Been using DDG for about 8 years instead of Google search. Occasionally use google image search for matching an uploaded image. Use google maps for any local searches (credit to where credit is due its a superior map product).
(What do you search) they stink vs. Google even though Startpage is proxying them.
DDG is _not_ a “good” search engine — please, anybody have a hundred side-by-side screenshots to compare identical searches?
Edit - also admit Kagi’s great, I’m not affiliated; if you have money Kagi should be the pick (ideally purchased via their more private payment options probably)
Are we both blocking Google ads and scrolling past the AI summary?
Their business practices are just the worst. But are the first 10 blue links they show you usually bad? (Like you know that one of those 10 should be the exact thing you want, so you decide to rely on another search engine instead, & the alternative search succeeds where Google failed)
In my experience, DDG brings up relevant results, maybe a bit more so than Google does.
But often I'm searching for a phrase inside quotation marks and DDG hasn't crawled enough sites and gives me 0 or 1 result while Google gives me 5-10 results. Sometimes Google completely disregards the quotation marks, though.
> But often I'm searching for a phrase inside quotation marks and DDG hasn't crawled enough sites
Microsoft Bing bungles quotation marks so hard (???).
DDG catches the fallout.
> Sometimes Google completely disregards the quotation marks, though
Years ago I remember Google asking the person lodging a similar complaint for an example of a query because they found there was always an explanation. Noticed this no longer holds as of perhaps a few months ago if I’m not mistaken. Even this* fails:
+”omg just tell me no results if this exact string isn’t present come on I even put the plus sign”
Infantilizing for us, maybe optimizing for the 99.5% in reality (understandable, annoying)
*edit, made up example based on what I believe I’ve seen this year
edit:
> DDG brings up relevant results
Have you noticed, not if you misspell a proper noun? Spellchecking e.g. brand names, new/fad current event topics is apparently really hard (IIRC Bing not perfect here either?)
What are your metrics for good? I’ve exclusively used ddg for years and have zero issues. You ask for an outrageous level of proof- you prove it’s not good.
Whattttttt this is a few bucks of request from some open source model, just been lazy
Edit: have to do the work, get the screenshots, & analyze my own patterns. How often do I just need the first link from any search engine (like searching $majorBrand to look for their homepage), how often do I search something esoteric where DDG falters, how often do I search something essentially unique but simply not indexed by Bing (DDG) even though it was submitted to Google just fine, etc.
Been using DDG for about 8 years instead of Google search. Occasionally use google image search for matching an uploaded image. Use google maps for any local searches (credit to where credit is due its a superior map product).
Yandex seems to be better at image reverse search. Maps is the only one I still use Google for.
What
(What do you search) they stink vs. Google even though Startpage is proxying them.
DDG is _not_ a “good” search engine — please, anybody have a hundred side-by-side screenshots to compare identical searches?
Edit - also admit Kagi’s great, I’m not affiliated; if you have money Kagi should be the pick (ideally purchased via their more private payment options probably)
DDG is a mediocre search engine. A mediocre search engine is still much better than whatever Google's become.
Honestly, the answer is so often a little toy search like Marginalia or going straight to the website in question now, its frightening.
Are we both blocking Google ads and scrolling past the AI summary?
Their business practices are just the worst. But are the first 10 blue links they show you usually bad? (Like you know that one of those 10 should be the exact thing you want, so you decide to rely on another search engine instead, & the alternative search succeeds where Google failed)
3 replies →
DDG is unusable compared to Google for searches not in English.
I've been generally satisfied with ddg for a few years now. Started using it when Google was had obviously turned to shit, didn't look further.
In my experience, DDG brings up relevant results, maybe a bit more so than Google does.
But often I'm searching for a phrase inside quotation marks and DDG hasn't crawled enough sites and gives me 0 or 1 result while Google gives me 5-10 results. Sometimes Google completely disregards the quotation marks, though.
> But often I'm searching for a phrase inside quotation marks and DDG hasn't crawled enough sites
Microsoft Bing bungles quotation marks so hard (???).
DDG catches the fallout.
> Sometimes Google completely disregards the quotation marks, though
Years ago I remember Google asking the person lodging a similar complaint for an example of a query because they found there was always an explanation. Noticed this no longer holds as of perhaps a few months ago if I’m not mistaken. Even this* fails:
+”omg just tell me no results if this exact string isn’t present come on I even put the plus sign”
Infantilizing for us, maybe optimizing for the 99.5% in reality (understandable, annoying)
*edit, made up example based on what I believe I’ve seen this year
edit:
> DDG brings up relevant results
Have you noticed, not if you misspell a proper noun? Spellchecking e.g. brand names, new/fad current event topics is apparently really hard (IIRC Bing not perfect here either?)
1 reply →
DDG works well enough for me. I wonder if people who pay for Kagi perceive it as being better to justify the money spent.
What are your metrics for good? I’ve exclusively used ddg for years and have zero issues. You ask for an outrageous level of proof- you prove it’s not good.
Whattttttt this is a few bucks of request from some open source model, just been lazy
Edit: have to do the work, get the screenshots, & analyze my own patterns. How often do I just need the first link from any search engine (like searching $majorBrand to look for their homepage), how often do I search something esoteric where DDG falters, how often do I search something essentially unique but simply not indexed by Bing (DDG) even though it was submitted to Google just fine, etc.