[caribousoup]

It really isn't as good. I want DDG to be awesome. I'm not in the Google ecosystem, and don't care for their business practices. I would be happy to dump them.

But Google search is noticeably much, much better. They've got us over a barrel.

[twic]

I kept seeing comments on HN about how DDG was as good as Google, so i've switched on one of my machines. It isn't.

For stuff that doesn't matter too much, or is an easy search, i use DDG, then fall back to Google if i don't find what i need. For anything serious, i just open up a Google tab :(

[bilkow]

Well, sometimes what you're used to matter too. For me DDG is better (expect for local searches, in which case I've got to include my city's name).

Every time I search anything in someone else's computer (with google) I find it much harder to find what I'm looking for, sometimes I can't find and just go to DDG.

The only times I use !g is when I find some pretty obscure programming errors and no (useful) results on DDG, and only once in a while google is able to find anything better, usually the results are the same.

[madacoo]

It's interesting that there are such diverse experiences of DDG vs Google. I'm also in the camp of finding DDG to be better at finding what I'm looking for.

I wonder if the difference has to do with variations in search strategy or interests, or a combination of both. In any case, DDG does seem to have been improving, and I don't see any reason to believe that the trend won't continue. Particularly since Google seems hell-bent on making their search useless.

[mdavidn]

I start with DDG and fallback on Google only when I can't find something. But I find that DDG is good enough for about 95% of my searches.