DuckDuckGo is now my default search, both in the browser and on my phone. Here’s why:
!Bang syntax
DDG has a cool little feature that lets you search tons of websites directly, using !websitename. For example, if you want to search Drupal.org directly, type “!drupal whatever search terms” and you will be taken to a Drupal.org search for “whatever search terms.” This works on tons of sites.
First result jumping
The vast majority of my Google searches just led me to clicking the first result. On DDG, you can add a backslash (“") to the beginning of your sites to jump directly to the first result. This is a small thing, but it’s been great for me.
Zero-click info
I often Google something I’ve never heard of just to figure out what the crap it is. This usually involves clicking through to a Wikipedia page about it. DDG instead will give you a few sentences about that thing at the top of the search, before the results. It gets this info from sites like Wikipedia, StackOverflow, GitHub (DDG is obviously pretty programmer-oriented), LyricsMode, etc. It’s a big time saver for me.
Lots of useful special queries
Get a random number from 1-10 by typing “rand 1 10” or generate a 15 character password by typing “pw 15” or run a hash by typing “md5 whatever” or count calories by typing “calories in 2 eggs” etc. Lots of great stuff going on here. Here’s some more info.
Surprisingly good results
My main hesitation about switching was just that nobody could beat the big G when it came to giving me good search results. I’m actually pleasantly surprised with how good DDG’s results have been so far. The majority of my searches are technical, programming related things, and I remember reading somewhere on Hacker News that this is one of DDG’s primary focuses (like I said, it’s very programmer related).
That said, if you do want to search google, just type “!g search terms” to search Google using the bang syntax.
Useful options
On the settings page, you can select whether to open links in new tabs, whether to display favicons or WOT (trust) ratings beside links, whether to auto-load more results when you reach the bottom of the page, etc. Lots of useful things. You can even configure colors and fonts if you’re into that kind of thing.
The warm fuzzy feeling
DDG feels sort of personal or cozy somehow. It feels like you’re doing something good, like you’re sticking it to the man.
Give it a shot! Make it your browser’s default search engine for a few days and see what you think.
