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Comment by joombaga | Hacker News Reader

Do you really only !g 1% of the time? I've been trying to use DDG more, but still end up using !g maybe 10-20% of the time. I don't know if the results are actually worse on DDG. Maybe I'm just so accustomed to Google that my eyes are quicker to fix on useful links. The blue page titles definitely help.

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> Do you really only !g 1% of the time?

Yes, I can confirm that for me personally. Most of the time I don't even think about doing that and I'm mostly satisfied. It's only when I hit a wall then I remember to do !g. So, overall for me it's been working well.

As I noted in my edit, one area where Google seems to have an edge is results from relevant forums and the likes. So, sometimes I have to remember to do !g when the results on topics I'm looking for are mostly discussed in some forums.

Also, I've become more accustomed to DDG that I find Google different. But, I've been using DDG for longer it seems.

Same here. I do hundreds of queries weekly, and I very very rarely reach for !g, so I would say on my case it is way less than 1%. And even there once reaching !g I may have a 50% chance of not having any improvement on results. Been happy ddl user for the last 7 years and it keeps improving.

Same here, 1% about fits. Most of the time I only use !g for when DDG once again decided to ignore what I search for, and even then, about 80% of the time the only difference is that Google actually tells me they ignored what I searched for.

You'll probably start to style your search queries in a DDG-friendly way over time. I couldn't describe what that style looks like, but it becomes something you don't even notice (in my experience)

I've been using it as my primary search for a couple years now, and in the last year or so I'd say I use !g about once a week, usually for local results.

Personally, I almost never use !g, but I use !maps (google maps) about 1-2% of the time to plan out trips, find places to eat, etc.

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