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by graphitezepp 3190 days ago
I only miss google as a DDG user when DDG doesn't have a tool google has to give you an automatic result, i.e. when trying to look up some unit conversion ratio like lb to kg. But when you know that is what you want there is always !g.
2 comments

Hey graphitezepp,

We do have some of those tools, at DuckDuckGo they are called "Instant Answers."

For example the query: "2 lb to kg" will bring you to this results page https://duckduckgo.com/?q=2+lb+to+kg&ia=answer

You can see all our Instant Answers here: https://duck.co/ia

If something isn't triggering for you - let us know with the feedback tool on the site!

Disclaimer: DDG staff.

If you could get a "within the past year" search filter it would make me the happiest developer in the world. :)
And a CC-filtered image search.
+1 (million) It's one of the few things that takes me back to Google (others being !gi & !gm).

Get that 'in last year' filter already, DDG. I think I've complained about this through feedback before.

Do you know about the `units` command?

  $ units
  Currency exchange rates from www.timegenie.com on 2017-08-24 
  2980 units, 109 prefixes, 96 nonlinear units
  
  You have: 5 lbs
  You want: kg
  	* 2.2679619
  	/ 0.44092452
  You have: 100 furlongs
  You want: meters
  	* 20116.8
  	/ 4.9709695e-05
  You have: 100 miles/hour
  You want: meters/second
  	* 44.704
  	/ 0.022369363
  You have: 2 kiloisraelnewshekels
  You want: picodollars
  	* 5.5271109e+14
  	/ 1.8092635e-15
I like `qalc` a lot:

    > 5 pounds to kg
    5 * pound = approx. 2.2679619 kg

    > x^2 + 8*x = 4
    ((x^2) + (8 * x)) = 4 = approx. x = 0.47213595 or x = -8.472136
And so on.
I didn't know about that! Strange interface, though -- why isn't the first response just "2.27kg"?
Because a kg goes into 5 lbs 2.2679619 times, and 5 lbs goes into 1 kg 0.44092452 times.
The first number is the one I want, pretty much 100% of the time, and I hardly ever need 8 digits of precision.
Units absolutely rocks. It can do quite complex calculations as well, and you can add to the units it knows.