[chimeracoder]

> appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when I search for "hash salt" I'm not talking about potatoes. DDG shows me recipes and first.

Really? For that exact query, I get the Wikipedia page for "Salt (Cryptography)", "How to Hash Passwords", and "Salt the Hash - Security tutorial"... you get the idea[0].

AFAIK, the stuff you're seeing at the top is their 'zero click' information, which Google never provided (until after DDG added it and promoted it as a selling point). That's a little hit-or-miss, sure, but the actual search results of DDG are generally just as relevant.

I've been using DDG as my primary search engine for years now - I still resort to "!g" searches sometimes, but I have to do it far less than I used to.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/qt2Xpfm.png

[astrocat]

It's true - the standard results on-point, but the top of the page is filled with images of food and links to recipes.

This is, ultimately, a nuanced point. It's a bit difficult to contrive a situation where the discrepancies are extremely stark in a single case, but over time and with consistent use (especially something like Google search which i use literally hundreds of times each day) the differences add up to make a pretty pronounced impact.