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

  • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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    17 minutes 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.

    • irelephant [he/him]🍭@lemm.ee
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      8 minutes 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.

      • AvailableFill74@lemmy.ml
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        2 hours ago

        If you wish to be understood, choose your words more carefully. If you wish to be treated with kindness, drop the defensiveness, learn to process feedback objectively, and take communication seriously. No one is being unkind or unreasonable here, except you.

          • AvailableFill74@lemmy.ml
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            2 hours ago

            “No one knows what the heck dae means you lazy bum. We invented words for a reason, try using them. If you’re illiterate then maybe try a YouTube video essay. “

            If someone said that, sure… but no one did. Perhaps the Original Poster needs to take communication more seriously and less personally.

    • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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      2 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.”

    • MrMeatballGuy@feddit.dk
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      2 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

  • limoncia@lemm.ee
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    4 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
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    4 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.

  • DioEgizio@lemm.ee
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    4 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

  • Luc@lemmy.world
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    6 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)

    • inconspicuouscolon@lemy.lol
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      1 hour 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
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      3 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

  • DaChrissy@lemm.ee
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    4 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

  • ByGourou@sh.itjust.works
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    9 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

  • fibojoly@sh.itjust.works
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    10 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.

  • yata@sh.itjust.works
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    11 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.

  • EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted
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    18 hours ago

    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).

    • shinratdr@lemmy.ca
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      2 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.

    • Lyra_Lycan
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      17 hours ago

      The killer for me has to be that it doesn’t support searching for phrases within websites I need. Latest example: github. I can be on the project page, copy a phrase from the code and search ddg with it in double quotemarks, and get 0 results. Copy - google.com - paste - enter - loads of results.

      Also the search function broke for about a day, a few days ago

      • flux@lemmy.ml
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        13 hours ago

        That’s a bit surprising, given DDG uses Bing, Bing is Microsoft and Microsoft owns Github.

        Did you try the same search with Bing, or have an example to share?

      • EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted
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        17 hours ago

        To be honest with you, I didn’t even know that was a feature. (Unless I’m misunderstanding you.) Sounds cool!

        If I need to search a website, I use either Ctrl+F or the site: search engine operator.

  • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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    11 hours ago

    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.