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Comment by a_dev_1234 | Hacker News Reader

I'm tired of people mentioning !g. If you want to use google, just use google. Stop using duck duck go just to search google, and then say "but duck duck go is better" lo. no it isn't. clearly.

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It's a way to wean yourself off of Google or quickly see results from a different perspective. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just an easy way out for people who don't trust ddg just yet.

That and its a Good way To help ddg (recording used search queries) and getting google results

If you want to use google, but don't want them to connect you to your search terms and connect you to their ecosystem and track you some more, then use DDG and !g.

Now that I've learned that !a works for amazon.com and duckduckgo.com gets affiliate revenue that way, then that's how I'll search amazon from now on. Need to boost up the underdog that cares about privacy, because google surely doesn't.

With DDG as my default search engine (Safari, macOS & iOS), I can (in the rare cases that I need to) easily and quickly search on google or startpage or other sites (by appending !g or !s in the search box).

If you're on Google as your default search engine, it's not so convenient to see other engine's results (plus you're being tracked all the time).

Yeah, if someone is just going to search Google all the time. If one is going to use DDG most of the time, but then pivots, it's worth noting. I use DDG to get to Wikipedia, Amazon, Google Images, and sometimes Google (for technical searches).

It's not about using duckduckgo to search with google. I use it when duckduckgo results aren't good enough, instead of typing everything in google again. I have been using it less frequently recently.

When I tried it years ago, I would search DDG first, then use !g if I didn't get what I wanted. I ended up using that a lot, so I switched back to Google.

Sounds like they have changed a lot since then, so I'll probably give it another shot.

But then you can’t use bangs anymore. I think the idea is that Google is there if you need it while still retaining the benefit of using bangs. So, it’s the best of both worlds.

It's completely valid to use that when you are searching for something local. Something that ddg shouldn't really do.

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