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I've been trying to use DDG for the last 6 months. Ultimately I'd say 40% of my queries I now just force google with '!g' instead. I was quite bullish on it 6 months ago, but must admit that after 6 months, anything complex I !g straightaway.

I've had the opposite experience. I've been using it for many months and I only !g code searches or searches where DDG's results were disappointing, most of which end up disappointing on Google as well.

I find that hard to believe if you're a programmer, as any complex programming question !g is almost always better.

As well as anything local. If you search for a fairly common venue name, google will always get you a much better result.

I've also used DuckDuckGo for years now, often for programming questions, and the handful of times I've resorted to !g it was 50/50 as to whether Google had better results.

> I find it hard to believe if you're a programmer

Some people work better with reference documentation, books and their brain than SO "answers".

Google for "complex programming questions" is laughable and honestly a bit insulting to the profession.

Why is Googling a programming question insulting to the profession?

I find it laughable that you think there is something wrong with looking for resources relating to complex programming questions. I can't tell you how many times Googling a niche and complex problem instantly solved my issue. Sometimes SO is the only site that has fixes for bugs in the program you're using or mistakes in the documentation.

Well Google is pretty shit if the same keyword combos occur in multiple complex answers. It can even be a waste of time/send you off on a wild goose chase VS just reading a book. Google benefits from the fact that most people's attention spans and patience has dropped.

SO "answers"

That is also laughable and more than a bit insulting:

- most of the answers (I encountered) are in fact proper and correct answers because bascially it's a peer-reviewed environment, so no need for those snarky quatation marks. I, and many others, have spent hours and hours writing down good answers, and learning quite a bit while doing so.

- DDG/Google/... know about SO so it is often possible to get these answers way faster than when using the reference documentation, and your brain cannot change much about it

- you'll find answers which are nowhere to be found in the reference documentation - I assume your point is that with enough reference documentation and thinking any complex programming problem can be tackled. Well, yeah I guess, but it takes way more time than needed and anecdotally I have seen code written by people thinking that and it was one horrid mess. Mostly because stuff like 'good practices' and insight in design principles and patterns and whatnot isn't found in reference documentation. While via frequenting SO (and similar, before that existed) you pick up this stuff automatically and it makes you reflect on programming which in turn makes you better. If you use your brain, that is.

I have been using zealdocs for a couple months now. Which is basically offline official docs/tutorials/examples my Google and SO usage has dropped quite a bit. If you read the Stackoverflow post on why they discontinued their documentation feature - one of the reasons was official docs aren't as broken as ppl think.

Damn, thank you for that! Zealdocs is fantastic, I've been looking for something like that for a while, mostly for coding on flights!

It's given that Google will give better search results. They track you.

I have the opposite experience regarding programming questions though. I thought that part of the initial appeal of DDG was that it handled queries that involved syntax or symbols better. I suppose these types of queries may not be that "complex" though. I admit I often query just to verify the API or to check how to do a common task in a language I am less familiar with.

> It's given that Google will give better search results. They track you.

IIRC they won't if you search via !g on ddg.

I find that hard to believe. DDG just redirects you to Google, it doesn't do anything fancier.

You're right.

What really killed google for me was their gradual transition to showing results that are the most popular thing that's merely related to your search terms. Whereas DDG wouldn't show me many good results for some searches, google shows me endless links to high-profile stuff that is explicitly not what I asked for. Contrived example: search for "vegan meals", and google goes "vegan, hmm.. oh, MEALS! Yes! Here's everything I know about MEALS! Here's some steaks you should buy!" The only way I can get good results out of google these days is to perform the search, then switch it to verbatim mode.

Yeah, I don't understand why they feel the need to ignore whole terms.

This is taking "but it's so convenient to give up my privacy!" to a new level. Now it's "but if I don't give up my privacy can't micro-optimize my life!"?

For framework configuration questions just search Stack(Overflow|Exchange) directly. For local results append the name of your city.

Generally speaking SO's search (and reddit, and HN, etc.) are far worse than Google's.

What about using google in an incognito tab?

When you open the incognito tab it is clearly stated that incognito only stops information from being saved locally.

Information saved locally is the main way sites such as google identify you (cookies mainly).

If you open an incognito window for all your searches, do not signin and close it right after, search engine will not associate your searches with you.

This is not enough to protect you from an evil company or government, but will affect which ads are presented to you, your search results, and should prevent your name from being associated with those searches should that search company date be compromised.

You can at least use !s (startpage) instead.

Try using startpage. It's essentially a proxy for google, but since lots of people are using it, it has no way to connect the searches. And by using it, you're actually improving its privacy by increasing the number of different people whose traffic comes to google from startpage.

Pay in cash

Lately I've been wondering whether I should withdraw most of my money from the bank. Any serious drawback to that approach? For one, I don't like my transactions being tracked and two, find it outrageous I have to pay various fees to use/access my money while it is used to enrich others.

Think long and hard about secure storage then. Fireproof safe, bolted to the wall, at the least. Also, carrying wads of cash with you when you travel is a security risk, either via theft, or just by losing it.

You can address your two problems without dropping the bank.

You should be quite able to find a bank or credit union that will hold your money without charging a fee. Where are you?

You can still use cash to avoid tracking, and you can even thwart forensics by making regular uniform withdrawals. The neat thing is that patterning like this makes you less susceptible to analysis but far more susceptible to getting mugged because now we know that you pull $400 every Tuesday at 3pm. Pick your poison.

> find it outrageous I have to pay various fees to use/access my money while it is used to enrich others.

Where are you banking? My bank pays me interest, even on my checking account, and I don't need to worry about a burglar taking all my savings. There's no reason you can't keep your money at the bank, stop using credit cards, and pay everything in cash; all the bank will know is that you withdraw $200 every week.

Not sure how far along this project is, but MicroG intends to replace Google Play Services as their core invasion of privacy on Android devices.

https://microg.org/ | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12864429

Thanks. I have been using Firefox + uBlock on Android, but Brave seems to run much better on my non-flagship smartphone.

And don't forget to protect yourself against browser and device fingerprint tracking.

I think that brave is working on anti-fingerprinting stuff too: https://brave.com/bebraveday/

> For what it is worth, as of June 2017 gmail no longer scans email content for ads

The important part of that sentence is "for ads". Obviously, they don't do antispam out of thin air, they still have to scan email for it.

Lately, they are offering quite good context sensitive caned responses.

For instance I got an email earlier confirming a cancellation due to illness. It suggested I respond 'Thank you for your understanding'.

That's some quite good natural language stuff running on every email, presumably building a model.

Yes, some details are here: https://research.googleblog.com/2015/11/computer-respond-to-... https://research.googleblog.com/2017/05/efficient-smart-repl...

I just installed Brave. Then I realized it doesn't allow Chrome extensions? I have so many ranging from email notifiers to cookie opt-outs to my own custom extensions for security and usability (like one that colors usernames on HN, for example)... how should I give all those up just to use a different browser?

I think this is more about mobile browser choice (Chrome on Android has no extension support). On desktop, Firefox and Chromium are nice alternatives.