I live in a country which uses a language I don’t speak but Google defaults to regional results in spite of my language being set to English. All other engines give me really poor results (not that Google was giving good ones, the image search has really gone to shit since they started populating it with AI stuff).
DuckDuckGo 95% of the time, Google if I’m having trouble finding something.
I switched to DuckDuckGo a while ago and haven’t regretted it at all. I honestly barely notice the difference. Realistically I should switch to firefox next but I’m pretty ingrainded in google chrome admittedly.
This is the way.
Same. The heavy bias towards Microsoft-centric top hits (thanks, Bing) usually mean when I’m searching for a non-Windows tech answer I go right to !g, but otherwise it’s my default.
DuckDuckGo 99% of the time,
GoogleStartpage if I’m having trouble finding something.*Note: Startpage uses Google as their source of search result.
I’ve been trying to switch to duckduckgo but I really struggle with the results. I appreciate the privacy angle but I just can’t seem to find what I want about 80% of the time. It’s like it just ignores parts of my query…
DuckDuckGo is using bing as source for their search results the same way startpage.com is using Google as source.
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Big fan of DuckDuckGo and Startpage. Brave Search is also a fine choice, as well.
Been using Duck Duck Go too for a while. Not heard of Startpage before.
I use duckduckgo with Google as a backup for when what I’m searching for is too specific. I’ve had to use Google less and less lately though
I’ve also been using Duck Duck go. I hadn’t heard about Startpage before.
Used Duckduckgo for a while, got myself into a spiral of search engine exploration and at some point settled on Startpage for a while…but I just missed the maturity in functionality of Duckduckgo. It just always felt like I was making a usability/productivity sacrifice. So I returned and am still happy … for now :p
Nothing compares to DuckDuckGo with bangs, which let you change over to any other search engine with two or three characters. I usually use !g (Google), !w (Wikipedia) and !aw (ArchWiki).
I didn’t know DDG introduced that feature. That’s sick honestly. They even have bangs for my more obscure wikis.
I had no idea they had this feature. Thank you, I don’t think I’ll use anything ever again unless I absolutely have to now.
Holy shit! I think you just changed my life!
I use Qwant and find it gives me better results than Google most of the time. It claims to be private and such, so I’m happy with it.
Thank you for reminding me about Qwant! I will set it as my default to try it out again. I remember that I did not find it too impressive a few years back. Felt like the exact same results as Bing, even though it supposedly has its own index.
DDG
DuckDuckGo. I’ve become reliant on the bangs. Regular search not giving me what I want? Just add !g. Want to find a word? !wt. Look up an album? !rym. Just want to search something on YouTube quickly? !yt
Same engine, same reason.
I didn’t know about bangs until now, and I’m reflecting my live now. How was I able to use duckduckgo without them for so long? So many unnecessary clicks …
Bing, actually. I think it has greatly improved. Mostly. Plus the new Bing and AI stuff has been great. Much better than google
I also use Bing. I like the AI features and the rewards program. The results are meh in terms of quality, but at this point honestly so are Google’s.
The rewards and AI are really the only selling parts. I guess it’s the cost of allowing them your data.
Wow, are we going to see the downfall of Google in our lifetimes?!
@SillyLilJester @Nymphioxetine
I’d rather google sees what’s going on and stop coasting on search.
The AI part really is what makes Bing great. I noticed that I save so much time by asking programming related question to Bing chat instead of going through a bunch of semi related results. And normal search results are also often fine.
My own SearXNG instance. I get the best out of all search engines.
Metasearch engines are the way to go, I wish more people hosted their instances so folks wouldn’t run into rate limits so often
woah nice!
thanks for the recommendation, will need to try a self hosted setup
I use Startpage, a privacy focused search engine which uses Google powerful search engine but without sending the actual data to them. The result are pretty good. You can change both the language and region in the settings. Bad part of Startpage is it is a for profit company (some advertising will be displayed using past search history only)
I use ublock origin and block the ads
Kagi is a great premium alternative. They focus obsessively on search result quality and adding helpful, but non invasive AI tools. One of them is even free as an experiment!
I’ve been a kagi subscriber for justa about a year and it’s been great.
Yes, this. I purchased a subscription and never looked back.
FastGPT is fun, I never play with these sort of stuff like ChatGPT before.
It looks interesting, I am not opposed to paying for search but I feel like the bar works high for me to continue to pay for it.
What makes it better then other search engines?
I finally caved and shelled out for a sub for Kagi. It’s just way more accurate when searching. I was bouncing around about five different ones and finally settled on it.
I’ve been meaning to check out this one, though. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35611923
Kagi is great for me for 3 reasons:
- Great search results
- No ads
- No tracking
A lot of things. https://blog.kagi.com/blog
I mix and match.
DuckDuckGo is my main one, but I often find myself just using bangs and either throwing in !brave or !g before some searches because sometimes the results aren’t as relevant as I’d like.
I obviously don’t like Google, but if I need super quick results, they’re typically better for me, though they’ve honestly become ridiculously terrible over the last couple of years.
Not just because of promoted content, but because they don’t even seem to care about syntax anymore.
If I put quotes around a search term, Google seems to ignore it. Why? Who knows.
As much as I have… let’s say mixed feelings about Brave, I find myself using !brave more and more on DDG. More relevant results, at least in my looooong experience of using DDG as my primary.
Startpage doesn’t like me because VPN or whatever, otherwise I’d use it more.
I sometimes use a SearxNG instance as well, but that’s only if I’m really struggling to find something.
For the clueless, could you explain what bangs are in terms of searching using DDG?
DDG has a bangs page which explains it pretty well and lists all the possible ones.
Duckduckgo as default. If I need location/region specific stuff, I will sometimes use google.
DuckDuckGo, if that doesn’t work then I go to Startpage.
DuckDuckGo always
I use ddg most of the time. It fits all my needs. Sometimes when it comes to very niche things or complicated things I use startpage or brave.
