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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

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[-] jeanofthedead@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago

Naw. I use Kagi (paid) now, and get much better search results.

[-] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 hours ago

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

[-] techpir8@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 hours ago

Don't you mean DuckDuckBing ?

[-] Alpha71@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago
[-] ScoreDivision@programming.dev 5 points 4 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.

[-] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 hours ago

It has been for several years now. I rarely use Google now, and when I do, I'm using it out of DuckDuckGo (!g)

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 15 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 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.

[-] easily3667@lemmus.org 6 points 10 hours ago

You seriously can't type whatever dae means?

[-] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 hours ago

I’ve been online for almost thirty years and have never - knowingly - seen “dae” as an abbreviation.

[-] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

DAE is a fairly common acronym on online forums, often used in titles such as these. You could have used Google (or DuckDuckGo) to learn its meaning 😊

It's simply "does anyone else."

[-] doubtingtammy@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 hours ago

I can. Be nice and I might.

[-] MrMeatballGuy@feddit.dk 3 points 9 hours ago

Never saw that abbreviation before, but my assumption is it's "does anyone else" since I can't think of anything else that'd make sense in this context

[-] turnip@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago

I use Yandex for finding pirated or otherwise censored content.

[-] lucg@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago

Eyeing the replies, does not one other person here get results constantly flooded with content farms? They've gotten significantly worse

But then, I don't use Google so maybe this is still better than Google Search?

It started maybe three years ago, around the same time as LLMs became usable for this, but I'm pretty sure >50% are human-written still. Probably the LLM generates the structure (saves any time they'd have to spend coming up with plausible-sounding texts) and someone from a low-income country is contracted to make it look more legit

Of course, queries for topics that have a Wikipedia page get Wikipedia first, recipes get tons of big-name recipe sites, products get stores. But when there's no obvious market around a topic, 3~4 out of 5 results are content farms pretending to have useful information to show unwary visitors ads

(As an alternative, I still have to try Kagi properly. It seemed on par with DDG when I did a few searches last year, but then their payment processor refused me trying to load my account, support was unhelpful, and I've gotten sidetracked since)

[-] skeezix@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

The problem with DDG is that when it doesnt find much it simply throws random shit at you. It’s infuriating.

[-] inconspicuouscolon@lemy.lol 1 points 9 hours ago

I also get those content farms constantly. I don't want to use google but lately I've been using it over duckduckgo more often.

[-] Niquarl@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 hours ago

The other annoying thing is the air summaries. I've disable AI features but that's still on. I hate it so much

[-] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 11 hours ago

I really agree Google just took themself out of the market. I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped their "search" product completely, the way they've dropped a lot of other good products along the way.

[-] CheeseToastie@lazysoci.al 2 points 9 hours ago

I've never forgiven them for getting rid of their search within results, that was brilliant

[-] Squizzy@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago

DDG sold out, very focused "bubble" results that they initally railed against.

[-] ByGourou@sh.itjust.works 8 points 17 hours 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

[-] shaggyb@lemmy.world 6 points 18 hours ago

I can turn off the horseshit firehose that we call AI, making it far better than google

[-] cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 hours ago

Ironically I find ChatGPT pretty good for certain types of searching.

[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 23 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.

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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).

[-] untorquer@lemmy.world 1 points 7 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.

[-] shinratdr@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 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.

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[-] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

I use StartPage because it does image search, and none of the AI BS.

[-] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 3 points 18 hours ago

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.

[-] superkret@feddit.org 2 points 11 hours ago

Gnome Maps is honestly really good!
Not everything has to be inside your browser.

[-] lucg@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

Tried OpenStreetMap? Quality varies by country though

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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
271 points (95.3% liked)

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