Using DDG as a replacement for Google in the latest two months. I'm impressed. If it's better or not than google for certain types of usage, I'll let other users to decide (but it <i>is</i> better, for my usage). But what is truly impressive is how this guy build a search engine that works in a way that is comparable to Google for the end user, with limited resources.
Is DDG engaging in some sort of grassroots campaign to make sure they get a link on HN at least a few times a month? I get it. DDG is out there. They're an alternative to Google. Great. How about some articles with merit rather than yet-another-link to the search engine front page and a bunch of people gushing about it?
Quick question: what types of searches are better done through DDG than Google? I've tried a few searches, but haven't found DDG better than Google...is DDG superior only for certain types of searches?
In the early days of Google, back while it was still beta, I remember having to go to my backup search engine—remember Altavista? :)—for queries where I just needed a boatload of sites, or where I had a complex boolean thing, or where I needed to search for a whole phrase.<p>Of course, back in the 90s Google knocked out my reasons to backoff to Altavista, one by one, adding boolean queries, and phrases, and of course adding a boondle of data. So I was eventually able to stop using Altavista.<p>For the last few months, DDG is my primary and I love it. I still use Google for:<p>* a few queries that DDG can't find anything for<p>* to find out what <i>other</i> people will see when they "google it"<p>* YouTube and maps.<p>YouTube will be hard to ditch because that's where the content is, although I suspect I can wean from maps if I actually try.
I tried <a href="http://lmddgtfy.com/foo" rel="nofollow">http://lmddgtfy.com/foo</a> and I got this message:<p><pre><code> Unhandled Exception
An unhandled exception was thrown by the application.</code></pre>
Sharing the link is really hard (at least for me, maybe I'm doing it wrong?). When I type something and click search, it takes me straight to the page I'd want to send someone, and I can't really select the url (because of whatever's moving the pointer?). So, do I just have to figure out the url scheme and write it out myself? lmgtfy just gives you the url to send someone.
<a href="http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=%D0%B0%D0%B6+%D0%B4%D0%B2%D0%B0+%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0&v=i" rel="nofollow">http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=%D0%B0%D0%B6+%D0%B4%D0%B2%D0%B0+%D1%8...</a>
and
<a href="http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=%E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD+&v=i" rel="nofollow">http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=%E4%BD%A0%E5%A5%BD+&v=i</a><p>throw an unhandled exception.<p>Seems like non-Latin character sets give it bad vibe.
I think of DuckDuckGo as a "budget airline" sort of search engine. It seems to be best at handling the "low hanging fruit" or the common case, but it does so with better presentation, more convenience, and no bells and whistles.<p>By contrast, Wolfram Alpha is more like an arctic bush pilot. Or maybe that's Cuil?
Oh, great, one more condescending way to answer people when you are too lazy to provide a real answer but want to be """funny""".<p>Yay.<p>Seriously, if you are concerned that someone didn't make an appropriate search on Internet before asking for information, there are nicer ways to suggest that than that kind of sites.
Returns a server error when the DuckDuckGo page loads:<p>----<p>Server Error<p>The following error occurred:<p>[code=CACHE_FILL_OPEN_FILE] An internal error prevented the object from being sent to the client and cached. Try again later.<p>Please contact the administrator. \<p>----<p><a href="http://duckduckgo.com/?q=test&v=" rel="nofollow">http://duckduckgo.com/?q=test&v=</a>
Someone should make one of those blind experiments where you pull in the search results from yahoo, bing, google and DDG, so people can do a blind test to see which search engine is better
Crashes on non-ascii input. Example (query is "rašić" in utf-8): <a href="http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=ra%C5%A1i%C4%87&v=" rel="nofollow">http://lmddgtfy.com/?q=ra%C5%A1i%C4%87&v=</a>