I live in a country which uses a language I don’t speak but Google defaults to regional results in spite of my language being set to English. All other engines give me really poor results (not that Google was giving good ones, the image search has really gone to shit since they started populating it with AI stuff).
I use DuckDuckGo and am happy with it
Honestly the search bangs are the killer duckduckgo feature. I started using it because I was upset with Google hiding search results, but it’s being able to easily search any search engine that keeps me using it.
Bangs are amazing and I use it about 3x as often as I use the normal search on DuckDuckGo.
Yeah, but I almost always end up using the
!gbang anyway. And its so stuck in my fingers that I sometimes mistakenly write!g wen searchphrasewhen I want to search on wikipedia. Im cursed.Honestly I’ve found that duckduckgo/Bing’s results are usually enough, and usually only fallback to Google results if I fail to get anything useful or if it’s a very technical query.
What’s that?
Search bangs let you search using any search engine from duckduckgo. So you can type “!g” before your search to search Google. “!w” for wikipedia, “!a” to search Amazon, etc. They have a page on duckduckgo that lets you search all the different search bangs, most every website with a search is included and has multiple search bangs that work. If you don’t remember any of the shortened commands, you can usually safely fall back on a longer one (ie if you don’t remember !a for Amazon you could do !amazon).
The dealbreaker for me with DDG is they use Apple maps as default and don’t let you change it.
Not exactly the solution you’re looking for but starting a search on DDG with “!gm” will search google maps directly.
!mworks too
Yeah that’s the one thing that really bothers me too.
Yeah im like 99% happy with DuckDuckGo, except for images. The image results are always awful I find, so I just have to open up google images when I need an image. Dont think I can avoid that, but yeah
DuckDuckGo 95% of the time, Google if I’m having trouble finding something.
I switched to DuckDuckGo a while ago and haven’t regretted it at all. I honestly barely notice the difference. Realistically I should switch to firefox next but I’m pretty ingrainded in google chrome admittedly.
I made the jump a ways back, and it’s only on rare occasions that I find I need to open Brave or Chrome (whichever is installed on my machine at the time) for website compatibility.
DuckDuckGo 99% of the time,
GoogleStartpage if I’m having trouble finding something.*Note: Startpage uses Google as their source of search result.
I’ve been trying to switch to duckduckgo but I really struggle with the results. I appreciate the privacy angle but I just can’t seem to find what I want about 80% of the time. It’s like it just ignores parts of my query…
DuckDuckGo is using bing as source for their search results the same way startpage.com is using Google as source.
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This is the way.
Same. The heavy bias towards Microsoft-centric top hits (thanks, Bing) usually mean when I’m searching for a non-Windows tech answer I go right to !g, but otherwise it’s my default.
Big fan of DuckDuckGo and Startpage. Brave Search is also a fine choice, as well.
Been using Duck Duck Go too for a while. Not heard of Startpage before.
I’ve also been using Duck Duck go. I hadn’t heard about Startpage before.
I use duckduckgo with Google as a backup for when what I’m searching for is too specific. I’ve had to use Google less and less lately though
Used Duckduckgo for a while, got myself into a spiral of search engine exploration and at some point settled on Startpage for a while…but I just missed the maturity in functionality of Duckduckgo. It just always felt like I was making a usability/productivity sacrifice. So I returned and am still happy … for now :p
Nothing compares to DuckDuckGo with bangs, which let you change over to any other search engine with two or three characters. I usually use !g (Google), !w (Wikipedia) and !aw (ArchWiki).
I didn’t know DDG introduced that feature. That’s sick honestly. They even have bangs for my more obscure wikis.
I had no idea they had this feature. Thank you, I don’t think I’ll use anything ever again unless I absolutely have to now.
Holy shit! I think you just changed my life!
Duckduckgo by default, adding !g bang syntax to use google if DDG isn’t helping.
Duckduckgo as default. If I need location/region specific stuff, I will sometimes use google.
I mix and match.
DuckDuckGo is my main one, but I often find myself just using bangs and either throwing in !brave or !g before some searches because sometimes the results aren’t as relevant as I’d like.
I obviously don’t like Google, but if I need super quick results, they’re typically better for me, though they’ve honestly become ridiculously terrible over the last couple of years.
Not just because of promoted content, but because they don’t even seem to care about syntax anymore.
If I put quotes around a search term, Google seems to ignore it. Why? Who knows.
As much as I have… let’s say mixed feelings about Brave, I find myself using !brave more and more on DDG. More relevant results, at least in my looooong experience of using DDG as my primary.
Startpage doesn’t like me because VPN or whatever, otherwise I’d use it more.
I sometimes use a SearxNG instance as well, but that’s only if I’m really struggling to find something.
For the clueless, could you explain what bangs are in terms of searching using DDG?
DDG has a bangs page which explains it pretty well and lists all the possible ones.
Bing, actually. I think it has greatly improved. Mostly. Plus the new Bing and AI stuff has been great. Much better than google
I also use Bing. I like the AI features and the rewards program. The results are meh in terms of quality, but at this point honestly so are Google’s.
The rewards and AI are really the only selling parts. I guess it’s the cost of allowing them your data.
Wow, are we going to see the downfall of Google in our lifetimes?!
@SillyLilJester @Nymphioxetine
I’d rather google sees what’s going on and stop coasting on search.
The AI part really is what makes Bing great. I noticed that I save so much time by asking programming related question to Bing chat instead of going through a bunch of semi related results. And normal search results are also often fine.
I’ve used DuckDuckGo for a long time now and have never had a problem with it
Yes, I also switched to DDG, before there were so many options on the market, and its been more than sufficient since then.
I have a feeling I’m not utilizing search engies as much as I should, as I only use them to navigate to other websites.
The built-in conversion tools are really great, and the Wikipedia info-box has saved me many clicks, but aside from this, I really just need a search engine that works, without selling my data to the highest bidder.
DuckDuckGo is just that for me.
My own SearXNG instance. I get the best out of all search engines.
Metasearch engines are the way to go, I wish more people hosted their instances so folks wouldn’t run into rate limits so often
Whoa, this is the first time I’ve heard of a metasearch engine or SearXNG, this is incredible. I’ve been a DDG user for a while but I might have to switch…
woah nice!
thanks for the recommendation, will need to try a self hosted setup
Duckduckgo.com. This is the way.
Brave. It’s interesting getting completely different results than from any of the big players. And the results from Brave are often better.
I use the Brave browser on my phone. The searches are good, but I mainly like that I can watch YouTube without adds, and make the video windowed and even turn off the phone screen while it plays.
DuckDuckGo. I’ve become reliant on the bangs. Regular search not giving me what I want? Just add !g. Want to find a word? !wt. Look up an album? !rym. Just want to search something on YouTube quickly? !yt
Same engine, same reason.
DDG
I use Qwant and find it gives me better results than Google most of the time. It claims to be private and such, so I’m happy with it.
Thank you for reminding me about Qwant! I will set it as my default to try it out again. I remember that I did not find it too impressive a few years back. Felt like the exact same results as Bing, even though it supposedly has its own index.
