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by yumraj 2486 days ago
> Say all you want about DDG and alternatives

I've been using DDG, finally, for a little less than 1 year. For most part my DDG searches have been sufficient, in the sense that I generally find what I'm looking for and my need is met.

On few occasions where my need is not met, I do a !g and sometimes Google gives me what I want, but not in all the cases. I have to refine my search query in many, if not most, of those cases.

One area where Google is definitely better than DDG, for obvious reasons, is where Google shows better YouTube videos and I believe also Image results. But for regular searches, DDG has been satisfactory.

1 comments

I've been enjoying using startpage.

https://www.startpage.com

The one thing that drives me nuts about startpage is that by default, links open in a new tab.

You can change this in Settings, but it's stored in a cookie which my devices clear from time to time. (Not that I'd rather they store it a different way, the situation is just unfortunate.)

How does it compare to DDG?

In other words, I went from Google to DDG because of privacy. Why should I move from DDG to say StartPage, does it provide any additional benefits?

To clarify, I'm totally open to other search engines, just an trying to understand more.

It is in a sense a google proxy. Better results IMO than DDG, more similar to Google without sending your IP/info to google.

I don't understand the stuff too much at a really high level to know which is more private, DDG vs Startpage.

>On 29 March 2016, Ixquick.com was officially "merged" with the same company's Startpage search engine[3] (a search engine with the privacy features of Ixquick, but using only Google search results[4]). Users entering ixquick.com are now automatically re-routed to startpage.com. Ixquick had long declared on its sites, that it operated in compliance with European Union privacy standards, and it retained its original European search engine, Ixquick.eu,[8] until about April 2018, when it was also redirected to startpage.com.

>Prior to the release of Tor Browser version 4.5, Startpage.com was its default search engine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startpage.com