5 ms·

I guess I need to go back to manually appending "mdn" to all my html/css/js-related queries. How much longer is w3schools going to stay at the top of those resu

I guess I need to go back to manually appending "mdn" to all my html/css/js-related queries. How much longer is w3schools going to stay at the top of those results? EDIT: Actually, it turns out I've been using the linked Chrome extension (went to install, discovered it was already installed). I just conflated the two services and forgot about the extension. So to make this productive, I recommend this extension. I haven't seen w3schools in months.

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gee_totes 14y ago
/me straightens DuckDuckGo independent evangelist hat and nervously rings doorbell "Judging from your comment, you sound like the perfect user for Duck Duck Go! If you set DDG as the default browser for chrome/ff, you can search mdn with just '!mdn foo'. Also at your fingertips is searching !jquery (and hundreds of other search shortcuts) DuckDuckGo is great and makes searching super productive!" /me smiles eagerly
- esbwhat 14y ago
  Can I ask you why you see DDG as the perfect alternative to google? One would think that if you are concerned with the sort of things google is doing, you would bank on an open source search engine, so this sort of thing doesn't just repeat itself.
  - gee_totes 14y ago
    Because there is less typing to do searches. As a developer, I only have a limited number of keystrokes in me before I run out and die.
  - LukeShu 14y ago
    I have both YaCy and Seeks (distributed open source search engines) in my FF search bar, but the results are really... disappointing. I just get good results with DDG. DDG's commitment to privacy and not bubbling, etc. I do not believe are going away, it's their biggest selling point. Besides, as long as RMS is demanding that DDG be the default search engine in the GNU web browser, it's good enough for me.
- Xion 14y ago
  You might want to check YubNub [0], which is an enhanced version of this prefixes idea. If anything, you don't have to prepend your queries with ! there :) [0] http://www.yubnub.org http://www.yubnub.org
- Cyranix 14y ago
  I switched to DDG permanently a while back, and using it as a pass-through for other searches has been great. Saves me the effort of keeping up with a bunch of custom search bookmarks myself, and they're intuitive enough to guess (for example, I started working with Node a couple of weekends ago and naturally assumed that !npm would be available; same experience with !bgg for BoardGameGeek).
  - Shank 14y ago
    The only thing I hate about using DDG is the lack of a synchronized history. It's very helpful for me to find past Google Searches through Web History, because it works cross device.
- icebraining 14y ago
  Or you can just go to MDN once, right click on the search box, choose "Add a Keyword (...)" and then use "mdn foo" in the URL bar. Bang syntax seems such a small feature to change search engines.
  - lazugod 14y ago
    How is that different from searching "mdn foo" right now?
    - icebraining 14y ago
      This lets you use MDN's own search functionality, like DuckDuckGo's bang syntax.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  I'm using DDG, well, sometimes, and I really, really want to like it. But its reliability and performance -- just in producing search results let alone relevant ones, has been sorely lacking for the past 3-4 months.
  - hobs 14y ago
    Exactly. I am all for a competitor to google that offers some sort of useful features google doesnt, but the straight truth is that DDG does not provide as relevant of results, and you can feel how "dumb" it is compared to the results google is giving you. It could be some sort of personal bias, but I search the same term in both engines and get (in some cases) wildly different results, rarely in favor of DDG.
- pyre 14y ago
  Doesn't DuckDuckGo's index come from BOSS[1]? What happens if Yahoo cuts that? [1] http://developer.yahoo.com/boss/search/ http://developer.yahoo.com/boss/search/
mxfh 14y ago
In Chrome you can just add something like https://www.google.com/search?q=mdn+%s https://www.google.com/search?q=mdn+%s https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=%s https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=%s to the bottom of you search engine list with shortcut letters of your choice (e.g. "m") chrome://settings/searchEngines Then typing "m query" into the omnibox is even faster than resorting to google first.
- bhauer 14y ago
  Same can be done in Firefox on any bookmark using the "Keyword" attribute in the bookmark editor user interface.
devgutt 14y ago
w3schools was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the headline. Long time ago, I blocked this site and It's reappeared some time ago out of the blue with no option to block again.
Mahn 14y ago
Someone should buy w3schools just to be able to remove it completely from the web. I bet we could set up a successful kickstarter around this.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  That would set an awful precedent.
  - pyre 14y ago
    It already happens. Just look at some of the aquihires out there. E.g. Posterous.
aw3c2 14y ago
I understand all the negativity but I still often go to w3schools. Why? Because the example is right there. On MDN I always have to scroll. Loading times are also much faster with w3schools.
- khromov 14y ago
  Agree with this. Not everything on there is right, but there's a lot of useful snippets.

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gee_totes 14y ago

/me straightens DuckDuckGo independent evangelist hat and nervously rings doorbell "Judging from your comment, you sound like the perfect user for Duck Duck Go! If you set DDG as the default browser for chrome/ff, you can search mdn with just '!mdn foo'. Also at your fingertips is searching !jquery (and hundreds of other search shortcuts) DuckDuckGo is great and makes searching super productive!" /me smiles eagerly

esbwhat 14y ago
Can I ask you why you see DDG as the perfect alternative to google? One would think that if you are concerned with the sort of things google is doing, you would bank on an open source search engine, so this sort of thing doesn't just repeat itself.
- gee_totes 14y ago
  Because there is less typing to do searches. As a developer, I only have a limited number of keystrokes in me before I run out and die.
- LukeShu 14y ago
  I have both YaCy and Seeks (distributed open source search engines) in my FF search bar, but the results are really... disappointing. I just get good results with DDG. DDG's commitment to privacy and not bubbling, etc. I do not believe are going away, it's their biggest selling point. Besides, as long as RMS is demanding that DDG be the default search engine in the GNU web browser, it's good enough for me.
Xion 14y ago
You might want to check YubNub [0], which is an enhanced version of this prefixes idea. If anything, you don't have to prepend your queries with ! there :) [0] http://www.yubnub.org http://www.yubnub.org
Cyranix 14y ago
I switched to DDG permanently a while back, and using it as a pass-through for other searches has been great. Saves me the effort of keeping up with a bunch of custom search bookmarks myself, and they're intuitive enough to guess (for example, I started working with Node a couple of weekends ago and naturally assumed that !npm would be available; same experience with !bgg for BoardGameGeek).
- Shank 14y ago
  The only thing I hate about using DDG is the lack of a synchronized history. It's very helpful for me to find past Google Searches through Web History, because it works cross device.
icebraining 14y ago
Or you can just go to MDN once, right click on the search box, choose "Add a Keyword (...)" and then use "mdn foo" in the URL bar. Bang syntax seems such a small feature to change search engines.
- lazugod 14y ago
  How is that different from searching "mdn foo" right now?
  - icebraining 14y ago
    This lets you use MDN's own search functionality, like DuckDuckGo's bang syntax.
dredmorbius 14y ago
I'm using DDG, well, sometimes, and I really, really want to like it. But its reliability and performance -- just in producing search results let alone relevant ones, has been sorely lacking for the past 3-4 months.
- hobs 14y ago
  Exactly. I am all for a competitor to google that offers some sort of useful features google doesnt, but the straight truth is that DDG does not provide as relevant of results, and you can feel how "dumb" it is compared to the results google is giving you. It could be some sort of personal bias, but I search the same term in both engines and get (in some cases) wildly different results, rarely in favor of DDG.
pyre 14y ago
Doesn't DuckDuckGo's index come from BOSS[1]? What happens if Yahoo cuts that? [1] http://developer.yahoo.com/boss/search/ http://developer.yahoo.com/boss/search/

mxfh 14y ago

In Chrome you can just add something like https://www.google.com/search?q=mdn+%s https://www.google.com/search?q=mdn+%s https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=%s https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=%s to the bottom of you search engine list with shortcut letters of your choice (e.g. "m") chrome://settings/searchEngines Then typing "m query" into the omnibox is even faster than resorting to google first.

bhauer 14y ago
Same can be done in Firefox on any bookmark using the "Keyword" attribute in the bookmark editor user interface.

devgutt 14y ago

w3schools was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the headline. Long time ago, I blocked this site and It's reappeared some time ago out of the blue with no option to block again.

Mahn 14y ago

Someone should buy w3schools just to be able to remove it completely from the web. I bet we could set up a successful kickstarter around this.

jacquesm 14y ago
That would set an awful precedent.
- pyre 14y ago
  It already happens. Just look at some of the aquihires out there. E.g. Posterous.

aw3c2 14y ago

I understand all the negativity but I still often go to w3schools. Why? Because the example is right there. On MDN I always have to scroll. Loading times are also much faster with w3schools.

khromov 14y ago
Agree with this. Not everything on there is right, but there's a lot of useful snippets.