DuckDuckGo (1 Viewer)

[bclemms]

Over the last year or so I've noticed google giving way to more sponsored results. I used to use google as a phone book by typing in a persons name, city and state and it would pull a number right up. Now it is filled with listings for every type of yellow page service imaginable. I'm also not real fond of a company tracking and storing all search results regardless what I'm searching for, it just doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

So I've started a search for a new search engine. One of the most important things to me is a page that loads really fast as a home page. With Bing, yahoo and most of the others it throws up a background picture or wallpaper, along with news headlines, a million links, weather, etc. I don't want all that and it is the main thing that has kept me using google.

I've been using www.duckduckgo.com as my home page and search engine the last week and don't think I'll be going back to anything else. It doesn't have the same resources as google with images, shopping, maps, videos, etc but as a search engine it is wonderful. Plus if you want to search images it gives you the option to search google images or yahoo images but without the tracking.

Anyway, just though I'd pass it on and see if anyone else has tried it out.

 

[Semper]

I tried it, but I just keep going back to google.

 

[bclemms]

I tried it, but I just keep going back to google.

Why? Just out of habit or is there something you didn't like?

I find it very difficult to change on a computer. I love duck but had to force myself to use it just to break habit. Same goes for Chrome, it is everything explorer dreamed of being and then some but it is hard to break the habit of clicking on that blue e since I'd been doing it for over a decade.

 

[Lurkaholic]

I'll give it a whirl. I'm extremely unfond of the way google does things. They make microsoft look like angels.

 

[PayOrPlay]

I tried it, but I just keep going back to google.

Me too. I like the idea of DDG in theory but in actuality Google's results are generally more comprehensive and tend to turn up what I want accurately. And I tend to just ignore anything that looks like a sponsored result--in fact, I will go out of my way to avoid clicking a paid link; even when it's the link I want, I'll try to find a nonsponsored version or get rid of the referral code myself.

I do find it unnerving to see ads targeted to my search history--for example, after having researched some European riverboat cruises for my dad a few months ago, I keep seeing tons of ads for a particular river cruise company.

 

[bclemms]

Me too. I like the idea of DDG in theory but in actuality Google's results are generally more comprehensive and tend to turn up what I want accurately. And I tend to just ignore anything that looks like a sponsored result--in fact, I will go out of my way to avoid clicking a paid link; even when it's the link I want, I'll try to find a nonsponsored version or get rid of the referral code myself.

I do find it unnerving to see ads targeted to my search history--for example, after having researched some European riverboat cruises for my dad a few months ago, I keep seeing tons of ads for a particular river cruise company.

There are some simple things it is missing. In google if you type in the name of a business and the city then it pops up with a phone number, address, website and map to the location. If you do the same in duck it gives you a dozen pages you can go to get the same information.

Now if I'm browsing to try and find certain websites or searching for topics or answers then ddg does a better job returning results. Only problem is the search results with duck are just a little better but when searching for a place or business google's results are ten times better so then it is just easier to use google than two different search engines.

I'm going to keep trying it and see if I can't break away from google as much as possible.

 

[Lurkaholic]

I discovered the Blekko search engine just a few days ago. I haven't had a lot of time to play with it yet, but the use of slashtags is interesting, as are the words "spam-free" and the https option.

Also interesting. I'll give that one a whirl too.

 

[crosswatt]

Also interesting. I'll give that one a whirl too.

Yeah, that one is new to me too. Duckduckgo is alright, but it feels somewhat spartan in a non-positive way to me.

 

[Mojomajik9]

I like DDG. We've been using it for a few weeks at work and I like its minimalist style. I still go to Google quite often....mostly out of habit I guess. But Duck does have an appeal, especially if privacy is important to you.

 

[zatsnzapps]

Another good search engine is Clusty.

The product is the Vivisimo search engine that is sold to companies to organize documents into clusters (hence, the name Clusty). Clusty.com is free, of course.

I like to use it when I'm not exactly sure of an acronym. Here's an example of a search for IRA:

http://clusty.com/search?v:project=clusty-original&v:file=viv_0a3CFY&v:recluster=&

Note the clusters on the left side for Individual Retirement Account, Roth, and Irish Republican Army. It's a great way to reduce search results quickly by selecting the clusters.

 

[bclemms]

I discovered the Blekko search engine just a few days ago. I haven't had a lot of time to play with it yet, but the use of slashtags is interesting, as are the words "spam-free" and the https option.

How I found it was interesting. Not exactly news, though it was to me - the story is from 2011. It describes how MS appeared to be harvesting MSIE users' Google search results for use in their own search engine, Bing. An amusing sting operation ensues.

Official Google Blog: Microsoft's Bing uses Google search results - and denies it

One of the links in this article led me to Blekko.

Going to check this one out. Played a little tonight and it seems like a nice medium between a site like google and one like duckduckgo.