use the results from there sure but by no means are they "Bing based".
    - pb7 5y ago
      Their intention is to confuse you, so they're successful on that front. Their "hundreds of sources" are for very niche topics and appear in separate boxes. The 10 links per page come from Bing which would make them Bing-based.
javajosh 5y ago
My experience with ddg has been very positive over the years. Although I think my eyes have gotten good at skipping over the noise in the search results. It might be nice to offload that effort to software.
- fowkswe 5y ago
  DDG has no idea of the intent of your search based on your previous searches and unfortunately this generates abysmal results for me when searching for something like `ruby xxx`. Those terms rarely return results about the programming language. I unfortunately end up using Google in these situations, always to immediate success.
  - na85 5y ago
    >ruby xxx Not sure if the X's were to denote wildcards or if you're after porn actresses named Ruby, but either way it might be worth adding a term to the query to clarify
    - fowkswe 5y ago
      Oof - muscle memory failure....
    - peddling-brink 5y ago
      That's literally the conversation though. Google has enough context to know that you want programming language results, not porn or gemstones.
  - nemosaltat 5y ago
    Pretty sure you’re using “xxx” as “some generic search term” but if you include literal xxx as a search term, you’re almost definitely going to get some skewed search results.
    - fouc 5y ago
      xxx ** ??? same thing, it's obvious by context
stevenleeg 5y ago
I've been using Kagi over the last few days and have actually been pleasantly surprised with it performing better than both Google and DDG for my use cases. It's still free during the beta so might be worth giving it a shot.
- JonathanBuchh 5y ago
  I’ve also been using https://kagi.com https://kagi.com for the past couple of days and have found the search results to be unparalleled to both Google and DuckDuckGo. I haven’t come across any SEO spam and the results seem to be of better quality overall. They have all of the same bangs DDG uses and get results from Bing, Google, and a bespoke index. Because they query Bing and Google, it will be pretty expensive when it launches (it's in private beta) since it costs $12 per 1000 queries, but since search is so important, it will probably be worth it. They say they're privacy focused too, but it's hard to be sure when a product isn't open source. Kagi isn't trying to take significant market share from Google or DDG, but find a niche (probably Hacker News type people). The one thing I find they're lacking is maps and location based results (e.g. you can't search for "lunch near me"). If you're interested, I'd recommend checking out their FAQ: https://kagi.com/faq https://kagi.com/faq
  - antihero 5y ago
    Hmm, annoyingly some bloody invite based thing instead of just being able to try the damn thing. What is this, 2004?
    - omnicognate 5y ago
      I'm on the waitlist. AIUI they intend this to be a paid service eventually, which is highly desirable to me. If it can be made to work, I would very much like a search service that is directly paid for by its users, rather than funded via side channels such as advertising or paid results placement that create skewed incentives. If they're not ready to charge for use yet, a limited preview makes more sense than a public free service.
hellgas00 5y ago
I have been using Brave Search for the last half year, results seem to be better than DDG and you can append g! to your searches like DDG for Google results.
andrewnc 5y ago
You.com has actually been really good for me.
franczesko 5y ago
After trying a few, I currently test Brave Search. It misses DDG's bangs, but results seem to be better.

Any recommendation? I use ddg but it's Bing based and the results are no better.

TrueDuality 5y ago

DuckDuckGo is not Bing based.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
matheweis 5y ago
It does in fact use the Bing backend for the majority of its web searches: > DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from multiple partners, though most commonly from Bing (and none from Google). https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
- TrueDuality 5y ago
  Of their additional sources they receive the commonly from Bing, but that is only from their additional sources. They use the results from there sure but by no means are they "Bing based".
  - pb7 5y ago
    Their intention is to confuse you, so they're successful on that front. Their "hundreds of sources" are for very niche topics and appear in separate boxes. The 10 links per page come from Bing which would make them Bing-based.

javajosh 5y ago

My experience with ddg has been very positive over the years. Although I think my eyes have gotten good at skipping over the noise in the search results. It might be nice to offload that effort to software.

fowkswe 5y ago
DDG has no idea of the intent of your search based on your previous searches and unfortunately this generates abysmal results for me when searching for something like `ruby xxx`. Those terms rarely return results about the programming language. I unfortunately end up using Google in these situations, always to immediate success.
- na85 5y ago
  >ruby xxx Not sure if the X's were to denote wildcards or if you're after porn actresses named Ruby, but either way it might be worth adding a term to the query to clarify
  - fowkswe 5y ago
    Oof - muscle memory failure....
  - peddling-brink 5y ago
    That's literally the conversation though. Google has enough context to know that you want programming language results, not porn or gemstones.
- nemosaltat 5y ago
  Pretty sure you’re using “xxx” as “some generic search term” but if you include literal xxx as a search term, you’re almost definitely going to get some skewed search results.
  - fouc 5y ago
    xxx ** ??? same thing, it's obvious by context

stevenleeg 5y ago

I've been using Kagi over the last few days and have actually been pleasantly surprised with it performing better than both Google and DDG for my use cases. It's still free during the beta so might be worth giving it a shot.

JonathanBuchh 5y ago
I’ve also been using https://kagi.com https://kagi.com for the past couple of days and have found the search results to be unparalleled to both Google and DuckDuckGo. I haven’t come across any SEO spam and the results seem to be of better quality overall. They have all of the same bangs DDG uses and get results from Bing, Google, and a bespoke index. Because they query Bing and Google, it will be pretty expensive when it launches (it's in private beta) since it costs $12 per 1000 queries, but since search is so important, it will probably be worth it. They say they're privacy focused too, but it's hard to be sure when a product isn't open source. Kagi isn't trying to take significant market share from Google or DDG, but find a niche (probably Hacker News type people). The one thing I find they're lacking is maps and location based results (e.g. you can't search for "lunch near me"). If you're interested, I'd recommend checking out their FAQ: https://kagi.com/faq https://kagi.com/faq
- antihero 5y ago
  Hmm, annoyingly some bloody invite based thing instead of just being able to try the damn thing. What is this, 2004?
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    I'm on the waitlist. AIUI they intend this to be a paid service eventually, which is highly desirable to me. If it can be made to work, I would very much like a search service that is directly paid for by its users, rather than funded via side channels such as advertising or paid results placement that create skewed incentives. If they're not ready to charge for use yet, a limited preview makes more sense than a public free service.

hellgas00 5y ago

I have been using Brave Search for the last half year, results seem to be better than DDG and you can append g! to your searches like DDG for Google results.

andrewnc 5y ago

You.com has actually been really good for me.

franczesko 5y ago

After trying a few, I currently test Brave Search. It misses DDG's bangs, but results seem to be better.