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by pure-awesome 2687 days ago
Is DuckDuckGo good now? When I first tried it out a couple of years back, I found it didn't give me enough (relevant) results on my searches, so I stayed with Google.

I assume it must have improved in that time; maybe I should try it again.
6 comments
alpaca128 2687 days ago
My impression is that DDG requires a slightly different choice of keywords. But you'll get used to it and in my experience it currently delivers better results than Google.

When I started using DuckDuckGo I often switched to Google for certain queries, now I do that very rarely because Google's results get more disappointing every year.

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tropo 2687 days ago
It seems dramatically better. I think the reality is that this is only relative to Google today, not Google long ago. Lots of us have been like the mythical frog in the slowly-heated pot, failing to notice that Google is getting worse. For business reasons, or because executives have an agenda, Google now refuses to prioritize what users want.

So yes, you should try it again.

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pindab0ter 2687 days ago
As pointed out by the other commenters you need a slightly different approach to search terms since they don't build a profile of what is and isn't relevant to you.

That said, it's definitely a lot better than a few years ago. I'm the same in having tried it back then and I couldn't get many useful results. I've been using it for half a year again now and only occasionally do I use the "!g"-bang to revert to a Google search.

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DrAwdeOccarim 2687 days ago
It's OK. It works well for me for common things that are easy to find. Restaurants, wiki entries, etc. But for example a new paper published today in Nature? Even searching for the whole title in quotes with DDG will not return it. Gotta go to Google for that.
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aembleton 2687 days ago
DDG index is not as fresh as Google's. That and local, location specific searches are what I use Google for these days.
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Timucin 2687 days ago
It requires a bit time to get used to it but not more than couple of days I think. The interface is quite similar to what google provides and I quite liked seeing the answer I am looking for as a part of the search.
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crypticlizard 2685 days ago
it's pretty good, when it's not i put a g! before the query
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