DuckDuckGo seems very limited in searching

bodvar

Why is it that my searches with DDG only give me about 10-20% of real hits compared to Google Search? And why do Vivaldi upgrades redefault to DuckDuckGo?

mib2berlin

@bodvar
Hi, I don´t use DDG but an update does not change your default search engine, except you use a search engine extension.
For example the DDG extension set your default engine, this can happen after a restart of Vivaldi, update or update of the extension.

Cheers, mib

jane.n

@bodvar might be referring to the change that came in the recent Vivaldi 6.0 update.

[Search] Change the default search engine to DuckDuckGo for unsupported regions
https://vivaldi.com/changelog-vivaldi-browser-6-0/

wintercoast

@bodvar I've been using DDG for a long time and still use it (or Bing) in some places. However, I recently switched to Brave as default in Vivaldi (default browser). Opera is still using DDG, as you can't set Brave as default.

With DDG I have on occasion run into searches that couldn't find what I was looking for, whereas Brave was able to (and Google of course).

In general, I've concluded that no one search engine is better than all others for all searches and you should expect to use more than one. I have a whole bunch hooked up in Vivaldi.

Catweazle

I use several search engines, mainly Andisearch, Perplexity and You, all three are powered by AI. I don't care so much about the number of results offered by different search engines, but how many of these results are relevant to what I'm looking for.
Google offers a lot of results, true, but half of page 1 is ads and SEO crap and on page 3 you can already hide a corpse.
Andisearch and other AI search engines do not offer many results, but what they do show are relevant results that respond to the query made, with the sources for future investigations, apart from a summary of the content.

yojimbo274064400

@bodvar said in DuckDuckGo seems very limited in searching:

Why is it that my searches with DDG only give me about 10-20% of real hits compared to Google Search? …
⋮

Are you able to provide a search example to use as a point of reference for this issue?

DoctorG

DDG is getting worse and give me too much top-position ads. Sad as i liked the search engine. But searching on a smartphone is a hell now f.ex. if you want a italian or greek restaurant's deliver service and you get many pages of lieferando And i know how to reduce search term to get better searches.

TheQuantumAlpha

Greetings!

You may try Swisscows.com, it uses it's own indexing engine, and is the next alternative to privacy focused search engine.

They display good values, such as no indecent content, and is kids friendly. Search results are accurate and fair.

They are worth a try, it costs nothing to give them a try for a couple days or weeks!

paul1149

I ditched DDG when they introduced censorship during Covid and the Ukraine war.

bodvar

@yojimbo274064400 Try searching from an Icelandic IP address! DDG seems to be all about the USA and not searcing Icelandic or other European sites much.

RiveDroite

@bodvar This is exactly my issue with DDG. It might be great in the US, but since I'm not in the US it just doesn't work so great for me.

Hadden89

@bodvar from a mere search algorithm point of view, qwant seems to be a valid google search alternative

Hadden89

@jane-n I think any default/private search engines should be chosen once at onboarding/welcome page then is up to users change it if their regions stop to support them.

RiveDroite

@Hadden89 I use Qwant and love it

bodvar

@Hadden89 Thanks, I'll give it a try some time soon.

Catweazle

@bodvar, anyway is a good choice to use several search engines, what you don't find in one, you'll find it with others. Qwant is a valid search engine, you can try also Mojeek, Startpage, Ecosia, or also one of the AI searches I named before (soon all search engines will include AI)
https://andisearch.com
https://www.perplexity.ai
https://you.com

jane.n

@Hadden89, choosing which settings and how many of them are presented during onboarding is a difficult task. On the one hand, you want to show all the important settings and highlights of the browser. On the other hand you can't make it too long as people might give up even before they've really started using the browser.
But I'm sure our design/dev team have good reasons for including/excluding certain settings.

alcazone

brave > DDG

DoctorG

@alcazone Brave Greater Than DuckDuckGo? Or what does that mean?

alcazone

Common internet slang for Brave is better than DDG.
I have used DDG for months if not years