
Ask HN: Have you successfully moved away from Google search? - chatmasta
I&#x27;m seeing more and more people saying they&#x27;ve switched to DuckDuckGo. For me, 95% of my google queries are programming related. I&#x27;m wondering, for anyone who has switched, how has DDG performed in terms of surfacing the programming topics you&#x27;re looking for? Does using it decrease productivity?
======
kevlar1818
I switched to DDG from Google about one and half years ago. DDG is my daily
driver.

DDG is _excellent_ for programming questions/how-tos. It shows popular
StackOverflow questions inline[1]. For Python, it shows Python/NumPy/SciPy
documentation inline as well[2]. It may do this for other languages, but I
have not witnessed it.

DDG also has a great inline weather "app" using DarkSky (which is an
underrated weather site, IMO)[3]. Searching for businesses/restaurants shows a
mini map ala OpenStreetMap (or other providers if you choose) and business
information from Yelp[4].

DDG also has a community-driven program to add more search features, called
DuckDuckHack[5]. I believe all (at least most) of the features I shared above
came through that program. A list of all "Instant Answers" can be found
here[6].

Need to fallback to Google? (I personally never have.) There's "bangs" for
alternative search engines and popular sites[7].

Make the switch. You'll be pleasantly surprised how easy and refreshing it
will be.

[1]:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=python+sort+a+list+of+strings](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=python+sort+a+list+of+strings)

[2]:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=numpy+sum](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=numpy+sum)

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

[4]:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=exploratorium+sf](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=exploratorium+sf)

[5]: [https://duckduckhack.com/](https://duckduckhack.com/)

[6]: [https://duck.co/ia](https://duck.co/ia)

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

~~~
peller
I too switched over to DDG around the same time, and I mostly agree - but I've
had the exact opposite experience specifically with programming questions.

I can't even count the number of times I've searched for something (usually
semi-obscure errors) on DDG and come up dry, only to enter the exact same
query on Google and the first or second result will have the answer I needed
:(

~~~
kevlar1818
When in doubt, bang (!g) it out.

~~~
Ntrails
Problem is that's my default ddg search at this point. I have no faith in DDG
to actually give me the thing I want, so I rarely give it the change. It'd
make more sense to just make google my default at this point..

------
usrme
My usual setup relies on first using DuckDuckGo and when I need answers to a
more esoteric problem or error that I am seeing and DDG isn't providing me
with what I need, then I modify my search query by appending "!g" and try my
luck with Google.

At the moment I'd venture it's about a 60/40 split with DuckDuckGo staying on
top across all types of searches.

~~~
nannal
This is absolutely my experience, bangs are a game changer though, I would
probably be willing to use DDG without it's native search just to keep using
bangs.

~~~
notheguyouthink
I also like that I'm indicating to DDG that I'm unhappy with my search
results. They get a clear feedback model of what I can, and cannot find.

I _imagine_ that is very helpful to developers.

------
binarymax
I fully switched to DDG about 5 years ago. Specifically programming questions
work great. I'd estimate about 5% of my searches I will revert to google,
which sometimes doesn't help either because I'm searching for something crazy
niche.

~~~
chillingeffect
Similar here. Dropped Google several years ago. when I do go back to google,
I'm surprised how much it's changed. So little of its results don't have a
little "Ad" next to them.

~~~
paulcole
> So little of its results don't have a little "Ad" next to them

Yes, Google is an ad-supported business. What confidence do you have that DDG
won't go the same route?

~~~
chillingeffect
1\. It's a private company so they don't need to swell profits quarterly to
maintain position in the market

2\. They already do sell their results. The difference is they don't attach
names to them

3\. And if they for some unforeseen reason do go that same route they're not
there and I will continue to use them until they do.

------
grimgrin
Those who use DDG, do you miss dates in results? Having a date present
definitely helps me think about the results:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=dcss+branch+order](https://www.google.com/search?q=dcss+branch+order)

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dcss+branch+order](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dcss+branch+order)

This isn't a case where I _know_ I only want 2017 results, and so I do the
syntax to filter it down automatically. I want all results, but I want to be
aware of the timeline of whatever I'm going to click.

~~~
naibafo
Now that you say it, yes. Seeing the date right away is helpful and offers a
nicer workflow.

You can filter by date though or sort by date in DDG, so making the date
visible is probably possible somehow or might be in the future.

------
brandonwamboldt
Personally I have no interest in moving away from Google Search, as I
specifically use them because Google learns from previous searches I've made
and shows me more relevant results. Searching "unzip" shows me the Linux
command, not unrelated materials for example.

~~~
LizMcIntyre
You can use StartPage.com to get Google search results in privacy. Even Edward
Snowden has recommended StartPage no-logging privacy:
[https://www.startpage.com/eng/#home-
video](https://www.startpage.com/eng/#home-video).

StartPage.com is also recommended by privacytools.io

~~~
vanderreeah
It's kind of rude to advertise while giving the false impression you're a
disinterested punter. It's also tiring to read the same comment plugging the
same product after half a dozen posts on this page.

------
zitterbewegung
Yes , here is how I did it.

1\. Put duck duck go as the default browser on your phone

2\. Learn the bang paths. Realize that you still may have to fall back to
google .

3\. Once you have mastered the bang paths start targeting your search queries

4\. Realize you can’t live without bang paths

5\. You should now be motivated to use duck duck go exclusively .

~~~
fosco
I have been using DDG for quite some time now.

I am now interested in bang paths and feel woefully ignorant. can you
elaborate with an example? the definition [0] I found for bang paths tells me
I found the wrong item.

[0] [https://www.techopedia.com/definition/6138/bang-
path](https://www.techopedia.com/definition/6138/bang-path) A bang path is a
mostly obsolete kind of address function that shows each server in a message
trajectory over a complex network, for example, the Internet. It is called a
bang path because each designated server is separated by an exclamation point,
also known as a bang.

EDIT: Question answered [1] I was searching for an alternate meaning and
should not have. thank you!

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

------
assafmo
I switched to DDG about a year ago. Sometimes when I don’t find something I
fall back to Google, but I've come to a conclusion that this usually doesn't
help so I stopped falling back to Google at all.

DDG instant answer are excellent, especially for programming.

In work I sometimes use a shared computer in which the default search engine
is Google and get annoyed by the badness of Google with providing good instant
programming answers.

Still, Google has some pros: \- I find it a bit faster to load. \- Hebrew
results are much better. \- Picture results are better. \- You can search
similar pictures to the ones you have (chrome extension)

Recently I also find myself going straight to YouTube to search certain
things...

------
veidr
No. And, literally just today I (again) disabled the DuckDuckGo extension in
my browser, because I felt ridiculous for having done this more than 20 times
in a single day:

1\. search (via the browser's URL/search field)

2\. sigh

3\. press ⌘L to return keyboard focus to the browser URL/search field

4\. press ⌘← to move the cursor to the beginning of the text

5\. enter "!g" and then ↩︎ to re-execute the search using Google

I really do like the idea of a non-creepy search engine. I periodically give
DDG another chance. But even more, apparently, I like finding pages and blog
posts responsive to my search.

(EDIT: Wow, I learned from this thread that step 4 isn't necessary; the !g can
go at the end of the search query. :-D Still doesn't really change anything,
though.)

~~~
oAlbe
You can append the bang at the end of the query, the result will be the same.
And you don't need to use cmd+L to focus the address bar of your browser, you
can just type 'h' and the focus will go to the DDG search bar.

~~~
charlieegan3
I've found that you can put the "!g " string anywhere and it'll work - does
seem to need a space after it if it's not at the end though.
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=thi%21g+ngs&t=hq](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=thi%21g+ngs&t=hq)

~~~
LizMcIntyre
Right, but no privacy. Better to go to StartPage.com using the !s or !sp

StartPage delivers actual Google search results without the tracking and
without the filter bubble.

~~~
charlieegan3
Only if I'm signed into Google or allowing it to set cookies right and not
spoofing my user agent right? ;)

I don't know if you're still affiliated with StartPage.com but the done thing
is to mention that in any posts promoting your company.

------
brainopener
I've sort of switched...

DuckDuckGo has !bangs. If you search for "!so javascript", then you just end
up on stackoverflow.com with a search term of "javascript". There's dozens
(hundreds?) of these !bangs -- including !g if you want to run the search on
Google.

So I've installed this extension below for Safari. I use the !bangs in the
address bar if I want to go somewhere specific -- !so (stackoverflow), !a
(amazon), !y (stock quotes). And, otherwise, it just uses Google search.

[http://tbastos.com/project/safari-
bangsearch/](http://tbastos.com/project/safari-bangsearch/)

~~~
electriclove
Interesting.. I do something similar with the Search Engines setting in Chrome
using Keywords which applies to what is typed in the omnibox.

a iphone -> searches for iphone on Amazon

w tiger -> searches for tiger on Wikipedia

You can also set up a new search engine/keyword. Example to set up Stack
Overflow with the s keyword:
[https://stackoverflow.com/search?%s](https://stackoverflow.com/search?%s)

So I can now type 's sort a string in python' and it will take me directly to
[https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=sort+a+string+in+python](https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=sort+a+string+in+python)

~~~
SirZimzim
I tend to use the tab complete feature. Works on pretty much every site I ever
use search . Just start typing the url and press tab.

------
Spivak
I have DDG as the search provider in Firefox and it works great. If you
already know what you're looking for it's quick and fast to use the bang
syntax.

"Shoot, I need the docs for the user Ansible module"

> !ansible user

And it goes straight to the page.

I typically give DDG the first try on a search then I turn to Google/Startpage
if I don't get good results. It's been getting way better over time.

~~~
LizMcIntyre
Spivak Do you bang into StartPage using the !s or the !sp ?

------
Sir_Cmpwn
The thing that trips up most people is the realization that DuckDuckGo _does
't know anything about you_. Many people have gotten used to tailored search
results. If you learn to be a little more specific ("django framework" instead
of "django") you'll find DDG very pleasant to use. Also, bangs are an
indispensable feature.

~~~
LizMcIntyre
Hi Sir_Cmpwn. You probably know that DuckDuckGo bangs _DO NOT_ convey any
privacy protections. I know people who bang into Google from DDG thinking they
are protected.

If you want to get Google results in privacy, better to bang into
StartPage.com using !s or !sp -- That way you get Google results without the
tracking.

------
mnm1
I use startpage which has Google results by proxy. With js turned off it's
really fast. Duck Duck go just had terrible results for programming queries so
I wouldn't recommend it for that but I use it on my phone.

------
maxxxxx
I have tried DuckDuckGo but for me Google is still much better. Unfortunately.

------
zaro
I've been gradually swithing to DDG over the last 2 years. Initially only my
main browser now all of them( on all devices) and I would say it hasn't
decreased my productivity.

The only big change is that now every now and then I would double check the
search results with !g if I am not happy with DDG results.

Overall I would say DDG or Google is more about habits and comfort zone than
anythting else and Google gives better search results mostly because of the
search bubble.

------
YCode
From a pragmatic standpoint, what do you gain by switching to DDG?

~~~
worg
A extremely difficult thing to find nowadays: a bit of privacy (if you skip
bangs) oh and bangs too

------
leonroy
DDG is a bit US centric but despite that I use it for nearly everything. On
the rare occassion it's not returning good enough results (images or certain
UK specific stuff) I just use the aforementioned suffix _g!_.

Give it a go, takes a little time before you feel comfortable being away from
Google's excellent search engine but I got fedup seeing adverts for things I'd
previously browsed on other sites, so adios Google.

~~~
ninju
It it _!g_ or _g!_

Just trying to understand the placement of the exclamation point

~~~
DiThi
Both work, but "!g" is less ambiguous. Also it works both at the beginning and
the end of the search, so I can append "!g" to the end after searching,
without having to click precisely or to add an space.

~~~
ljcn
Interesting, I didn't know that. Note you can put a bang anywhere in the
query, not just the start or end (but your trick about putting it at the end
to avoid typing the space is nice).

------
volkk
ITT: DDG and bangs. For those of you who also don't use DDG or know what these
!bangs are, a quick google search shows that it's a quick way to directly
search a website. !ebay motorcycle, would search ebay.com for...you guessed it
--motorcycles.

my only question though is, why are these bangs so special when google does
the same thing with `ebay.com: motorcycle`. Is it mainly the fact that DDG
provides more privacy?

~~~
detaro
> _when google does the same thing with `ebay.com: motorcycle`_

That query does not send me to ebay?

~~~
volkk
good point. does using a website's internal search engine outperform google
scraping the site itself which i think `ebay.com: motorcycle` does?

~~~
detaro
It has a lot more site-specific tools available (e.g. with ebay filter by
location, category, price, ...), so for me clearly "yes". Searching through
ebay.com with Google might be useful in edge cases (e.g. to benefit from
Google maybe having better fuzzy search), but is very different from using the
actual UI.

It's even clearer with things like wolfram alpha, which aren't indexable but
respond to a specific query.

------
rjeli
I am surprised to see so many people trust DDG. The founder Gabriel Weinberg
made his fortune from the Names Database, which indexed people's information
and allowed you to contact them only if you referred more people into the
database (or paid).

Not the kind of person I want running my "privacy focused crypto anarchist"
search engine.

~~~
jszymborski
If nothing else, DDG doesn't keep me in a search bubble, which is something
I've definitely noticed and very much appreciate.

Furthermore, DDG isn't an ad company. DDG occasionally adds 1 well marked ad
on the page, and it's not directly targeted to me.

If DDG is tracking me, I certainly can't tell how they're leveraging it. That
doesn't mean they aren't, but it's as good an indication I've gotten so far.

------
mratzloff
I've used DDG for the last couple of years on all my devices. I switched for
privacy reasons. It does everything I need it to do, and I get a lot of use
out of the search shortcuts (especially _!w_ ).

Commit to switching for a couple weeks and you'll find that you rely on Google
less and less.

------
epalm
Something that really bothers me about the DDG interface is how it hijacks the
up/down arrow keys I use for scrolling. After searching, press down, and the
page won't scroll down, it'll just highlight the first search result. Keep
pressing down, and the page still won't scroll until the last visible result
is highlighted. Press down one more time, and the page scrolls erratically,
highlighting the next result in the center of the window. At this point,
pressing up/down will scroll exactly as far as needed to keep the prev/next
result highlighted in the center.

I find this very annoying. After years (decades!) of training, my eyes know
exactly how far one keypress should scroll. Stop messing with the default
scrolling mechanism!

~~~
ekto
You can turn off their special keyboard shortcuts to enable normal scrolling
behavior. Check out
[https://duckduckgo.com/settings](https://duckduckgo.com/settings)

You can add this (and any other setting you tweak) to your browser search bar
so you don't have to rely on cookies. In this case, edit the search URL to:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&kk=-1](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&kk=-1)

------
kapep
I've set up startpage on my desktop at home. I have also used it on mobile for
some time but stopped doing so. I'm generally quite happy with it and I would
use it on all devices, if it were better at one crucial thing (especially
important for me on mobile): Searching for addresses

The map integration almost never works. I only see a map if I search for a
city name but never when I enter any address. I sometimes try to add "maps" as
a keyword, which results in google maps being the first result - but it almost
always links to a wrong street! (usually in the center of the city, the street
number is the one I entered though)

------
dpflan
I'm wondering: have you kept track of which site results you commonly find
that answer your questions? For example, you query DDG a few times for
different questions, and for each answer you find yourself on Stack Exchange.
If you'd like to skip the "middle-man", it seems like directly querying SE may
be the way to go for ~X% (X > 50%) of your questions (at least for those
topics).

I think this is could be a good way to help pay more attention to what you're
searching for and results because now that I think about Google searching can
be really assumptive and get-the-answer-and-leave at times. Maybe digging
deeper than top Y results can be a better learning experience.

------
lazyjones
I've been using DDG for more than 4 years now. I use Google perhaps 1-2
times/month when I can't believe there are no suitable results for a query and
usually Google just confirms that (i.e. provides nothing DDG didn't).

------
sigjuice
I tried and failed. I used Bing for a few days right after Google pulled the
plug on Google Reader. I was really mad at Google. Bing was quite terrible and
I went crawling back to Google Search in pretty much no time.

------
jshevek
To answer the title question: I discovered this week that Bing has radically
improved in recent years. Between them & DDG, I don't see that I'll need to
rely on Google search ever again.

------
yellowapple
I've used DDG as my primary search engine for a few years now. Absolutely love
it.

It really helps that I can just stick !g at the front of my query if I think
Google might have better results (which it usually does not).

For programming tasks, I think my productivity is a lot higher than it would
be had I stuck with Google. DDG's "zero-click answers" are awesome, and are
frequently just Stack Overflow answers. Google has tried to do this, too, but
I've found it to be a lot less useful.

------
sevensor
I find DDG always has the Python doc that I'm looking for at its fingertips.
At this point, I get frustrated and annoyed when I try to use Google search
for anything. Also I really don't want four-year-old Google plus posts from
people on my gmail contacts list showing up in my web search results. It just
underscores the pervasiveness of their search bubble, which makes me distrust
the search results.

------
subie
* Moved from Chrome to Vivaldi[1].

* Switched from Google Search to DDG or Startpage.com[2] (which is basically a google proxy)

* Moving off Gmail and switching to Yandex.Mail[3].

[1]: [https://vivaldi.com/](https://vivaldi.com/)

[2]: [https://www.startpage.com/](https://www.startpage.com/)

[3]: [https://mail.yandex.com/](https://mail.yandex.com/)

------
dethos
I've made the complete switch around the year 2012. At the time it felt
strange not using Google, however nowadays the sentiment is completely the
opposite I'm so used to DDG that using Google feels somewhat awkward.

I really like the !bangs and the instant answers are good enough. I can find,
anythings I looking for, using DDG just as fast (if not faster) as I would
using Google.

------
probably_wrong
I found two aspects of DDG very convenient: that I can search in Stackoverflow
directly, and that if I still don't like the results I can always add "!g" and
repeat the search in Google (useful for finding a very specific error
message).

I only got a very small decrease in productivity at first, but I went back to
normal pretty quick. So I'd say it went better than expected.

------
zapi
Not really, I'm using [https://www.startpage.com/](https://www.startpage.com/)

------
ljcn
I switched to DuckDuckGo years ago. I use it in my work as a software engineer
and find it satisfactory the vast majority of the time.

On the occasions that it isn't I either append !g, !s, or !sho to redirect the
query to Google, Startpage, or SymbolHound, respectively. There are thousands
more and they're huge productivity boosters (!w for wikipedia gets used a
lot).

------
bluGill
Yes. I tried duck duck go 10 years ago when I first heard about it, and
decided it wasn't anywhere near as good as google. A few months back I was
convinced to try it again, and surprise, it is just as good as google.

I recently did a few queries where I didn't find anything so I tried google
and it got the same irrelevant results (as a category, not the same pages)

------
tchaffee
Yes, pretty much. DuckDuckGo usually surfaces the best StackOverflow answer.
Rarely I'll feel like I need a broader search so I'll append "!g" to my search
and look at the Google results. And once in a while I get something useful
from that broader search. If I had to get by with only DuckDuckGo I would be
fine.

------
JadoJodo
It would seem this hasn't been mentioned, but you can use
[https://www.duckduckgoog.com/](https://www.duckduckgoog.com/) to gain all the
benefits of !bang, but all searches go through Google.

------
Jdam
No, why?

A friend of mine is using DDG and whenever I'm over and we search for
something on DDG, what we were searching for doesn't show up. Maybe it's
Murphy's law, but I'm always mocking him with "search for it on Google" and
that usually delivers the result we were looking for.

------
patrickbolle
I'm using Startpage since about 1.5 months ago. A tad slower but I like it and
it gives me good results.

~~~
cJ0th
I also use startpage 99% of the time. It relies (entirely) on google, though.

~~~
ljcn
This is true. For a sister search engine that doesn't use Google or Yahoo see
[https://ixquick.eu/](https://ixquick.eu/)

Source:
[https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...](https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/103/0/what-
is-the-difference-between-startpage-and-ixquick)

~~~
cJ0th
That's quite interesting. I didn't know that ixquick.com != ixquick.eu

------
dionian
On some machines I've made DDG my default. I sometimes revert to google as a
backup, and its sometimes better. but generally DDG is good enough for daily
use. I figure the benefit of defaulting to it is worth any slightly less
quality searches for basic day-to-day lookups

------
dlanphear
I switched to DDG probably 3 years ago, I use it all the time. I wish
stackunderflow didn't dominate the results in any SE over the primary sources,
but I understand it's popularity based... Tired of the tracking, use the duck.

------
luckydude
I've been using DDG for a couple of years. Once in a while I'll do a !g search
to get google results but most of the time DDG is fine. I search on all sorts
of stuff, not just programming.

------
diegoperini
My personal split is probably around 30% DDG, 70% Google. DDG go fails on
local searches (Turkey, Turkish sources) and sometimes very long queries like
stacktraces does not retrieve effective results.

------
vaygr
Switched to DuckDuckGo completely around 3 years ago. So far so good.

------
jaitaiwan
Initially I found DDG useless and I struggled to get the right query results.
As time went on things got better so either I learned how to “duck” or it
better learned about me

~~~
nhumrich
Ddg doesnt "learn about you" ever. It keeps no data on you. So it must be the
former.

------
DanBC
Mostly. I do a lot of searching of English NHS websites and Google or Bing
still seem better than DDG for that.

But the rest of the time I use DDG, and I use DDG before trying something
else.

------
texteller
As I am data curious, wolfram alpha is best suites me and love the way it
presents results. Also DDG is also doing a great job.

------
gasull
I use DuckDuckGo most of the time. Sometimes I use !s for retrying the search
in StartPage. I very rarely use Google Search.

------
caspervonb
For the most part I've moved away, but everynow and then the default browser
setup is configured to use Google.

------
Akaahn
Bing or DDG, at this point you can't go wrong, as long as it isn't google.

------
Crontab
I don't mind using Google for search; I just don't use them for anything else.

------
mttjj
I still use Google at work (software engineer) but I use DDG at home and for
everything else.

------
rakshithbekal
usually bing but sometimes google when I don't find what I want in bing

------
smithsmith
After the google diversity memo issue, i have started thinking about using DDG
all the time. The reason being what if google decides to censor the
information when it is negative about it. It looks so obvious but never hit me
so hard after the google diversity memo issue.

------
paulcole
No. Duck Duck Go was awful for me. Search results were overly general and
pretty much useless.

I _like_ that Google has like 11 years of my search history saved and can
deliver me relevant results. And I don't have to pay anything!

What's there to not like about that?

------
sashk
Frequently, I end up using !g in DDG. So the answer is maybe.

~~~
shanecleveland
Same. Started using it a lot, and am considering going back. I prefer Google
maps and image search, too.

------
known
I wrote my own search engine with machine learning

