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

  • DannyBoy@sh.itjust.works
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    3 hours ago

    I do not think so in my experience. I’m a software developer and a lot of my job is searching solutions to problems. Every year or two I’ll try DDG because I love the concept but it never works as well for me. Putting the same search query into Google yeilds actual results for me more often than DDG does.

  • bluewing@lemm.ee
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    2 hours ago

    I’ve switched away from DDG after many years of use. I have gone to Ghostery Private search. It seems to be better for my search results with a lot less garbage mixed in.

    • makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml
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      10 hours ago

      I just typed “african mouse” into both bing, and ddg. I got EXACTLY the same results. Which I kind of expected . Same order, everything. However, my understanding is, that DDG obfuscates the user, and doesn’t track. This is my hope, and why I use it.

  • ScoreDivision@programming.dev
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    16 hours ago

    As a general purpose search engine yeah it’s just as good. Google has some nice extra features which aren’t too important (for example if you search UFC it shows full fight card info and results on the search page).

    Where it falls behind is for more "power user " type work. I only use Google at work as it makes finding very specific results with keywords and date ranges on certain sites etc much easier.

    Nowadays I use Qwant though to boycott us. It’s much slower but still does the job for day to day use.

  • Psythik@lemm.ee
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    19 hours ago

    Definitely not; DDG has always been bad. However, as others have pointed out, Google is getting worse and every day. That said, it’s still better than DDG, which isn’t saying much.

    There are no good search engines anymore. I got tired of having to add site:reddit.com to all or my searches to get actual answers, so now I’ve resorted to using AI and pretending that it isn’t just making up half the shit it spews. Perplexity is a half decent replacement for a search engine; it’s more accurate than most and it cites its sources:

    https://lemmy.world/post/26764870

  • ByGourou@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    I really tried, I set duckduckgo as the default for my second browser (I use it a lot) to slowly get used to it, but every time results are so bad I get mad and switch to Google especially for images

  • FRYD@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days 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.

    • toastal@lemmy.ml
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      2 days 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.ml
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        2 days 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.

    • serendipity@aussie.zone
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      1 day 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.

    • CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.ee
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      1 day 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.

      • FRYD@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        I’ve actually never tried brave search. Which is kinda funny because I started using DDG when brave came out and it was the default search engine.

        What do you mean by slow though? Like just the webpage loading or the time it takes you to get good results? I’ve never noticed any load time, but I’ve always had a few tweaked content blockers running and that may affect my perspective.

    • 0ops@lemm.ee
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      1 day 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.

  • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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    2 days 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.ee
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      2 days 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.

  • JackLSauce@lemmy.world
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    2 days 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
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      2 days 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?

  • ceenote@lemmy.world
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    2 days 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.

  • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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    20 hours ago

    ive been using it consistently for the past few years. it works well for me, but sometimes ill go to other engines just to see what they come up with, or when results are lacking. sometimes they are better, sometimes they are worse.

    meaning ddg is probably good enough nowadays, at least for me.

    • irelephant [he/him]🍭@lemm.ee
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      20 hours ago

      You probably already know this, but you can use search “bangs” to search other websites from ddg.

      For example, to search google, you would put !g or !google at the start of your search.

      • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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        18 hours ago

        i do! it transformed my address bar, i sometimes use other engines through ddg now. its the main reason its my search provider.

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 day 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.zone
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    2 days 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.zone
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      2 days 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.ml
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        1 day 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.zone
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        1 day 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.

        • Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 hours ago

          Yes, I’m so glad that operators like site: and before: are supported. Necessary for weeding out a few bad results aha

    • untorquer@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      I feel the same except Google is worse due to higher number of ads in results and most SEO prioritizes Google over Bing meaning more Google results are AI spam articles.

      • EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 hours ago

        I feel the same except Google is worse due to higher number of ads in results

        I generally don’t see ads due to uBlock Origin. Or am I just not noticing them? Lol.

        and most SEO prioritizes Google over Bing meaning more Google results are AI spam articles.

        I will give you that. But I find that’s the case with DDG too which is why I’m having to rely more and more on search operators like site:.

        • untorquer@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          I generally don’t see ads due to uBlock Origin. Or am I just not noticing them? Lol.

          I’m talking about the results as ads(paid for result ranking). Not as much a thing in DDG but google, they’re awful and you get maybe 2 results a page that aren’t paid promotion.

          Freya Holmer did a good video on AI/SEO i think touches a little on this…

    • shinratdr@lemmy.ca
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      21 hours ago

      Yeah I really tried with DDG, switched my phone to it for 2 months. I was using !g so often it made the whole thing pointless.

      Google sucks, but right now nothing is better. This is why they’re able to push their AI bullshit results so heavily, because just like with YouTube, ultimately there is no real competition.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
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      1 day ago

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

      This true?

      • Maeve@kbin.earth
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        12 hours ago

        Apparently it’s not. I had to search a bit on the website so unless you just want to plant trees, which is laudable, don’t bother.

    • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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      2 days 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