The federal government argues Google has smothered competition by paying companies such as Apple and Verizon to lock in its search engine as the default.
DuckDuckGo CEO apparently is just another CEO. I’ve been an early adopter that’s been using their search engine long before there were apps or a browser.
What’s stopping people from using DDG isn’t switching to DDG, it’s getting absolutely dogshit results 90% of time. As an advanced user I know I can prefix my search with “!g phrase” to use Google instead of DDG. The sad fact is that despite the ad-ridden result page and tracking, Google is still lightyears ahead in providing relevant, and especially timely results for a user that is both tech-savvy and critical.
They need to improve their product, users will follow a good adfree search engine, that’s a given. Only a fraction of users will put up with degraded results in order to search without tracking.
I sincerely hope they will get their tech up to par. And that their browser on mobile reaches feature parity soon. (as a Z Fold user, DDG browser doesn’t have tabs. Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox does).
The new kid on the block needs humility and good tech, not shittalk. Fuck that CEO,. he’s undermining something very promising and important.
I’ve never had a problem with DDGs search results that simply rephrasing my query didn’t solve. What are you all searching for that Google’s results are “light-years ahead” of DuckDuckGo’s? (Honest question)
Not OP, but I get completely trash results on a ton of technical questions no matter how I phrase it. Not a specific example, but if I’m having an issue with some niche distribution of Linux that requires a specific fix, it’ll instead insist on showing me the massive pile of results for the normal distros instead of the couple of links containing the answer I want.
For as shitty as Google has gotten, it’ll at least give you the one or two better hits before piling on the generic results.
It’s like DDG changes the query to get more results whereas Google will just run the damn search even if they stuff the results with ads and tracking.
The only thing I goto Google for is when I’m looking for local attractions. With Google maps being native everything is just smoother. Also, Google reviews are much more relevant with whatever duckduckgo has integrated (yelp?). Just my 2 cents.
I offset any inconvenience with how Google is not much of a search engine but more of an ad company. Also, I disabled all Googles data scavenging shit and I can’t even load the site without getting hit with a captcha. As someone who saw Google rise from the librarians favorite search engine, when a cable modem was life changing, it’s devastating to see it become everything that’s wrong with the internet.
In my recent experience Google still delivers better results for tech troubleshooting queries. “linux drivers for acer e15 card reader” at least points me to some semi-relevant pages on Google that could lead to a solution or more ideas where to look while ddg throws a lot of generic stuff that is only faintly related.
I often don’t find what I want in DDG; and I then try !g to look for it with Google… and Google doesn’t find it either.
In my experience it is very rare for Google to help me with a search that DDG failed with. As for the converse, I wouldn’t know - because I never search Google first. Why wouldn’t I? They’re evil.
That said, I will point out that I don’t use a google account, and I block most google-related cookies. I know that some people find Google gives better results due to its personalised results; and obviously I’m not ‘benefiting’ from that. So it is believable that you get better results from Google than I do, due to it knowing more about you, and thus guessing what you might want to see.
I always see people saying Google provides better results, but to me it’s awful. I don’t even use DDGO anymore, but Google only shows ads and SEO optimized results that look AI generated. Is this common or am I just an isolated case?
But Google’s search has turned to dogshit since it’s started trying to be smarter than it is, and DDG is now giving me results on par with old Google - that is, a list of exactly what I was searching for on the first try.
I made the switch a week ago. For two days at work, I always used Google, DDG and ecosia(uses bing) at the same time to compare the results. They are the same most of the time for the first 10 to 20 results. There’s sometimes a blogpost that one engine shows that the other doesn’t, but that post never made a difference.
When DDG does not get me helpful results, I can still ask Google to help out.
Yeah, I e had worsening search results from DDG over the past 6+ months. I’ve set it to my default browser, but I often have to switch because the results are not specific enough compared to Google.
DuckDuckGo CEO apparently is just another CEO. I’ve been an early adopter that’s been using their search engine long before there were apps or a browser.
What’s stopping people from using DDG isn’t switching to DDG, it’s getting absolutely dogshit results 90% of time. As an advanced user I know I can prefix my search with “!g phrase” to use Google instead of DDG. The sad fact is that despite the ad-ridden result page and tracking, Google is still lightyears ahead in providing relevant, and especially timely results for a user that is both tech-savvy and critical.
They need to improve their product, users will follow a good adfree search engine, that’s a given. Only a fraction of users will put up with degraded results in order to search without tracking.
I sincerely hope they will get their tech up to par. And that their browser on mobile reaches feature parity soon. (as a Z Fold user, DDG browser doesn’t have tabs. Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox does).
The new kid on the block needs humility and good tech, not shittalk. Fuck that CEO,. he’s undermining something very promising and important.
I’ve never had a problem with DDGs search results that simply rephrasing my query didn’t solve. What are you all searching for that Google’s results are “light-years ahead” of DuckDuckGo’s? (Honest question)
I agree. Honestly anytime I’ve resorted to having to use Google for something I feel the results are even worse than DDG.
Not OP, but I get completely trash results on a ton of technical questions no matter how I phrase it. Not a specific example, but if I’m having an issue with some niche distribution of Linux that requires a specific fix, it’ll instead insist on showing me the massive pile of results for the normal distros instead of the couple of links containing the answer I want.
For as shitty as Google has gotten, it’ll at least give you the one or two better hits before piling on the generic results.
It’s like DDG changes the query to get more results whereas Google will just run the damn search even if they stuff the results with ads and tracking.
The only thing I goto Google for is when I’m looking for local attractions. With Google maps being native everything is just smoother. Also, Google reviews are much more relevant with whatever duckduckgo has integrated (yelp?). Just my 2 cents.
I offset any inconvenience with how Google is not much of a search engine but more of an ad company. Also, I disabled all Googles data scavenging shit and I can’t even load the site without getting hit with a captcha. As someone who saw Google rise from the librarians favorite search engine, when a cable modem was life changing, it’s devastating to see it become everything that’s wrong with the internet.
In my recent experience Google still delivers better results for tech troubleshooting queries. “linux drivers for acer e15 card reader” at least points me to some semi-relevant pages on Google that could lead to a solution or more ideas where to look while ddg throws a lot of generic stuff that is only faintly related.
I often don’t find what I want in DDG; and I then try !g to look for it with Google… and Google doesn’t find it either.
In my experience it is very rare for Google to help me with a search that DDG failed with. As for the converse, I wouldn’t know - because I never search Google first. Why wouldn’t I? They’re evil.
That said, I will point out that I don’t use a google account, and I block most google-related cookies. I know that some people find Google gives better results due to its personalised results; and obviously I’m not ‘benefiting’ from that. So it is believable that you get better results from Google than I do, due to it knowing more about you, and thus guessing what you might want to see.
deleted by creator
I always see people saying Google provides better results, but to me it’s awful. I don’t even use DDGO anymore, but Google only shows ads and SEO optimized results that look AI generated. Is this common or am I just an isolated case?
Google results are garbage compared to 10 years ago, but they’re still miles ahead of ddg.
DDG isn’t the only alternative to Google. I use Kagi and love it. The results IME are definitely better than Google’s.
Until recently I would have agreed 100%.
But Google’s search has turned to dogshit since it’s started trying to be smarter than it is, and DDG is now giving me results on par with old Google - that is, a list of exactly what I was searching for on the first try.
I agree that DDG’s results suck, but so do Google’s.
I made the switch a week ago. For two days at work, I always used Google, DDG and ecosia(uses bing) at the same time to compare the results. They are the same most of the time for the first 10 to 20 results. There’s sometimes a blogpost that one engine shows that the other doesn’t, but that post never made a difference.
When DDG does not get me helpful results, I can still ask Google to help out.
Yeah, I e had worsening search results from DDG over the past 6+ months. I’ve set it to my default browser, but I often have to switch because the results are not specific enough compared to Google.
And now Googles AI results are a huge time saver.