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Do you use DDG?

  • Yes

    Votes: 48 64.9%
  • Am thinking about it

    Votes: 6 8.1%
  • Am not thinking about it

    Votes: 2 2.7%
  • No

    Votes: 18 24.3%

  • Total voters
    74

Dekema2

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
856
437
WNY or Utica
A couple days ago I made the switch to DDG from Google and I don't notice a difference other than the fact that DDG looks nicer IMO and is private. So who is/has made the switch? I did for both my phone and MBP.
 

CrickettGrrrl

macrumors 6502a
Feb 10, 2012
985
274
B'more or Less
I've been using it for over a year on my Mac, also have it on my iPad. It's really improved a lot since I first began using it. Have switched all the computers in the house over to DuckDuckGo. And I agree, the interface is very nice.
 
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maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
Never even heard of them. I may give them a shot, but to be honest, it seems like an awful name, and a bit more awkward to type it.
 

2984839

Cancelled
Apr 19, 2014
2,114
2,241
I use the the Lite version (no Javascript) routinely. It is the default on my PowerBook's browsers because it renders very fast and cleanly in Dillo, Netsurf, and Elinks. I like it enough to use it on my MBP and T60 too, though I use Startpage if I can't find what I need with DDG.

My only complaint is that it's not very good about showing discussion forum results. Sometimes that is the best way to find a solution to a problem and Google is still the best at it.
 

S.B.G

Moderator
Staff member
Sep 8, 2010
26,635
10,394
Detroit
I've been using DDG for a few months now and like it a lot. I switched to it on my iOS devices, Mac's and Windows PC's.
 

ianj1972

macrumors member
Nov 16, 2011
61
3
http://irj972.co.uk
It's not that it's 'better' than google, it's that they don't record and track your searches. If you don't care, might as well stick with Google.
You can use 'bangs' with DDG to direct searches to other engines, e.g !g for Google or !gm for Google maps etc.
 
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Dekema2

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2012
856
437
WNY or Utica
Okay just to follow up on how my week using it has gone, it works great. However, there are some things I would like to see added at some point to make it more useable to my tastes, and they aren't necessary but it would prevent me from making the trip to Googlevil:

  • It would be nice if they showed more news results, and for the news results they do show it would be nice if they showed recent news with timestamps
  • I'd like to see sports scores and standings, but once again you can just go into Yahoo! Sports and get those
  • If they can find more ways to distance themselves from the "search engine" look that Googlevil, Bing and Yahoo! use they'd be unique

And that's about it. The scrolling without having to click "next page" is really neat, suggested meaning and pages are also cool as well.
 

PowerBook-G5

macrumors 65816
Jul 30, 2013
1,244
1,183
I don't really mean to bump this, but I just switched over today after finally getting too annoyed at Google's search-saving.

IMG_4262.PNG

I'm not even signed into my Google account or anything and it saves them (I've known about this for a while, but just haven't wanted to go to Bing or Yahoo). I also have gone and updated the "Advanced Settings", but Google just wants to revert them back (I wonder why??? :rolleyes: ).

DuckDuckGo seems to be an almost perfectly-good alternative for just plain searches, but Google still reigns for images. I also really like the themes that are offered as they make everything look better.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

decafjava

macrumors 603
Feb 7, 2011
5,501
8,010
Geneva
I don't really mean to bump this, but I just switched over today after finally getting too annoyed at Google's search-saving.

View attachment 519089

I'm not even signed into my Google account or anything and it saves them (I've known about this for a while, but just haven't wanted to go to Bing or Yahoo). I also have gone and updated the "Advanced Settings", but Google just wants to revert them back (I wonder why??? :rolleyes: ).

DuckDuckGo seems to be an almost perfectly-good alternative for just plain searches, but Google still reigns for images. I also really like the themes that are offered as they make everything look better.

You can still use DDG for google searches, just use the "bang" feature - !google plus whatever.
 

keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
9,539
25,302
I too use DuckDuckGo, which is my default search engine for Safari on iOS/OS X. There are far less ad results compared to Google which is good, and they always have a little 'official site' sticker next to legitimate URLs.

Objectively I suppose Google is the better engine. However I hate Google's mentality and I'm more than happy to go out of my way to avoid them wherever I can.
 
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S.B.G

Moderator
Staff member
Sep 8, 2010
26,635
10,394
Detroit
I too use DuckDuckGo, which is my default search engine for Safari on iOS/OS X. There are far less ad results compared to Google which is good, and they always have a little 'official site' sticker next to legitimate URLs.

Objectively I suppose Google is the better engine. However I hate Google's mentality and I'm more than happy to go out of my way to avoid them wherever I can.

Yes, I too, like the 'official site' label they put on links.
 

iososx

macrumors 6502a
Aug 23, 2014
859
6
USA
Sheer coincidence brought myself and Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO & Founder of DuckDuckGo together as we just happened to be in the same Physics class at MIT.

He's a brilliant guy that founded DDG by himself in 2008. A no frills site originally geared to engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists and the like, it's chock full of extremely valuable resources. Being in the field, I've used it since 2008.

Now with much broader resources and opened up to mainstream users it has lots of useable features that return highly relevant results. A different type and class of search engine when compared to Google, many people are now adopting it as an invaluable resource.


https://duckduckgo.com/
 

S.B.G

Moderator
Staff member
Sep 8, 2010
26,635
10,394
Detroit
Image search is very poor on DDG, often returning no results at all
For regular search it's been fine though

True, image searching isn't quite as good as Google, but, for my needs, it has been working out well.
 

LizKat

macrumors 604
Aug 5, 2004
6,770
36,279
Catskill Mountains
I use DDG, like it, switched my default to it on everything. Too lazy to locate bookmarks for stuff that I haven't stashed in the menubar so I hit them up fairly often.
 

dXTC

macrumors 68020
Oct 30, 2006
2,033
50
Up, up in my studio, studio
My recent Firefox installations on both Mac and Linux have defaulted to DDG. I think it does an OK job, except maybe for some image searches, upon which I switch over to good ol' Google.
 

dukebound85

macrumors Core
Jul 17, 2005
19,160
4,152
5045 feet above sea level
I know an olde thread but still as relevant as ever in todays age.

Is there a difference in the following scenarios for internet usage:

1) Use safari with google search as default but all through a vpn
2) Use safari with duck duck go with no vpn
3) Use the dedicated duck duck go browser (no safari)
 
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