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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[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 minutes ago

I've been using DDG since 2016 and never felt it was worse in terms of "search quality" than Google.

Especially nowadays I hear friends whine near weekly about Google, but it's still somehow "better than DDG".

Honestly people just make excuses not to change what they're use to. Even if what they're used to has changed around them for the worse.

My only real complain I have is I wish 'search by date range' was less finicky use and also worked in the image tab like it does in Google images.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 minutes ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 39 minutes ago

Don't you mean DuckDuckBing ?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour 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 3 points 2 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)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

You seriously can't type whatever dae means?

[–] Noel_Skum 2 points 4 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 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."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago (13 children)

I can. Be nice and I might.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours 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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Google just got worse.

[–] turnip 2 points 7 hours ago

I use Yandex for finding pirated or otherwise censored content.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

I also use Qwant but it's noticeably slower for me. Do you find the same?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 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)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

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

Google always will return a content farm though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 12 hours ago

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

[–] ByGourou 8 points 14 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

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