I switched to DuckDuckGo primarily because google's results were becoming more frequently more frustrating and very often completely useless. The fact that DuckDuckGo has sane privacy features was "just" a huge added 'plus'.
Over a decade ago I realized that the single most important feature of a search engine is: Show results that match all of the search terms before showing any that only match some of them. The number two feature for me is to make it obvious where the line between "matches all" and "matches some" falls in the presented results.
Google spent a good decade following this maxim by virtue of only showing results that matched all search terms. Over that time, I've griped a lot about places that make this "classic rookie mistake" in regard to searching. CPAN is a great example of a place that does a truly horrid job when given more than one search term.
But several months ago, google decided to start silently throwing in results that only matched some of your search terms. This was not just "the last straw" for me atop the growing pile of steps google kept taking to pay less and less attention to what I actually asked them to search for. It was also a fundamental mistake that, as always, turned google into a frequently useless search service.
Yes, sometimes my DuckDuckGo search finds nothing and I fall back to another service. But for most other cases, DuckDuckGo gives better and often much better results than google. By searching DuckDuckGo first, I get both of my top features in a search engine. The obvious "line" is when I resort to google's much more numerous and much less selective list of results.
I thought PM linked to the https+html version but it is indeed currently linking to the http+html version. https+html seems a better choice to me as well.
| [reply] |
I thought PM linked to the https+html version but it is indeed currently linking to the http+html version. https+html seems a better choice to me as well.
FWIW, on that front, if using ddg/https, it links results to https results where available (like wikipedia ), but if you try to post with that url, you'll get permission denied -- seems to me there shouldn't be much difference between allowing http and https links to wikipedia ( and other allowed links )
| [reply] |
seems to me there shouldn't be much difference between allowing http and https links to wikipedia ( and other allowed links )
Sorry, I was not talking about "allowed links". wp:// links to Wikipedia and ddg:// links to DuckDuckGo. [ddg://searching] links to searching.
I think ddg:// should link to http*s*://duckduckgo.com/html/ instead, though I haven't looked into it in any depth.
| [reply]
[d/l] |
I have found DDG good enough for most queries. It falls down on more obscure stuff -- it has a smaller index -- but I always try it first before I resort to Scroogle and Google.
DDG's !bang syntax allows to have your cake and eat it too.
If I find DDG's results inadequate, and want to continue the search with Google, I just prepend !g to my search terms. DDG will get me Google's results, with all the no-tracking goodness.
| [reply] |
| [reply] |
You are quite right about the redirecting to Google. The redirection is, however, done by the HTTP Refresh header, rather than via the more common 3xx HTTP Status code.
However, Google does not seem to tie the search request to me, at least looking at the search results page. When I am logged in to Google+, I performed a search directly on Google. The results page showed that Google took my online presence into account, as evidenced by the google-bar with my name, and results from Google+ circles etc. I see 8 cookies from google.com and 14 cookies from plus.google.com.
Repeating the same search via DDG !g syntax, while still logged in to Google+, I see a different page, with the google-bar asking me to sign in, and generic results from Google+. So, in this case, Google did not associate the search request to my Google account. Also, I see only 8 cookies and no cookies from plus.google.com.
This is what I meant by "no-tracking" (poor choice of words, I admit).
It is possible that Google could derive some kind of link to me by IP tracking or other means, but they do not seem to be doing it.
| [reply] |