I live in a country which uses a language I don’t speak but Google defaults to regional results in spite of my language being set to English. All other engines give me really poor results (not that Google was giving good ones, the image search has really gone to shit since they started populating it with AI stuff).

    • Fubarberry@lemmy.fmhy.ml
      11·
      1 year ago

      Honestly the search bangs are the killer duckduckgo feature. I started using it because I was upset with Google hiding search results, but it’s being able to easily search any search engine that keeps me using it.

      • Rentlar@beehaw.org
        3·
        1 year ago

        Bangs are amazing and I use it about 3x as often as I use the normal search on DuckDuckGo.

      • emptyother@beehaw.org
        2·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, but I almost always end up using the !g bang anyway. And its so stuck in my fingers that I sometimes mistakenly write !g wen searchphrase when I want to search on wikipedia. Im cursed.

        • Fubarberry@lemmy.fmhy.ml
          1·
          1 year ago

          Honestly I’ve found that duckduckgo/Bing’s results are usually enough, and usually only fallback to Google results if I fail to get anything useful or if it’s a very technical query.

        • Fubarberry@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
          6·
          1 year ago

          Search bangs let you search using any search engine from duckduckgo. So you can type “!g” before your search to search Google. “!w” for wikipedia, “!a” to search Amazon, etc. They have a page on duckduckgo that lets you search all the different search bangs, most every website with a search is included and has multiple search bangs that work. If you don’t remember any of the shortened commands, you can usually safely fall back on a longer one (ie if you don’t remember !a for Amazon you could do !amazon).

    • transgwender@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      3·
      1 year ago

      Yeah im like 99% happy with DuckDuckGo, except for images. The image results are always awful I find, so I just have to open up google images when I need an image. Dont think I can avoid that, but yeah

    • amortized_cost@beehaw.org
      3·
      1 year ago

      DuckDuckGo 99% of the time, Google Startpage if I’m having trouble finding something.

      *Note: Startpage uses Google as their source of search result.

    • Faendol@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      1 year ago

      I switched to DuckDuckGo a while ago and haven’t regretted it at all. I honestly barely notice the difference. Realistically I should switch to firefox next but I’m pretty ingrainded in google chrome admittedly.

      • Nolando@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        1·
        1 year ago

        I made the jump a ways back, and it’s only on rare occasions that I find I need to open Brave or Chrome (whichever is installed on my machine at the time) for website compatibility.

    • Vorticity@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      I’ve been trying to switch to duckduckgo but I really struggle with the results. I appreciate the privacy angle but I just can’t seem to find what I want about 80% of the time. It’s like it just ignores parts of my query…

    • starship_lizard@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 year ago

      I use duckduckgo with Google as a backup for when what I’m searching for is too specific. I’ve had to use Google less and less lately though

    • MrSangrief@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      Used Duckduckgo for a while, got myself into a spiral of search engine exploration and at some point settled on Startpage for a while…but I just missed the maturity in functionality of Duckduckgo. It just always felt like I was making a usability/productivity sacrifice. So I returned and am still happy … for now :p

  • aski3252@lemmy.ml
    15·
    1 year ago

    Duckduckgo as default. If I need location/region specific stuff, I will sometimes use google.

  • sapo@beehaw.org
    11·
    1 year ago

    Nothing compares to DuckDuckGo with bangs, which let you change over to any other search engine with two or three characters. I usually use !g (Google), !w (Wikipedia) and !aw (ArchWiki).

    • Fox@lemmy.ml
      3·
      1 year ago

      Yes, I also switched to DDG, before there were so many options on the market, and its been more than sufficient since then.

      I have a feeling I’m not utilizing search engies as much as I should, as I only use them to navigate to other websites.

      The built-in conversion tools are really great, and the Wikipedia info-box has saved me many clicks, but aside from this, I really just need a search engine that works, without selling my data to the highest bidder.

      DuckDuckGo is just that for me.

    • moreeni@lemm.ee
      3·
      1 year ago

      Metasearch engines are the way to go, I wish more people hosted their instances so folks wouldn’t run into rate limits so often

    • naeap@sopuli.xyz
      1·
      1 year ago

      woah nice!
      thanks for the recommendation, will need to try a self hosted setup

  • OutrageousUmpire@lemmy.world
    9·
    1 year ago

    Brave. It’s interesting getting completely different results than from any of the big players. And the results from Brave are often better.

    • setsneedtofeed@beehaw.org
      5·
      1 year ago

      I use the Brave browser on my phone. The searches are good, but I mainly like that I can watch YouTube without adds, and make the video windowed and even turn off the phone screen while it plays.

  • The_Digitalfigment@lemmy.ml
    9·
    1 year ago

    I used DuckDuckGo as my default and it works out for me most of the time. Though, were it tends to fall apart is with image searching. When I can’t find what I’m looking for I’ll go to Google and find it pretty quickly.

  • LucidDaemon@lemmy.world
    9·
    1 year ago

    I use Qwant and find it gives me better results than Google most of the time. It claims to be private and such, so I’m happy with it.

    • EmasXP@beehaw.org
      3·
      1 year ago

      Thank you for reminding me about Qwant! I will set it as my default to try it out again. I remember that I did not find it too impressive a few years back. Felt like the exact same results as Bing, even though it supposedly has its own index.

  • CliodhnaBaskerville@beehaw.org
    8·
    1 year ago

    DuckDuckGo. I’ve become reliant on the bangs. Regular search not giving me what I want? Just add !g. Want to find a word? !wt. Look up an album? !rym. Just want to search something on YouTube quickly? !yt

    • IrritableOcelot@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      How did I not know about bangs til now, I’ve been using DDG for years! I’ve just been relying on the @ codes in the Firefox search bar, which are super limited. Thanks for the tip!

    • cheerytext1981@lemmy.ca
      2·
      1 year ago

      I’ve been using Kagi for the last year, and when that’s not available, duck duck go or starpage. Kagi is excellent. yes its paid, but imo worth the cost.

    • I've Seen Things@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      Third for Kagi, only been using it for a couple of months and I’ve not come across anything that it hasn’t found, or been unhappy with the results it shows.

  • httpjames@sh.itjust.works
    7·
    1 year ago

    Kagi is a great premium alternative. They focus obsessively on search result quality and adding helpful, but non invasive AI tools. One of them is even free as an experiment!