Not because DDG got better, but just because google got worse.

google is still better for site-specific searches, and google scholar still has minimal AI slop

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
    12·
    5 hours ago

    Duckduckgo mostly uses Bing for its search results. It also uses yahoo, yandex, and it’s own crawler, but for the most part you’re getting Bing.

    So what you really want to know is if Bing is just as good as Google. If you think it is, you should definitely use ddg because they’re the least intrusive.

  • EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    133·
    7 hours ago

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

    …Oh, sorry.

    Hell no. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

    In their defense, however, it’s probably largely not their fault. In my admittedly one-person-sample-size experience, 90% of the searchable Web is either Reddit threads or articles, and with Reddit going officially with Google (meaning DDG doesn’t catch as many Reddit threads as they used to), that leaves most of the searchable Web being articles. Because SEO has to ruin everything.

    So, it’s not really that DDG is shitty (mostly), but that all searches are shitty. Though, with the whole Google-and-Reddit thing, I find Google’s results are noticeably less shitty (though still shitty).

    • Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      6 hours ago

      The killer for me has to be that it doesn’t support searching for phrases within websites I need. Latest example: github. I can be on the project page, copy a phrase from the code and search ddg with it in double quotemarks, and get 0 results. Copy - google.com - paste - enter - loads of results.

      Also the search function broke for about a day, a few days ago

      • flux@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        That’s a bit surprising, given DDG uses Bing, Bing is Microsoft and Microsoft owns Github.

        Did you try the same search with Bing, or have an example to share?

      • EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        1·
        5 hours ago

        To be honest with you, I didn’t even know that was a feature. (Unless I’m misunderstanding you.) Sounds cool!

        If I need to search a website, I use either Ctrl+F or the site: search engine operator.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
    5·
    8 hours ago

    I find it’s actually better at this point because it just gives results without AI summaries and ads, also I find it’s just straight up better at actually finding what you’re looking for

    • adarza@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      6 hours ago

      i find ddg sufficient for nearly everything. occasionally i will go to startpage or ecosia or mojeek for a different ‘perspective’, but that is not very often at all. i also use wolframalpha almost daily for some sort of calculation or conversion.

      i haven’t used google or bing except by accident when using someone else’s browser or device (that is, when i forget to go to duck.com first).

  • FRYD@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    24·
    13 hours ago

    I’ve been using DDG exclusively for something like 8 years. It works great for regular text search and I use bing for image searches. I really don’t understand the reluctance of people to switch to it. To me, Google has been borderline unusable garbage for a long time.

    • CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      3 hours ago

      DDG is slow. Like noticeably slower than other search engines. I have been using DDG exclusively for 2 months at this point and it is wild how much faster brave search is not even mentioning google search.

    • 0ops@lemm.ee
      1·
      4 hours ago

      I used it for a few years, realized that I had to use bangs every other search, and reluctantly switched back to Google. But now Google is way worse than it was, so I think I might as well try switching back again, see how it feels now.

    • serendipity@aussie.zone
      2·
      5 hours ago

      Same here, although I don’t know how long I’ve been on DDG exactly. I never not find what I’m looking for.

    • toastal@lemmy.ml
      3·
      10 hours ago

      Cherry on the shit sundae was a couple months ago when Google started to require JavaScript be enabled for search.

      • yo_scottie_oh@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        9 hours ago

        Okay, so this wasn’t just me! I installed NoScript for Chrome on my work laptop as a stop gap for no more ublock origin and thought something was fishy w/ Google’s search page.

    • Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      76% of their Q2 2024 revenue came from adverts. I’d rather pay with capitalist-consumerist shit on my screen than pay with money, but as everyone knows it’s far too invasive rn. Ergo, I use uBlock, sponsorblock and I don’t care about cookies.

  • toastal@lemmy.ml
    4·
    10 hours ago

    No. DDG still puts less priority in small blogs over Reddit posts. All bigger search engines put way too much stock & rank in corpo social media.

  • Match!!@pawb.socialEnglish
    14·
    15 hours ago

    i switched from DDG to ecosia because of Lemmy and i gotta say it’s even better

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
      2·
      3 hours ago

      Private browsing We protect your data and privacy so you can surf safely

      This true?

    • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
      2·
      10 hours ago

      Yeah I think I’m headed in this direction. I’ve also been thinking about one of them self-hostable search engines a lot

  • venotic@kbin.melroy.org
    373·
    18 hours ago

    Not really. If you focus purely on just searching, yeah DDG is decent. But, I find its maps inferior and trying to find answers to some questions can get tedious. DDG I guess is just for people who want guilt-free searching.

  • ceenote@lemmy.world
    16·
    16 hours ago

    My thought always was that DDG was good to set as my default, and if I’m not happy with the results then it’s not a big deal to use Google once in awhile.

  • JackLSauce@lemmy.world
    201·
    17 hours ago

    “just as good”? No, I feel it is (and has been for years) vastly superior but I mostly use it to find documentation or Stack Overflow answers so consistent UI and concise summaries are high priority to me. Take that as you will

    I don’t think anybody can dethrone Google Maps yet but that’s another story

    • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
      3·
      10 hours ago

      I don’t think anybody can dethrone Google Maps

      I wonder how the whole “AI is more important than copyright” thing could play into this… Someone could totally program an “AI” map assistant right?

  • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
    136·
    14 hours ago

    DuckDuckGo AKA Bing is complete dog doo. When you are looking for news it only tries to shove in the Microsoft MSN news page. The algorithm manipulation in favor of Western MSM bias is even heavier than Google. When you search certain terms it refuses to show articles containing those exact terms.

    • synicalx@lemm.eeEnglish
      34·
      12 hours ago

      +1, it’s hot garbage and I don’t know why anyone would use it. You’re better off trying to randomly guess the URL of the content your looking for because that’s probably more likely to find it.