To everyone complaining about DDG, what are you using? I’ve been using DDG for years now and it’s been fine for me. I have also been testing out StartPage.
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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I really like using this on YT.
This isn't gonna help me at all... Most of the time, my problem is that I am looking for something hella recent and only getting results from 5 years ago or more. Used to be able to add a month and year but lately it straight up just ignores it ("showing results for [query without the 2024 I added]" bullshit). Forcing it to search a string with quotes doesn't help either.
Does it help if you use verbatim mode?
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Is there a browser extension for this yet?
Qwant seems to be doing pretty good with search results
Qwant is bing minus ads. No seriously it's just licensed bing results.
Hmmm I never thought I'd say Bing was doing an ok job then. I was using ddg, then searxg but qwant seems to be best right now
Oscar winners 2024 before:2023
(It actually ends up being useful because many of the results seem to come from pages created earlier but updated now)
If you really want good search results, check out Kagi.
The reincarnation of Marie Antoinette over here
5 euros for only 300 searches a month. That's ridiculous
I've been pretty happy with the $10/mo plan. And I really wasn't planning on using past the first month originally.
Honestly, I thought the same! I primarily use DDG, but when that doesn't cut it, I go use my Kagi free trial of 100 searches. It's lasted me months at this point, which is a testament to DDG and Kagi tbh. DDG for getting me there 99% of the time, and Kagi for delivering on the rest, with the bonus of being customizable and privacy focused. When the trial runs out, I will likely purchase the lowest tier so I can mix it in more bc the result quality is truly higher and it actually LISTENS to my quotes and + & - terms. You may not do as many searches as you think, and for throwaway searches, DDG is probs good enough.
Im a dev & my entire job is googling shit basically, so it's worth it for me to get quality results without dealing with the bullshit AI SEO wasteland
Yeah kagi looks quite good to me but I just can’t justify their asking price.
3€ / month for unlimited searches is probably as far as Id go. Hopefully they find a way to lower prices in the future and capture a wider audience.
You're apparently worth something like $40/month to Google.
So they're already at a competitive disadvantage to services where you are the product and not the customer.
Stuff's not free.
I switched to yearly billing recently and it's a bit cheaper that way.
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Do you use it? How good are the results on rare topics?
I'd be willing to pay for an actually good search engine, but most engines I check give subpar results to google. It's fine to use a privacy focused search engine for easy searches, but I don't want to pay for one that will still require me to use google for anything complicated or super specific.
Kagi is good, but for rare topics try search.marginalia.nu
There is a 100 searches trial which oddly enough is actually plenty. It was a very good experience but I wish there was a cheaper plan to be fair
I use Kagi for everything, and use DDG and Google as backup searches. Usually, if Kagi didn't get me what I want, others won't either. I still prefer using multiple engines when looking into certain things, and that's no fault of Kagi.
Best feature IMO is personal ranking and DenyListing. For example, I can downrank Microsoft.com from my results, uprank StackOverFlow, and block CNet from my results. I can also downrank or block SEO nonsense sites from my results. I use this feature carefully, because I don't want to create my own bubble, but some sites are empirically terrible quality
You can improve your google search results by using DuckDuckGo instead.
Its really not much better
No.
Especially with non-English stuff. Let's be realistic here
It go so much worse lately it’s on par with Google. I’m out of search engines tbf
OK wasn’t my imagination then.
Fuck ddg, turning into wht they sought to destroy
Nah, DDG is arguably worse than Google now with their search results - I just ended up going back to Google after a couple of years of using DDG.
DDG for me was always a matter of exchanging a bit of convenience for a bit of freedom. The results are usually a bit poorer (or extremely poorer if websearching in Italian or Portuguese), but at least it isn't vulturing my data.
Didnt go to google but I hate ddg now
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Tried, kept returning to Google for "real" searches
No. DDG sux.
I really wanted to like DDG, but its results returned are so horribly unusable, I had to give up.
I'm usually searching for something obscure, but add in general terms for general refinement. DDG will ignore my obscure term (the thing I'm actually looking for) and give me pages of results of the general terms. Using special operators doesn't help. Whereas Google will give me at least a few relevant results using the same search terms.
Yeah I gave duck duck go another shot the other day and it was FAR and away worse than google. Considering how bad Google has been lately I was impressed (and disappointed) by how much worse DDG was.
I get the same pattern of ignoring obscure terms in both Bing and Google. Bings results include some that seem to assume I made a typo and Google includes a some sites that are just alternates that are the equivalent of ads.
I remember five or so years ago when both could at least return some relevant results anytime I used more than a few words.
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Which is basically Bing.
To be honest it's still a crapshoot of SEO bs.
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