3 ms·

I find better results on it in general. I use Google as a fallback but these days it happens perhaps once every couple months, and mostly I don't get anything

I find better results on it in general. I use Google as a fallback but these days it happens perhaps once every couple months, and mostly I don't get anything out of it.

Turing_Machine 3y ago
Yes. IMO DDG has been better for general questions for a long time. Google remained better for programming questions for significantly longer (I speculate this may be because Google's own programmers used it, and complained when the results sucked :-)), but now it's not. Not really. Like you, I still use Google as a long shot, but that's become quite rare. I sometimes use Bing for Microsoft-specific questions, if DDG doesn't give me what I want. I have the sense that Bing covers Microsoft a little better than the others do. I have no real solid evidence for this, but it seems plausible on the surface.
- deleted 3y ago
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inductive_magic 3y ago
It depends on the usecase. If you're querying for something local like a restaurant or a store, google wins by orders of magnitude. If you're researching, duckduckgo is fine. Duckduckgo doesn't really compare to Kagi though.
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  What's wrong with DDG and local searches? I find it exceedingly good, especially with the country selector being so up and front. It's very easy to search for those kinds of things in other places, for example to plan a trip. Kagi for me is a no-no. I mostly browse on temporary containers, and also have Firefox delete cookies on close. A search engine that requires me to be signed in would be a massive pain to use.
  - inductive_magic 3y ago
    >What's wrong with DDG and local searches Maybe its different in the US or just not optimised in Germany, but the quality of search results isn't comparable. Query: "All you can eat Kiel" Google: 1. a map with the top three restaurants for this context in the foreground 2: a list of restaurants, sortable by price/date/hours 3 to end of page: links to homepages of the top restaurants DDG: 1. a completely random assortment of irrelevant links on the left 2. a semantic web box with a 3/5 rated irrelevant restaurant on the right 3. wild youtube-videos vaguely related to the query between text results 4. images 5. more wild links that kind of thing. And Kiel isn't a small city, we even had DDG print ads here.
    - cassianoleal 3y ago
      I'm not in the US. :) When I try your query I only get a bunch of local German stuff (including a map with restaurants). I admit, I don't even know what Kiel is so I can't validate the results but despite them being in Germany (and my search having had the country selector set to UK), it looks pretty good. If I search something more generic like "all you can eat sushi" I get a neat map with a few restaurants that do that, plus a bunch of TripAdvisor and other directory and blog posts exactly about that, all local. If I try your query again, setting the country to Germany, I get https://yummy-kiel.de/ https://yummy-kiel.de/ as the first result, a map with top-three restaurants as the second, and again, a bunch of directories and blogs with all you can eat Kiel. Seems pretty good to me.
      - deleted 3y ago
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    - allarm 3y ago
      With all respect, there’s not a lot of restaurants around here ) comparing to i.e. Hamburg. A couple of steak houses, some locals, 4-5 asian food and the Brunswik, which is always busy. There’s also Kiellinie, but it’s mostly a seasonal thing. Though there’s a lot of folks around sipping cocktails with ice in winter, crazy. Love this city.

I find better results on it in general. I use Google as a fallback but these days it happens perhaps once every couple months, and mostly I don't get anything out of it.

Turing_Machine 3y ago

Yes. IMO DDG has been better for general questions for a long time. Google remained better for programming questions for significantly longer (I speculate this may be because Google's own programmers used it, and complained when the results sucked :-)), but now it's not. Not really. Like you, I still use Google as a long shot, but that's become quite rare. I sometimes use Bing for Microsoft-specific questions, if DDG doesn't give me what I want. I have the sense that Bing covers Microsoft a little better than the others do. I have no real solid evidence for this, but it seems plausible on the surface.

deleted 3y ago
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inductive_magic 3y ago

It depends on the usecase. If you're querying for something local like a restaurant or a store, google wins by orders of magnitude. If you're researching, duckduckgo is fine. Duckduckgo doesn't really compare to Kagi though.

cassianoleal 3y ago
What's wrong with DDG and local searches? I find it exceedingly good, especially with the country selector being so up and front. It's very easy to search for those kinds of things in other places, for example to plan a trip. Kagi for me is a no-no. I mostly browse on temporary containers, and also have Firefox delete cookies on close. A search engine that requires me to be signed in would be a massive pain to use.
- inductive_magic 3y ago
  >What's wrong with DDG and local searches Maybe its different in the US or just not optimised in Germany, but the quality of search results isn't comparable. Query: "All you can eat Kiel" Google: 1. a map with the top three restaurants for this context in the foreground 2: a list of restaurants, sortable by price/date/hours 3 to end of page: links to homepages of the top restaurants DDG: 1. a completely random assortment of irrelevant links on the left 2. a semantic web box with a 3/5 rated irrelevant restaurant on the right 3. wild youtube-videos vaguely related to the query between text results 4. images 5. more wild links that kind of thing. And Kiel isn't a small city, we even had DDG print ads here.
  - cassianoleal 3y ago
    I'm not in the US. :) When I try your query I only get a bunch of local German stuff (including a map with restaurants). I admit, I don't even know what Kiel is so I can't validate the results but despite them being in Germany (and my search having had the country selector set to UK), it looks pretty good. If I search something more generic like "all you can eat sushi" I get a neat map with a few restaurants that do that, plus a bunch of TripAdvisor and other directory and blog posts exactly about that, all local. If I try your query again, setting the country to Germany, I get https://yummy-kiel.de/ https://yummy-kiel.de/ as the first result, a map with top-three restaurants as the second, and again, a bunch of directories and blogs with all you can eat Kiel. Seems pretty good to me.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - allarm 3y ago
    With all respect, there’s not a lot of restaurants around here ) comparing to i.e. Hamburg. A couple of steak houses, some locals, 4-5 asian food and the Brunswik, which is always busy. There’s also Kiellinie, but it’s mostly a seasonal thing. Though there’s a lot of folks around sipping cocktails with ice in winter, crazy. Love this city.