
What Taking On Google Taught Me About Startup Traction - kareemm
https://www.fastcompany.com/3051613/lessons-learned/what-taking-on-google-taught-me-about-startup-traction
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bryang
I tried using DDG... I used it for over a year. But I gave up - the search is
seriously lacking. It's minor for large things, but really noticeable for more
obscure searches. I went back to Google when I made my new computer 10 months
ago and I will never take search for granted again.

Now, to have a little privacy with Google, I just use SEARCHONYMOUS which
automatically avoids using my signed in email account for search and YouTube.

~~~
buckbova
For me the bangs are a killer feature.

[https://duckduckgo.com/bang](https://duckduckgo.com/bang)

Does Google have an equivalent?

~~~
fuzzythinker
Yes, you can customize Chrome's search box in "Manage Search Engines". I've
setup a few frequent searches -- w=wikipedia, am=amazon, anything-you-want for
site:anysite etc.

~~~
jlarocco
That feature is in almost every browser, and has been for a while. And it's
great if you only use one computer all the time.

But I have my phone, my iPad, my personal desktop, my personal laptop, my work
desktop, etc. Using the browser's custom search feature means I have to add
custom search engines to every browser on every machine I use, OR I have to
setup syncing between them all, which I really don't want to do, and isn't
even really possible between e.g. Safari on iPhone and Opera on Linux. And
even if that were easy, I _really_ don't want to sync browsers on my personal
machines with my work machines. It's a lot easier to just set the search
engine to DDG, or go to the website and use !whatever from there.

I've been using DDG for a few years now, and I've been very happy with the
search results. The biggest weak spot, IMO, is that they don't index as many
old mailing lists and forums as Google. The only times I ever need Google are
when I'm looking for very specific or obscure error messages which aren't
always covered in regular documentation, but tend to be asked about on mailing
lists.

That said, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the quality of results depends a
lot on how the search is phrased and the topic being searched for, etc., so I
could just be getting lucky.

~~~
fuzzythinker
I see, I guess I don't use my mobile devices enough to understand the pain
points.

------
Scoundreller
> In 2006, I sold an Internet company that I had cofounded a few years earlier
> for millions of dollars.

It looks like that unnamed company was
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_Database](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_Database)

