6 ms·

Another reason to stop using Google. Don't waste the opportunity! Switched to DDG ages ago, and even though it's not amazing, it's already better than Google.

Another reason to stop using Google. Don't waste the opportunity! Switched to DDG ages ago, and even though it's not amazing, it's already better than Google. Although, if we're honest, searching these days is absolutely atrocious everywhere. Any keyword search will only net you ads or "top X" articles full of SEO garbage most likely written by AI at this point...

diggan 3y ago
The only thing that I've found that works properly for my use case (regularly switching between three locales and languages) is Kaggle with the lenses. The only thing missing is disconnecting the locale from the language so I can have proper decimal characters but still search for US-specific things. Right now, I have to chose between having 10,000.10 or 10.000,10 and what language/region I'm searching, together, which is a bit annoying.
- devnullbrain 3y ago
  Do you mean Kagi?
- freedomben 3y ago
  I think "Kaggle" is supposed to be Kagi but was typoed or autocorrected or something? (If not and you're talkign about Kaggle the ML/AI company, please disregard) I also use Kagi lenses and it's been good, though for me the killer Kagi feature is being able to uprank/downrank/pin/block domains. Such an obvious and simple feature, such a powerful effect. There is a psychological barrier to overcome in paying for searches, but once you get past that, Kagi makes a ton of sense. I suspect the reason Google never implemented personalized search results (like Kagi's where you can uprank/downrank domains) is because it's not about what you see, it's about what they show you. i.e. ads.
  - diggan 3y ago
    You're right of course, supposed to be Kagi, I blame it on a lack of coffee.
  - _lqaf 3y ago
    > the killer Kagi feature is being able to uprank/downrank/pin/block domains Yes! This alone is worth the subscription to me. And I despise and avoid software subscriptions, Kagi is my third.
mglz 3y ago
For people who don't know them yet: use DDG bangs. For example "!m restaurant [citynmae]" will immediately bring you to Google maps, "!w chemistry" will open Wikipedia etc. Super easy and powerful :)
- alcoholic_byte 3y ago
  I agree, it is nice and privacy respecting, but I take umbrige with the google-maps. I am not really using Gmaps and I have everyone in my orbit exposed to alternatives. Just because.... like cato used to say...... I believe that Google should be destroyed.
- NekkoDroid 3y ago
  Setting stuff up for that in any browser worth it's salt isn't too difficult, skipping the entire middleman of any search engine.
  - fooqux 3y ago
    But it's already set up for you in DDG, so why not use it? Aside from the fact it's another HTTP request, but these days on the majority of computers and connections, that's a trivial thing. I'll add that !aw to search the Arch Wiki and !aur to search the AUR are my two most favorite commands.
    - plugin-baby 3y ago
      > Aside from the fact it's another HTTP request You’d think DDG could avoid this via JavaScript if they wanted to. Might be better for privacy, if not for their usage stats.
    - AdmiralAsshat 3y ago
      > But it's already set up for you in DDG, so why not use it? Because if I wanna search Reddit, I'd prefer to have '!r' search directly within Reddit and not litter my browser history with tons of duckduckgo entries like this: https://duckduckgo.com/l/?uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dkobo&rut=a7f75aa6f1d891d12067590995ac4cec77267fe4a9cd1d2aa7ed0f3eb96d1da5 https://duckduckgo.com/l/?uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%...
ravenstine 3y ago
Not necessarily everywhere, or at least not quite as bad as you're suggesting, in my experience. I used to advocate for DDG, but they've gone so far downhill that I rarely waste my time with it. They've decided to go PG-rated everywhere even if you have safe search turned off. This is a problem because, even if they just want to block porn or illegal things, this can have an impact on legitimate academic research. And yeah, SEO trash floats to the surface, though they aren't entirely in control of this. Kagi (which relies on Brave Search instead of Bing) has less flotsam to start with, provides lots of great tools to filter out the garbage, and is subscriber-driven instead of advertiser or investor driven. DDG had potential, but they decided to give into moral panic and coast on their modest success instead of making substantial improvements. They also decided to pull a Mozilla and spend unnecessary effort working on a browser when they should be focusing on their core product. It'd be one thing to make a browser if their core product was actually good, but the best they are offering is a pinky-swear that your searches are private.
- the_snooze 3y ago
  >Bing DDG works well enough for me to be my daily driver, but it's absolute garbage for any kind of news search. Bing prioritizes MSN repost spam from dubious sources, so I'm better off going just directly to news sites I trust.
  - theshrike79 3y ago
    I must be weird, because I very rarely search for news. I just go to the sites I trust. I think the only time I search for news (usually on Google) is to find a reliable article about a celebrity death.
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      You can actually find this rather rapidly through Wikipedia. In fact, you can identify the exact moment when the news about the death leaked, when the first editor adds it to the article. Generally, experienced editors will keep it out until a reliable source is provided, which typically happens quite quickly. In fact I've found out about a number of celebrity deaths, just by having them on my watchlist.
JTbane 3y ago
Unfortunately I'm locked into gmail, migrating away from it would require days of effort and I would never be sure I moved everything. Also, YouTube is still the best video site despite going full mask-off on adblockers.
- hedora 3y ago
  Fastmail -> settings -> migration -> import Then set up a gmail forwarding rule. The full documentation is here: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/360058752414-Migrate-to-Fastmail-from-Gmail https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/360058752414-Mig...
- cobertos 3y ago
  I migrated about 5 different Gmail accounts off of Gmail to FastMail and it wasn't too bad. Though it was at least a day of work across all of them. I honestly spent more time trying to wrangle the data in all of the other numerous Google services those accounts had data with.
- Draiken 3y ago
  I am in a similar boat with an ages old Gmail account. My comment was originally intended to be only about Google search (I realize now I didn't specify that, lol), but leaving the entire ecosystem is definitely a lot harder...
hospitalJail 3y ago
Well I was using firefox and google maps. Apple maps is Yelp spam. What should I be doing? I was doing research
forward1 3y ago
How is DDG "better" than Google? In my experience it serves almost identical results. And it's now served from Microsoft servers, so the argument "it's more private" doesn't really hold water anymore.
- Draiken 3y ago
  They don't break their site for Firefox users for starters :) I do say this as somewhat of a joke, but that's for me a real reason. It's not the first time Google has intentionally screwed over Firefox users. Even if we believe what they say every time it happens: it's "just a bug". For me it clearly signals they simply don't care. And that's the best case scenario. Worst case they're abusing their market position to drive out competition. Even if DDG serves requests from MS servers, that's not even close to opting into the Google surveillance machine. Finally, if what you said holds true about serving basically the same content, then the hostility against Firefox and the fact that you won't be helping this monopoly should already make it "better".
salil999 3y ago
Why is this a reason to stop using Google?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

diggan 3y ago

The only thing that I've found that works properly for my use case (regularly switching between three locales and languages) is Kaggle with the lenses. The only thing missing is disconnecting the locale from the language so I can have proper decimal characters but still search for US-specific things. Right now, I have to chose between having 10,000.10 or 10.000,10 and what language/region I'm searching, together, which is a bit annoying.

devnullbrain 3y ago
Do you mean Kagi?
freedomben 3y ago
I think "Kaggle" is supposed to be Kagi but was typoed or autocorrected or something? (If not and you're talkign about Kaggle the ML/AI company, please disregard) I also use Kagi lenses and it's been good, though for me the killer Kagi feature is being able to uprank/downrank/pin/block domains. Such an obvious and simple feature, such a powerful effect. There is a psychological barrier to overcome in paying for searches, but once you get past that, Kagi makes a ton of sense. I suspect the reason Google never implemented personalized search results (like Kagi's where you can uprank/downrank domains) is because it's not about what you see, it's about what they show you. i.e. ads.
- diggan 3y ago
  You're right of course, supposed to be Kagi, I blame it on a lack of coffee.
- _lqaf 3y ago
  > the killer Kagi feature is being able to uprank/downrank/pin/block domains Yes! This alone is worth the subscription to me. And I despise and avoid software subscriptions, Kagi is my third.

mglz 3y ago

For people who don't know them yet: use DDG bangs. For example "!m restaurant [citynmae]" will immediately bring you to Google maps, "!w chemistry" will open Wikipedia etc. Super easy and powerful :)

alcoholic_byte 3y ago
I agree, it is nice and privacy respecting, but I take umbrige with the google-maps. I am not really using Gmaps and I have everyone in my orbit exposed to alternatives. Just because.... like cato used to say...... I believe that Google should be destroyed.
NekkoDroid 3y ago
Setting stuff up for that in any browser worth it's salt isn't too difficult, skipping the entire middleman of any search engine.
- fooqux 3y ago
  But it's already set up for you in DDG, so why not use it? Aside from the fact it's another HTTP request, but these days on the majority of computers and connections, that's a trivial thing. I'll add that !aw to search the Arch Wiki and !aur to search the AUR are my two most favorite commands.
  - plugin-baby 3y ago
    > Aside from the fact it's another HTTP request You’d think DDG could avoid this via JavaScript if they wanted to. Might be better for privacy, if not for their usage stats.
  - AdmiralAsshat 3y ago
    > But it's already set up for you in DDG, so why not use it? Because if I wanna search Reddit, I'd prefer to have '!r' search directly within Reddit and not litter my browser history with tons of duckduckgo entries like this: https://duckduckgo.com/l/?uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dkobo&rut=a7f75aa6f1d891d12067590995ac4cec77267fe4a9cd1d2aa7ed0f3eb96d1da5 https://duckduckgo.com/l/?uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%...

ravenstine 3y ago

Not necessarily everywhere, or at least not quite as bad as you're suggesting, in my experience. I used to advocate for DDG, but they've gone so far downhill that I rarely waste my time with it. They've decided to go PG-rated everywhere even if you have safe search turned off. This is a problem because, even if they just want to block porn or illegal things, this can have an impact on legitimate academic research. And yeah, SEO trash floats to the surface, though they aren't entirely in control of this. Kagi (which relies on Brave Search instead of Bing) has less flotsam to start with, provides lots of great tools to filter out the garbage, and is subscriber-driven instead of advertiser or investor driven. DDG had potential, but they decided to give into moral panic and coast on their modest success instead of making substantial improvements. They also decided to pull a Mozilla and spend unnecessary effort working on a browser when they should be focusing on their core product. It'd be one thing to make a browser if their core product was actually good, but the best they are offering is a pinky-swear that your searches are private.

the_snooze 3y ago
>Bing DDG works well enough for me to be my daily driver, but it's absolute garbage for any kind of news search. Bing prioritizes MSN repost spam from dubious sources, so I'm better off going just directly to news sites I trust.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  I must be weird, because I very rarely search for news. I just go to the sites I trust. I think the only time I search for news (usually on Google) is to find a reliable article about a celebrity death.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    You can actually find this rather rapidly through Wikipedia. In fact, you can identify the exact moment when the news about the death leaked, when the first editor adds it to the article. Generally, experienced editors will keep it out until a reliable source is provided, which typically happens quite quickly. In fact I've found out about a number of celebrity deaths, just by having them on my watchlist.

JTbane 3y ago

Unfortunately I'm locked into gmail, migrating away from it would require days of effort and I would never be sure I moved everything. Also, YouTube is still the best video site despite going full mask-off on adblockers.

hedora 3y ago
Fastmail -> settings -> migration -> import Then set up a gmail forwarding rule. The full documentation is here: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/360058752414-Migrate-to-Fastmail-from-Gmail https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/360058752414-Mig...
cobertos 3y ago
I migrated about 5 different Gmail accounts off of Gmail to FastMail and it wasn't too bad. Though it was at least a day of work across all of them. I honestly spent more time trying to wrangle the data in all of the other numerous Google services those accounts had data with.
Draiken 3y ago
I am in a similar boat with an ages old Gmail account. My comment was originally intended to be only about Google search (I realize now I didn't specify that, lol), but leaving the entire ecosystem is definitely a lot harder...

hospitalJail 3y ago

Well I was using firefox and google maps. Apple maps is Yelp spam. What should I be doing? I was doing research

forward1 3y ago

How is DDG "better" than Google? In my experience it serves almost identical results. And it's now served from Microsoft servers, so the argument "it's more private" doesn't really hold water anymore.

Draiken 3y ago
They don't break their site for Firefox users for starters :) I do say this as somewhat of a joke, but that's for me a real reason. It's not the first time Google has intentionally screwed over Firefox users. Even if we believe what they say every time it happens: it's "just a bug". For me it clearly signals they simply don't care. And that's the best case scenario. Worst case they're abusing their market position to drive out competition. Even if DDG serves requests from MS servers, that's not even close to opting into the Google surveillance machine. Finally, if what you said holds true about serving basically the same content, then the hostility against Firefox and the fact that you won't be helping this monopoly should already make it "better".

salil999 3y ago

Why is this a reason to stop using Google?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]