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this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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What difficulties are you finding with it and are you switching from Google? The results are as custom as Google given they haven't scraped your life history so wondering if that's it? I've been using DDG without any issues. About once every 6 months I struggle to find something so try the Google bang but have never found better results. In fact, I was shocked last time how crap the Google results were, just full of AI generated crap and SEO based crap.
To be honest, DDG is also struggling with that now as it's based on Bing. I have been trying a public searxg but not found it very good so far.
I love DDG and use it as my default, but there's no doubt that its index is shallower and its semantic matching can't compare to Google's. I'm a biogeochemist and spend a lot of time coding in R. Google is just better at surfacing rare science articles/blogs and stackoverflow pages where my query doesn't match exactly, but it is a relevant result. I use DDG for my personal searching and Google for professional searching
Try Kagi. You may love it like I did.
Genuinely curious, what makes it so great?
I like being able to prioritize sites I like and deprioritize/block ones I don’t.
For me, it finds smaller websites that usually contain the information I need, but aren't SEOd that well so they don't appear on ad-driven search engines. Also the programming lens is great
Hell no. Paying for something that's the same as ddg. That's a terrible idea, and the results aren't any better, despite how much their marketing claims it to be and that smaller blogs show up more.
I guess you get what you pay for then lol
In this case you actually get more for free. Not to mention the paid service is a privacy nightmare since all of the searched are done through a logged in user. Which also means it's incompatible with private browsing. But their marketing says "trust me bro", while they're selling you an overrated product. DDG even simply through a VPN is a million times more private then any logged in service. You need to assume if something is trackable, it will be tracked. Don't follow marketing blindly.
Results suck, it can't find anything. I really don't think it's related to lack of browsing history.
what do you search? i always find everything at first time
Not the same person, but DDG results just seem a little bit shittier than Google's results. It's nothing I can specifically put my finger on, outside of "I'm having more issues finding an answer for my query".
I also hate the basic layout of the page, but that's not a DDG problem as such, just a personal opinion.
I use DDG exclusively now, but I will say, despite the downvotes from these annoying ass FOSS users, DDG is worse.
If I am having some very specific issue with my computer, I will be page 5 on DDG without an answer, but Google will have one page 1.
Also Google Images is light years ahead DDG.
It took a long time to adjust to DDG, but now I am fine with it.
This has always been my number one issue, too. I'm in IT and still struggle to use DDG (and Bing, tbf) for technical issues. The results are either only vaguely related to what I'm searching for, outdated as shit, or completely irrelevant. Automotive stuff is the same. I can be ass deep in DDG results and just be getting shit on top of shit. It's frustrating, because I want to love DDG but it makes it so hard for my general use-case.
Just use ddg syntax operators and stuff will improve
While that is true, you shouldn't need to do that. The site should just work properly without diving into the advanced stuff. It's also WAY more annoying to use on mobile.