My DDG searches have been absolute garbage for the past few months. About 75% of the time I have to re-search my keywords on Google to actually get a relevant result.
It’s bad enough that I’m about to switch back to Google.
Comment on The Verge shows how Google search is useless
frankgrimeszz@lemmy.world 6 months ago
In my experience, lately it recommends shitty blogs loaded with adverts and keywords. My DuckDuckGo experience has surprisingly been more useful.
That aside, my Brother laser printer is still working great. No complaints.
pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 6 months ago
CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That’s not been my experience. I’ve been using DDG for years, and when I first switched I would occasionally have to go find something on Google instead. That slowly fell off as the years went by because going to Google and getting better search results became rarer and rarer. It’s to the point now where I don’t even do it, unless I need to look at something on street view.
makyo@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I second this, this has been my experience exactly. It’s gotten so bad that not only do I not need the Google fallback, but I’m starting to feel like the DDG results are better than the Google ones in the first place.
Opisek@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Better than Google now, but still not better than Google back then. It my experience at least.
beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
Unfortunately, this has also been my DuckDuckGo experience for several months. I wish it wasn’t
Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Try Startpage. I have just started using it so I can’t tell you how it compares. I also need to look up who owns it. But I have been told it has the same privacy qualities of DDG.
frankgrimeszz@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I used to like it, but there was one incident where it fed me links to phishing sites. Like all the results were malicious. I suspect they had an internal breach or the session was somehow hijacked. That was years ago, but it made me wary. It’s usually okay.
Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Good to know I haven’t fully switched yet. I am definitely going to look more closely at its parents company and where it has servers.
24_at_the_withers@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Funny. I primarily used Startpage for the last few years, but have had increasing problems with them providing bad/irrelevant results and frequently straight-up blocking my IP or requiring completion of a CAPTCHA before providing results. I switched to DDG, which has been working pretty well, and seems much better to me than it had when trying it a few years ago.
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
It depends on what your searching. For me programming questions are way better on google.
Also searching obvious questions like a country’s population, google still does its job there too.
Squizzy@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I deleted their app and moved search engines, they got shit quick. So bad at their main usp. I was constantly fed hyper local results, local even with location off. And dont get me started on how bad it was for porn.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Most annoyingly, it always recommends Fandom’s Wiki above better alternative wiki sites.
use Indie Wiki Buddy extension to get rid of fandom.
catloaf@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Or ublacklist to block any site: addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/…/ublacklist/
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
That works too, but indie buddy works better because it gives you a direct link to the proper indie wiki page rather than just blocking Fandom.
Matriks404@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This extension stopped working correctly for me some time ago. It just stopped redirecting to breezewiki correctly.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Hmm. Has it updated, and have you allowed it the correct site permissions? Every once in a while it’ll ask you to update the site modification permissions.
I’ve had zero issues with it on Firefox and DDG. May vary on other browsers and search engines though.
Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It has a partnership with bing. So sadly now it is mostly a bing clone. I have been using DDG for a decade. I noticed a distinct drop in search quality after the bing partnership.
merthyr1831@lemmy.world 6 months ago
If I’m looking up something general, like some actor or tv show, then DDG is perfect. If im troubleshooting some weird software issue then i find it doesnt always list as many results, as if it hasnt indexed as many sites.
DDG at least now means I can search random shit without it suddenly being inserted into my social media algorithms like some kind of psychological torture.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Oh my god the Fandom wiki for minecraft uses the same little tab icon as the actual minecraft wiki but it has a fucking “are you an adult or child” popup EVERY SINGLE TIME a page loads
I hate it so much
rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Use breezewiki extension. Redirects fandom articles to a frontend that removes their bullshit and replaces fandom with independant wikis when possible.
just_another_person@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Immortal Tanks, those Brother printers. Best in the biz.
sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
If you have any tips or tricks for DDG please do share! I’m definitely getting better overall results there, but the local ones can still be a bit rough.
frankgrimeszz@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m no expert but this should be useful: makeuseof.com/…/duckduckgo-search-tricks-student/
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 6 months ago
What do you mean by “local”? If you mean finding somewhere to go for lunch or the opening hours of a store, I recommend using the maps app on your phone (I prefer Apple Maps over Google, because it uses Yelp and TripAdvisor for reviews which are accurate than Google reviews… if I had an Android phone I’d probably install Yelp/TripAdvisor).
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Unfortunately DDG has been dogshit in my native language. Shame
RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I found that Qwant gives decent results in my native non English language, results similar in quality to Google, but way better than DDG which often just gives English results.
rf_@lemmy.world 6 months ago
What are better alternatives to fandom? I see the incumbents name get repeated more often than the alternative unfortunately.
sensiblepuffin@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The problem is that fandom tends to vacuum up and supersede the smaller wikis, and the SEO bullshit just makes it happen even faster. The answer to your question unfortunately is “it depends on the game/show/fandom”.
force@lemmy.world 6 months ago
wiki.gg is where most of the wikis have transferred to
UckyBon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
DDG tries very hard to push Amazon and Ebay to me. They’re not even available in my country 😅
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That seems like a bug assuming you have your region selected/enabled? I’d report it to DDG.
UckyBon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I don’t know why they would need my location/region. They’re already trying too hard to advertise stuff to me. Isn’t the internet like, international? Other search engines I never get that /Amazon stuff.
Pechente@feddit.de 6 months ago
Yeah, right!? I remember that one or two years ago DDG was consistently worse than Google but recently Google’s quality has dropped off a cliff. Now when I don’t get the desired result and switch to Google, the results are usually just as bad or worse.
smort@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The only time google gets me better results than DDG now is if I have a really vague question, like “movie where the guy wears a trash bag on his leg and has a piña colada on the train to Milwaukee”
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
And super specific queries?
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Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
For me it’s programming issues. I guess devs know that doing SEO would shoot themselves in the foot.
ignism@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Could you elaborate? You’re saying you’re going to google for programming issues, but at the same time devs don’t do SEO?
Opisek@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yup. I constantly found myself appending !g for important queries that I needed an answer for right then and now. Google has stopped providing that commodity. It’s almost never worth it anymore to fall back to Google.
ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee 6 months ago
tja@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
What? Why do you think that?
Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world 6 months ago
No it has a partnership with bing. So sadly now it is mostly a bing clone.