I wonder how many include the google !bang to go direct to google. I love DDG, and have it as the default search on all my devices and browsers, but more than 50% of the time I go directly to google with !g in the search, and another 20% i guess i start at DDG but then add in !g when i find the results inferior.<p>For many searches, google's results I find are better - a common issue I've found it DDG's results are just too general for quite specific searches - .e.g the top result is teh homepage of a brand when I search for something more specific like "brand something something" (sorry i can't come up with a great example right now).<p>I still use DDG as I can use the rest of the bang syntax to get to wikipedia et al, and for certain things the results (e.g. code/technical) are clearly superior to googles.<p>I hope DDG logs all the times I go to DDG, then add in !g, to get some great analytics on when I found the search results lacking!
Totally off-topic, but why do some people write 'mm' when they mean (I presume) million? From the subject line I initially thought Duck Duck Go had passed 1 millimetre of searches per day.
Awesome. Resist the temptation to create DuckDuckMail, DuckDuckPlus, DuckDuckMaps. Stick to what makes DDG great; a simple, private, universal search engine.
Well done to Gabriel. I love the clean design and customisability of DDG and the privacy policy. However I wonder if he's figured out a way to monetise it without sacrificing user experience [1] to keep it viable into the future.<p>[1] <a href="https://duck.co/topic/financing-model" rel="nofollow">https://duck.co/topic/financing-model</a>
I'm rooting for Blekko and DDG and pretty much anything that will uproot or disturb Google's stronghold.<p>For one, I miss the days when Google search felt fresh, magical, and honest. Search Plus Your World just irks me, because, as many have pointed out, it isn't providing relevant results and its shoving G+ down my throat.<p>As an aside, I'm interested to see which major search engine will partner with Tumblr. I'm not smart enough to figure out the details of the relationship, but I think have access to their stream of data could be pretty cool.
DDG and even Bing/Yahoo both need to index much more of the web if they want to be competitive. You just can't beat anyone in quality when you have fewer results to work with - it's just simple math. I hope DDG uses some of its investment money on solving this problem (as well as speed, but speed is secondary). The bang codes, privacy, etc are all great.
I always liked the site but to be honest after using it as my default search engine briefly in chromium, i found it didn't quite compare to google in terms of:<p>1. Performance. There's a small but significant gap between the two services in terms of the speed in which they serve redirects and search results.<p>2. Features. Although a lack of features like mail, maps etc. is, I suppose, part of ddg's philosophy, I feel like it's merely inconvenient compared to google where all it's services are immediately available with a click. Also, ddg doesn't save any web history which can actually be very useful for people using more than one computer.<p>It's not that I dislike ddg and what it does. It fills a nice gap in the market and I like it's principles of privacy. But for now, performance trumps freedom I guess :p
This is great news. I remember a previous post where the HN community suggested minor improvements on the placement of sponsored links, and DDG was quick to suggest a fix was in the works. The partnership done with Linux Mint means that they have been my default search engine ( + thousands of others) for about 3 months now. There isn't a feeling of loss felt by using their service, except on a few, rare occasions.<p>... I just hope they stay true to their goals
<i>it seems silly to compete on crawling and, besides, we do not have the money to do so. Instead, we've focused on building a better search engine by concentrating on what we think are long-term value-adds -- having way more instant answers, way less spam, real privacy and a better overall search experience.</i> <a href="http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-sources" rel="nofollow">http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-s...</a>
Congratulations to DDG Team, I switch to DDG around a month back and have loved it ever since. !yt, !so..<a href="http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html" rel="nofollow">http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html</a> are really good when you want the search to get out of the way.<p>Amazing job!
My favourite part about using DDG is the !bang operators. Now I can search Wikipedia, Amazon, Google, etc. from the same "command line" (i.e. my Firefox search box). Awesome.<p><a href="https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html" rel="nofollow">https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html</a>
Guess my use of it is in the stat. :) I'm using may be 50% DDG and 50% Google. Still training my muscle memory on the hot key.<p>DDG's privacy policy is superb. Its search result is pretty good with non of the bloats. I still remember how Google Preview was infuriatingly distracting that I had to install add-on to get rid of it completely.