yeah honestly I've been using ddg for a very long time and while a few years ago I had to frequently !g because search sucked now google got so enshittified many times ddg feels better
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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I switched to it a couple of years ago, with the expectation that I had to resort to google in more complex search instances. But very soon I found out that ddg did the job, and my "alternative" google searches did not turn up anything better, quite the contrary in fact, and I haven't been back since.
Have been using it for 8 years now. I never felt the need to switch back honestly. Only Google thing I really love is Maps and that's it.
Tried OpenStreetMap? Quality varies by country though
Gnome Maps is honestly really good!
Not everything has to be inside your browser.
Compared to a few years ago, itβs better. Some websites still arenβt indexed, and even by entering their name exactly, they donβt show. Google doesnβt have this problem.
Brave search is also pretty good
I use Startpage and it feels like I always get the results I want even when I don't use perfect prompts. Just recently I got a three month free trial for Kagi and the results were better than google in my opinion, or at least less cluttered with "possibly related things" that are just ads in the end.
I switched to exclusively Kagi on my phone and it's been a pretty pleasant experience. Not perfect, but fairly serviceable. You're right, it's way less cluttered. Going back to Google can sometimes be very jarring.
Better usually in my experience. Google is mostly SEO-sludge anyway. Though sometimes when you need something very specific Google is better but that gap has been pretty much closed during 7+ years Iβve used DDG.
I like DDG a lot more, especially because of the bang shortcuts. But I transitioned recently to Qwant. It also has bang shortcuts and is hosted in Europe.
I feel like its better than google. I switched to DDG a couple years ago. 6 months ago I did a trial run with a self hosted search that only used google as a back end, the results felt like garbage
It's not as good as google was when I was first allowed to use the internet 15+ years ago, but much better than today's google. Just so much more peace of mind to know that profit isn't what governs my search results.
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I use Yandex for finding pirated or otherwise censored content.
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:
Have you tried Kagi? They have their problems, but I think it's better than Google.
It has been for several years now. I rarely use Google now, and when I do, I'm using it out of DuckDuckGo (!g)
no. i switch to using it as my primary search engine every once in a while, just to see how it's doing. i always run into situations where i can't find the thing im looking for. maybe im just the obscure searches man
It's my primary but Google unfortunately is often a fallback. And Google is tracking the shit out of us these days. Certain obscure searches don't work well on DDG, sad to say.
Google just got worse.
Probably so. Haven't used it much but Google has got so much worse. Being filled with adds and irrelevant results that DuckDuckgo probably is better now.
Google is almost unusable for me even with ad block. I've been using DDG for the last 3 or so years now.
I use it for almost everything. I only resort to Google if I can't find what I'm looking for, which is rare and typically it's something obscure. Google has also steadily made their service worse over the years. I don't feel like I am missing much.
What do people use google scholar for? Use jstor and other specific databases like arxiv