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
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.
I love DDG AI
Yeah, I trust DuckDuckGo. And I like they anonymize my AI queries. I feel like it’s the next best thing to running it locally.
Does their ‘anonymizing queries’ feat mean anything if they don’t disclose how it works or what that even means literally?
At least with the open source models the data is not sent to the big bad tech cooperations afaik
Just dont use ChatGPT but one of the other models. I find LLama to work fine.
Wha… Why? Why gpt the only baddy?
Well afaik they host their open source models them selves / with a cloud service they have control over so no data going to big bad tech
DDG does the job. Hopefully, I won’t have to switch engines soon.
Wait 'til you learn that DDG’s engine is Bing
I found Qwant to be a bit better, but yeah. Google got so much worse over last few years
I also use Qwant but it’s noticeably slower for me. Do you find the same?
Yes, it responds slower but I don’t really mind it. Like it’s not significantly slower from others in my case.
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
I use Kagi, I really like how it’s AI answer gives sources for statements.
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)
On ddg? Only one or two, which I can filter out.
Google always will return a content farm though.
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.
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.
Tried OpenStreetMap? Quality varies by country though
Gnome Maps is honestly really good!
Not everything has to be inside your browser.
DDG sold out, very focused “bubble” results that they initally railed against.
Not really. If you focus purely on just searching, yeah DDG is decent. But, I find its maps inferior and trying to find answers to some questions can get tedious. DDG I guess is just for people who want guilt-free searching.
DDG is just Bing
Sorta not really.
ddg maps is just a no-frills apple maps.
which is to say: terrible
Agreed. Even if it were identical to Google maps in terms of content, it runs slower on all platforms I’ve so far tried (windows, iOS, OSX).
yes, it is. but between it and graphhopper (or osm), it’s “enough” for me.
i don’t need a feature-filled “app” (my phone is ‘dumb’), and the only time i end up on something else like bing or google maps is if a site i need to use embeds and relies upon them.
my problem with apple maps is how frequently it has something’s location completely wrong because osm addresses use the European addressing system everywhere when i don’t live in europe
OpenStreetMap contributor here. What address format isn’t supported? Maybe I can help
United States format is very different from the european format and often the apple maps algorithm makes some boneheaded assuptions to translate from a US address to something OSM understands. i contribute, too, but the next time i have an example of apple maps fucking up… i’ll have already forgot this convo happened, but i’ll try
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I’ve been online for almost thirty years and have never - knowingly - seen “dae” as an abbreviation.
I don’t believe you. DAE has been an extremely common abbreviation for well over a decade at least.
TIL I’m a liar…
I didn’t say you lied, just saying that there’s no way you’ve been on the internet for 30 years and have never seen DAE anywhere before now.
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You people are so intent on projecting the idea that I’m calling you liars despite the fact that I never once said nor implied you were liars, that yeah, I’m going to just go ahead and say youre fucking liars now. Have a good day.
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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.”
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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
I can. Be nice and I might.
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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.
That initial comment is quite pointed…
Yours is pretty over the top as well, lol.
“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.
I think you’re making a significant deal out of something that is quite minor, personally. It’s okay, though. It’s minor, so we can agree to disagree. Cheers!
The basics of human communication is nothing important at all. 🤡
It’s an abbreviation on the internet. Do you act this way any time you see TIL, wtf, eli5 or other. Or are you just sour you don’t know this one
Chill out, man. This isn’t parliament. Everything doesn’t have to be communicated as if we’re drafting laws.
Communication styles vary greatly, and tone is dependent on setting. What OP posted was completely fine. No need to throw around clown emoji 😝
kagi still owns both of them. but there’s also startpage and leta which are google wrappers if you don’t want to use Google directly
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Whats that do?
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isn’t is just a bing wrapper?
Yup.
No and kinda yes. Duckduckgo has its own webcrawler, but also adds in results from other sources including Bing, Yahoo and others.
Yahoo is Bing too
Last time I checked, it matched Bing results exactly.
“just as good”? No, I feel it is (and has been for years) vastly superior but I mostly use it to find documentation or Stack Overflow answers so consistent UI and concise summaries are high priority to me. Take that as you will
I don’t think anybody can dethrone Google Maps yet but that’s another story
I don’t think anybody can dethrone Google Maps
I wonder how the whole “AI is more important than copyright” thing could play into this… Someone could totally program an “AI” map assistant right?
I still haven’t found Google to be worse than Bing yet.
