this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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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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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

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@lemm.ee 4 points 1 hour 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.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 1 points 48 minutes ago

I'd say the same. Google dorks work much better than DDG's filters for site-specific stuff, and generally for things like "search term" but for general searches DDG seems pretty similar.

The only things I've also had worse performance from DDG on compared to Google (in very minimal ways) has been:

  • Highly specific searches (e.g. searching for a diagram of the dimensions of common connector types, DDG shows side-by-sides of connectors, Google does that but also with more diagrams that have dimensions in them)
  • Context but not keyword based searches (e.g. "thing that has x y and z characteristics" returns more relevant results in Google than DDG, very marginally)

And of course, there's always the !s bang to run a search through Startpage (which uses Google) if I'm not getting enough detail.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 2 points 1 hour ago

What do people use google scholar for? Use jstor and other specific databases like arxiv

[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

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

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 1 points 28 minutes ago

Have you tried Kagi? They have their problems, but I think it's better than Google.

[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 1 points 1 hour ago

Google just got worse.

[–] easily3667@lemmus.org 6 points 3 hours ago (4 children)

You seriously can't type whatever dae means?

[–] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 1 points 20 minutes ago

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

[–] MrMeatballGuy@feddit.dk 4 points 3 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

[–] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 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 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I can. Be nice and I might.

[–] turnip@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 hours ago

I use Yandex for finding pirated or otherwise censored content.

[–] limoncia@lemm.ee 5 points 5 hours ago

I found Qwant to be a bit better, but yeah. Google got so much worse over last few years

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

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 3 hours ago

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

[–] DioEgizio@lemm.ee 3 points 5 hours ago

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

[–] lucg@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

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 57 minutes 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 2 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 4 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

[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 2 points 6 hours ago

On ddg? Only one or two, which I can filter out.

Google always will return a content farm though.

[–] Tungsten5@lemm.ee 1 points 5 hours ago

Wow, it has been some time since I used duck duck go. On my phone I have bing for searches as it is convenient with chatGPT integration (which tbh I only use when coding, for which I have copilot now baked into VScode). On my laptop and work station I use Arc. Its sexy af and really makes a man wonder about himself. I will have to revisit DDG. I do remember enjoying it though only for enhanced privacy. Feature wise it just seemed exactly what chrome was offering

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

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

[–] ByGourou@sh.itjust.works 9 points 10 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 8 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

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

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[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

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

[–] yata@sh.itjust.works 4 points 12 hours ago

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.

[–] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

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 1 points 5 hours ago

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

[–] lucg@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

Tried OpenStreetMap? Quality varies by country though

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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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