

Switch your default search engine to Google - bgaluszka
http://imgur.com/vh5y9qX

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ynak
I've started to use DuckDuckGo as my default search engine in Firefox
recently, but accuracy of results often falls short of my expectations. So I
end up entering the same query again at Google especially when searching for
technically detailed Q&A. Is there anyone who only use DDG in everyday life?

~~~
mrweasel
I don't use DuckDuckGo exclusively, but I switch to it as my default over a
year ago. Initially I used the !g for a large number of searches, but now I
rarely feel the need.

As DuckDuckGo has become better, it also seems that Google is becoming
increasingly worse, at least with general searches.

Interestingly enough where Google shines is finding pages that I sort of know
exists. Queries where "I know I saw this on Stack Overflow" or "I've seen this
exact text somewhere" and localized searches (Although DuckDuckGo have become
a lot better recently).

~~~
raldi
What are some examples of searches where DDG outperforms Google?

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wodenokoto
In my experience it is better at "general" things. Search for a company and
there will be a box describing what the company is, a specially marked box for
the official homepage and a wikipedia article is often highly ranked.

However, once you start querying very specific things, it tends to fall apart.
Just today I wanted to see if the a particular company utilizes any Machine
Learning and searched for company-name machine learning. No top hit contained
all three keywords or anything related to AI. On Google the top hit was a
company research institute and contained all 3 keywords.

~~~
raldi
Can you give an example term?

~~~
art-w
You probably don't care what a "Tiger" search would return, but I find the DDG
results vastly more informative:

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tiger](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tiger)

Recommendations: animals, military, people, movies, bands, organizations,
technology, ... with a pretty picture, a subtitle, and a short description.

Top results: Wikipedia, Tiger Direct (a shop), WWF, Defenders of Wildlife,
Tiger Woods, Detroit Tigers (baseball), ... (infinite list.)

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tiger](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tiger)

Single recommendation: Tiger (Animal), with a pretty picture, the life
expectancy and the scientific name.

Top results: Tiger Airways, Wikipedia, Tiger Stores (a shop), WWF, Tiger
Direct (another shop), Defender of Wildlife, ...

Special results "in the News": Tiger Airways, Tiger Woods.

I've been happily using DDG for almost a year now, but I still use `!g`
regularly because it does get confused sometimes (point is: no search engine
is perfect, but DDG makes it easy to redirect your search elsewhere.) I
switched because google was pushing g+ too hard, experimenting with the
presentation, customizing the result list based on my profile, and it was
breaking my flow (like the popup "make google your default search engine", I
get why they do it, but it required unwanted attention.) Somehow DDG convinced
me that they would be less invasive.

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evook
I am quite satisfied with ixquick[0]. It forwards google results over a Proxy,
utilizing TLS and it relinquishes cookies. Pretty neat if you ask me.

[0] [https://www.ixquick.de/eng/](https://www.ixquick.de/eng/)?

~~~
0942v8653
Startpage ([https://startpage.com](https://startpage.com)) does the Google
proxying, not Ixquick. If you like the results of Ixquick though, that's even
better than sending things to Google.

Also, their redesign is the first in a while that I actually prefer over the
old one. Aside from the hamburger menu (and, yecch, sort-of-half-floating
title bar) it's much better,

~~~
tonymon
Actually they are both the same company:

[https://startpage.com/eng/company.html](https://startpage.com/eng/company.html)
(also look at the logo here)

[https://www.ixquick.de/eng/company.html](https://www.ixquick.de/eng/company.html)

And both introducing new redesign

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TheLoneWolfling
The bigger question is: how does Google know what your default search engine
is?

Are they tracking referrers from DDG, or what?

~~~
0942v8653
Or anything else it seems. As in, I'm making my own search engine that can
redirect to Google and
[http://10.0.1.42/?q=google+whatever](http://10.0.1.42/?q=google+whatever)
will do it too. What really confuses me is that people will still try to link
to Google results in forums and it might say that (which could get really
confusing).

Quick test of that:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=google](https://www.google.com/search?q=google)

Yeah, the box shows up if I click that in Firefox, even in private browsing.
You'd think they could make it show up on the homepage when clicked from
Yahoo, which most Firefox people would probably do if their default got
changed. But anyone who uses DDG probably did it on purpose.

~~~
0942v8653
Err wait, this might be just me as I disabled cross-site referer header in
about:config.

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bgaluszka
I've been getting this only when redirected from DDG via !g in FF (and not
Chrome for example). I've this even if Google is set as my default search
engine.

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mikhailt
I use DDG by default on all of my devices and the main reason is because DDG
makes it easy to switch to any search engine I need.

So, if I can't find anything in DDG (usually very specific), I'll just type !g
at the end, and it'll take me to Google's search engine (encrypted version).

If I want images, I use !bi or !gi.

The bang ! is pretty much the most powerful feature that DDG has.

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eliben
Browsers have been doing this for at least 15 years. Is there anything
especially strange here you wanted to point out?

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coding4all
I only see this if coming from DuckDuckGo. It's interesting to see Google copy
DuckDuckGo!

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omaranto
My default search engine is Google and for the last couple of weeks I've seen
that box several times. It hasn't bothered me enough yet to try figure out
what is going wrong, but it does feel pretty silly.

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macu
Reminds me of my attitude on banks. I would never recommend a bank to someone
unless they asked. I barely know anything about banks, even my own, and I'm in
no position to determine another's decisions.

~~~
OoTheNigerian
You might want to take a look at the link. It is not waht you are assuming.

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MindTooth
DDG-user for about two years now. With the latest iterations of Apple-updates,
I'm using it on my iPhone as well. Using the terminal-like style :-)

