[weinzierl]

I use Google Search rarely but https://www.google.com/ncr is still in my muscle memory. Nowadays I just ddg.gg and in the rare case I'm not satisfied with the results I add g! in the search bar. The g! seems to give me the same results as https://www.google.com/ncr. (I like to consider this a feature and not a bug.)

To give you some perspective: I live in Germany but prefer to read programming or scientific topics in English. My English is not so good but the amount and quality of English content counterbalances this by large. When using Google from Germany (google.de or google.com, doesn't matter what) looking for English search terms gives me subpar search results.

There is another reason for avoiding local Google search (google .com or google.de without ncr). From about October to mid December whenever I'm was not logged into Google I could only search when I OKed a popup to accept Google's terms. There was only an OK button so I could only search if I explicitly accepted their terms or logged in (I did neither). ncr avoided this problem. They stopped doing this but still nag with a big banner to accept their terms.

Just to be clear: I'm not complaining. I just think that most HN readers are not aware of this and some might prossible be interested to know how using Google another country feels like.

The only use case I have for Google search is localized search. For example: Yesterday I wanted to look up the ensemble of a local theater. There is nothing that can beat Google in this regard.

[dragop]

I'm pretty much in the same situation - problem is just adding /ncr to the URL is easy to remember, especially when not on your own computer, ?gfe_rd=cr&gws_rd=cr doesn't exactly stick in the mind! I'm also increasingly leaning towards using ddg, wasn't aware of the g! option, thanks for that.

I don't where google's web search team is based, but I imagine it's mainly in the US, where this isn't likely to be a problem. Of course, for the vast majority of google search users, localized is what they want.

[jakobegger]

There's also !gde, !gat etc if you do want German, Austrian etc. version of Google.

[dorfsmay]

Note that I have found that if you log into a Google account to do all your searches for a given topic, you actually get better results, e.g. searching for ACL, getting results related IT vs. knees.

[J_Darnley]

Of course. Google will profile you and have a search for "make" return results about the software rather than the verb. The only downside is that you have to let Google profile you which is a pretty large demand if you ask me. I would rather use a better keyword.

[dorfsmay]

I only login in Google for searches when searching IT and comp sci type questions.