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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

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[-] easily3667@lemmus.org 6 points 53 minutes ago

You seriously can't type whatever dae means?

[-] doubtingtammy@lemmy.ml 2 points 38 minutes ago

I can. Be nice and I might.

[-] AvailableFill74@lemmy.ml 1 points 32 minutes ago* (last edited 31 minutes 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.

[-] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 1 points 30 minutes ago* (last edited 27 minutes ago)

That initial comment is quite pointed...

Yours is pretty over the top as well, lol.

[-] AvailableFill74@lemmy.ml 1 points 20 minutes ago* (last edited 16 minutes 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.

[-] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 1 points 13 minutes ago* (last edited 13 minutes ago)

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!

[-] MrMeatballGuy@feddit.dk 2 points 45 minutes 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

[-] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 1 points 28 minutes ago* (last edited 27 minutes 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."

[-] limoncia@lemm.ee 4 points 2 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 3 points 2 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.

[-] CheeseToastie@lazysoci.al 1 points 43 minutes ago

I've never forgiven them for getting rid of their search within results, that was brilliant

[-] DioEgizio@lemm.ee 3 points 2 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

[-] Tungsten5@lemm.ee 1 points 2 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

[-] lucg@lemmy.world 6 points 4 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)

[-] Niquarl@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago

The other annoying thing is the air summaries. I've disable AI features but that's still on. I hate it so much

[-] Irelephant@lemm.ee 2 points 4 hours ago

On ddg? Only one or two, which I can filter out.

Google always will return a content farm though.

[-] ByGourou@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 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

[-] shaggyb@lemmy.world 8 points 9 hours ago

I can turn off the horseshit firehose that we call AI, making it far better than google

[-] cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 hours ago

Ironically I find ChatGPT pretty good for certain types of searching.

[-] Irelephant@lemm.ee 1 points 4 hours ago

For me, its only finding stuff thats really hard to google, like concepts or meme templates.

[-] superkret@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago

ChatGPT is great for when what you're looking for is the proper search term.
If I don't know what term to google, I can describe what I'm looking for and then nudge the bot in the right direction till it spits out the term.

[-] Irelephant@lemm.ee 2 points 2 hours ago

Exactly! If I don't exactly know what I'm trying to find, its useful.

[-] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 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.

[-] superkret@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago

Gnome Maps is honestly really good!
Not everything has to be inside your browser.

[-] lucg@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Tried OpenStreetMap? Quality varies by country though

[-] yata@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 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 20 points 16 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 1 points 26 minutes 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.

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[-] Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 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.

[-] Silk@lemm.ee 1 points 8 hours ago

I use Kagi, I really like how it's AI answer gives sources for statements.

[-] jaxxed@lemmy.ml 4 points 12 hours ago

Google kind of went downhill

[-] cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 hours ago

Kind of? It went Paul Rudd in Mac and Me.

[-] FRYD@sh.itjust.works 34 points 22 hours ago

I’ve been using DDG exclusively for something like 8 years. It works great for regular text search and I use bing for image searches. I really don’t understand the reluctance of people to switch to it. To me, Google has been borderline unusable garbage for a long time.

[-] CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.ee 4 points 13 hours ago

DDG is slow. Like noticeably slower than other search engines. I have been using DDG exclusively for 2 months at this point and it is wild how much faster brave search is not even mentioning google search.

[-] FRYD@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 hours ago

I’ve actually never tried brave search. Which is kinda funny because I started using DDG when brave came out and it was the default search engine.

What do you mean by slow though? Like just the webpage loading or the time it takes you to get good results? I’ve never noticed any load time, but I’ve always had a few tweaked content blockers running and that may affect my perspective.

[-] serendipity@aussie.zone 3 points 15 hours ago

Same here, although I don’t know how long I’ve been on DDG exactly. I never not find what I’m looking for.

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[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 7 points 18 hours ago

I find it's actually better at this point because it just gives results without AI summaries and ads, also I find it's just straight up better at actually finding what you're looking for

[-] adarza@lemmy.ca 3 points 15 hours ago

i find ddg sufficient for nearly everything. occasionally i will go to startpage or ecosia or mojeek for a different 'perspective', but that is not very often at all. i also use wolframalpha almost daily for some sort of calculation or conversion.

i haven't used google or bing except by accident when using someone else's browser or device (that is, when i forget to go to duck.com first).

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[-] variouslegumes@reddthat.com 11 points 20 hours ago

I just realized the other day that I haven't typed !g in months.

[-] Sam_Bass@lemmy.ml 7 points 19 hours ago

So far its still less bloated

[-] venotic@kbin.melroy.org 52 points 1 day ago

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.

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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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