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Comment by bmj1 | Hacker News Reader

Reasons people still uses Google:

(Perception of) better results: until proven otherwise - why would you use an alternative/inferior SE - unless you value other things like privacy more than the content of the results - this doesn't apply to most people

Fast/it just works: give me a compelling reason to switch. "Privacy" really isn't enough for most people.

It's default: the default FF SE? The default homepage for a bunch of people? Default search in Chrome? Check. Check. Check

Network effect: Remember the expression "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" (that might be too old for a lot of the readers here) - but the same thing applies - "nobody ever got in trouble for choosing Google"

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> Default search in Chrome?

It's not default in Chrome, it asks when you first use it what you wanna use as the default search. You have to opt in to google and bing is just one click away. Most still choose google anyway.

In contrast, to change bing from being default search, on the default browser, on the most used OS in the planet. You still have to go inside preferences and opt out, which takes several clicks. And then, Microsoft still tries to sneak bing to you if you install MSN (windows live or w/e it's called now), which will change your default search engine on FF and Chrome to Bing. Unless you opt out during instalation.

And still people choose google.

In Europe IE will also asks you to choose a default search engine on first start.

It will actually ask you to chose a browser before anything...

...and the order the browsers appear in the dialog is randomised.

For me (India) it actually had chosen Bing already, I was asked to confirm the choice and I could select others if I wanted to.

I never had a problem with Google results. The only problem i always have is when there is not enough content about a topic. These are the times when i try another search engine, but the results are often worse then. I make around 20k searches a year with Google and i know how to find stuff with it, if there is something to find.

Google is free and Bing/DDG/Yandex make nothing better that would make me switch. There is not really a problem to solve when it comes to find available stuff. Quora and Stack Overflow try to solve a problem Google isn't good at. Getting answers to stuff when there is nothing to find out there.

http://millionshort.com popped up a while back and I've actually found it incredibly useful, especially for any topics more likely to be found on little personal sites.

All equally valid points. For me I find that the quality of results is what still draws me back. I use DDG for most things these days (as it's especially good for quickly finding repos on GitHub etc), but if I have anything less certain (like a caching question) then I often find myself using Google.

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