Not because DDG got better, but just because google got worse.
google is still better for site-specific searches, and google scholar still has minimal AI slop
I use Yandex for finding pirated or otherwise censored content.
I really tried, I set duckduckgo as the default for my second browser (I use it a lot) to slowly get used to it, but every time results are so bad I get mad and switch to Google especially for images
I use it for almost everything. I only resort to Google if I can’t find what I’m looking for, which is rare and typically it’s something obscure. Google has also steadily made their service worse over the years. I don’t feel like I am missing much.
I’ve been using DDG exclusively for something like 8 years. It works great for regular text search and I use bing for image searches. I really don’t understand the reluctance of people to switch to it. To me, Google has been borderline unusable garbage for a long time.
Cherry on the shit sundae was a couple months ago when Google started to require JavaScript be enabled for search.
Okay, so this wasn’t just me! I installed NoScript for Chrome on my work laptop as a stop gap for no more ublock origin and thought something was fishy w/ Google’s search page.
DDG is slow. Like noticeably slower than other search engines. I have been using DDG exclusively for 2 months at this point and it is wild how much faster brave search is not even mentioning google search.
I’ve actually never tried brave search. Which is kinda funny because I started using DDG when brave came out and it was the default search engine.
What do you mean by slow though? Like just the webpage loading or the time it takes you to get good results? I’ve never noticed any load time, but I’ve always had a few tweaked content blockers running and that may affect my perspective.
Same here, although I don’t know how long I’ve been on DDG exactly. I never not find what I’m looking for.
I used it for a few years, realized that I had to use bangs every other search, and reluctantly switched back to Google. But now Google is way worse than it was, so I think I might as well try switching back again, see how it feels now.
DuckDuckGo AKA Bing is complete dog doo. When you are looking for news it only tries to shove in the Microsoft MSN news page. The algorithm manipulation in favor of Western MSM bias is even heavier than Google. When you search certain terms it refuses to show articles containing those exact terms.
Yeah saying “DDG is as good as Google” means saying that DDG is worthless garbage lol
+1, it’s hot garbage and I don’t know why anyone would use it. You’re better off trying to randomly guess the URL of the content your looking for because that’s probably more likely to find it.
DDG does the job. Hopefully, I won’t have to switch engines soon.
Wait 'til you learn that DDG’s engine is Bing
isn’t it just a bing wrapper?
No and kinda yes. Duckduckgo has its own webcrawler, but also adds in results from other sources including Bing, Yahoo and others.
Last time I checked, it matched Bing results exactly.
Yahoo is Bing too
Yup.
Not really. If you focus purely on just searching, yeah DDG is decent. But, I find its maps inferior and trying to find answers to some questions can get tedious. DDG I guess is just for people who want guilt-free searching.
ddg maps is just a no-frills apple maps.
which is to say: terrible
Agreed. Even if it were identical to Google maps in terms of content, it runs slower on all platforms I’ve so far tried (windows, iOS, OSX).
yes, it is. but between it and graphhopper (or osm), it’s “enough” for me.
i don’t need a feature-filled “app” (my phone is ‘dumb’), and the only time i end up on something else like bing or google maps is if a site i need to use embeds and relies upon them.
my problem with apple maps is how frequently it has something’s location completely wrong because osm addresses use the European addressing system everywhere when i don’t live in europe
OpenStreetMap contributor here. What address format isn’t supported? Maybe I can help
United States format is very different from the european format and often the apple maps algorithm makes some boneheaded assuptions to translate from a US address to something OSM understands. i contribute, too, but the next time i have an example of apple maps fucking up… i’ll have already forgot this convo happened, but i’ll try
DDG is just Bing
Sorta not really.
I got identical results with a side-by-side comparison.
the bulk of its search results come from bing. only its instant answers and ai features aren’t bing
“just as good”? No, I feel it is (and has been for years) vastly superior but I mostly use it to find documentation or Stack Overflow answers so consistent UI and concise summaries are high priority to me. Take that as you will
I don’t think anybody can dethrone Google Maps yet but that’s another story
I don’t think anybody can dethrone Google Maps
I wonder how the whole “AI is more important than copyright” thing could play into this… Someone could totally program an “AI” map assistant right?
I still haven’t found Google to be worse than Bing yet.
My thought always was that DDG was good to set as my default, and if I’m not happy with the results then it’s not a big deal to use Google once in awhile.
Just use start page instead for Google results. That’s what I do.
Mullvad has recently made their google search proxy free for everyone. It’s a good alternative to startpage: https://leta.mullvad.net/
I like startpage more still. Mullvad’s ui sucks.
Wow this is way cleaner than google. Just straight text search results for the most part.
Yo, startpage looks sick. I’ll have to poke around and see if I can find more info on that it looks super useful. My quick test just now was “cloture 2025” which returned 4 news articles followed by basically nothing but .gov links, whereas Google returns way more “news”
Duckduckgo mostly uses Bing for its search results. It also uses yahoo, yandex, and it’s own crawler, but for the most part you’re getting Bing.
So what you really want to know is if Bing is just as good as Google. If you think it is, you should definitely use ddg because they’re the least intrusive.
It’s much better than Bing.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
…Oh, sorry.
Hell no. If anything, it’s gotten worse.
In their defense, however, it’s probably largely not their fault. In my admittedly one-person-sample-size experience, 90% of the searchable Web is either Reddit threads or articles, and with Reddit going officially with Google (meaning DDG doesn’t catch as many Reddit threads as they used to), that leaves most of the searchable Web being articles. Because SEO has to ruin everything.
So, it’s not really that DDG is shitty (mostly), but that all searches are shitty. Though, with the whole Google-and-Reddit thing, I find Google’s results are noticeably less shitty (though still shitty).
The killer for me has to be that it doesn’t support searching for phrases within websites I need. Latest example: github. I can be on the project page, copy a phrase from the code and search ddg with it in double quotemarks, and get 0 results. Copy - google.com - paste - enter - loads of results.
Also the search function broke for about a day, a few days ago
To be honest with you, I didn’t even know that was a feature. (Unless I’m misunderstanding you.) Sounds cool!
If I need to search a website, I use either Ctrl+F or the
site:search engine operator.That’s a bit surprising, given DDG uses Bing, Bing is Microsoft and Microsoft owns Github.
Did you try the same search with Bing, or have an example to share?
Yeah I really tried with DDG, switched my phone to it for 2 months. I was using !g so often it made the whole thing pointless.
Google sucks, but right now nothing is better. This is why they’re able to push their AI bullshit results so heavily, because just like with YouTube, ultimately there is no real competition.
i switched from DDG to ecosia because of Lemmy and i gotta say it’s even better
Yeah I think I’m headed in this direction. I’ve also been thinking about one of them self-hostable search engines a lot
Private browsing We protect your data and privacy so you can surf safely
This true?
I just realized the other day that I haven’t typed
!gin months.Google is mostly adverts. Wouldn’t take much to be better than that.
76% of their Q2 2024 revenue came from adverts. I’d rather pay with capitalist-consumerist shit on my screen than pay with money, but as everyone knows it’s far too invasive rn. Ergo, I use uBlock, sponsorblock and I don’t care about cookies.
I finally left Google a month or so ago and its amazing how little I miss it.
Yeah. I search for things all the time. Thousands of searches each month. I thought I’d miss it a lot, but I’ve not used Google for two years or so and it’s not really a problem.
