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Comment by alexfortin | Hacker News Reader

> DDG relies a lot on Bing, from MS, and how does Bing earn money? "We run ads, senator" And it's not "way better", cite at least a few search examples where you think it is

Since long I just don't see any reason to try out another search, I just get the results I want in a single shot. Another thing I like with DDG is that it doesn't seem to return different results depending on the profile it has on you, like Google does, so the same search tend to be deterministic, and that's a value added for me, might not be what you want though.

> So even worse? At least try them before recommending!

Fair, instead of complaining about my ineptitude though you could enrich this conversation saying why you find them worse than Google. I still stand by it though: Google Search is the biggest evil by far so whatever is not that is worth a try in my opinion, can't hurt for sure.

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DDG use location for customizing results, but even then search shouldn't be deterministic because index /algo change with time? Though definitely not as much as Google, which adds more personalization. Have you actually tested it, though, and found better results, or is that a conceptual value add?

> why you find them worse than Google

Because their index is smaller, so results you get in Google aren't found there. And there is no benefit in better filtering of seo/ai slop garbage. So the core function is worse. Though I've not seriously used Ecosia, only DDG/Brave And sorry, I don't remember the various examples I've compared them on, with Brave it was usually "found nothing useful, tried a few terms, still no, switch to Google, move on", so only remember that experience as being frequent enough

> worth a try in my opinion

Yet you haven't tried, so obviously it's not worth it in your opinion

> Though definitely not as much as Google

That's my point, though: it doesn't need to be perfect to be worth the switch.

> Have you actually tested it, though, and found better results, or is that a conceptual value add?

I did at the beginning and, as also written in the article, I did fall back on GSearch results once in a while, but that faded away in time and never felt the need anymore. I like DDG results page almost perfectly: it returns good results, I guess Google might be better sometimes (and other worse) but I don't mind. I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make: there are alternatives that are good enough and, if you are not happy with the product (I was not with Google, and I'm still not and actually it even got worse, e.g. the stuffing of AI down my throat is honestly depressing) try another one.

To be clear, I'm not stating here that DDG has absolute better results, I'm saying it has an overall much better experience compared to GSearch in my case. I don't get the AI first crap, I don't get irrelevant ads results (or at least not that I notice), I get nice perks like keyboard navigation, at least less invasion of my privacy, and a better UX overall.

It seems like you're perfectly happy with Google Search and Alphabet's spying practices, and by all means that's all right as long as you are ok with it, just notice though that the article is not targeted to you.

> you're missing the point I'm trying to make: there are alternatives that are good enough

It's an empty point because you haven't even tested the alternatives!! And I'm not missing it, I address it directly: by * your own* criteria "ad business is bad" your suggested alternative fails, so it's not "good enough"

> It seems like you're perfectly happy with Google Search and Alphabet's spying practices,

It seems like when you have very weak arguments you go ad hominem and make up motivations. Likewise, you're perfectly happy with MS spying practices by supporting their Bing search engine

> It's an empty point because you haven't even tested the alternatives!! And I'm not missing it

You are still missing my point: I didn't like Google Search, I tried an alternative (DDG) which works perfectly fine for me, if that doesn't do for you maybe you might want to try other alternatives that I know exist but I don't have any need to try out myself because I'm perfectly happy with the alternative I already have.

> It seems like when you have very weak arguments you go ad hominem and make up motivations.

I think you're still misunderstanding here. I'm not putting any judgment neither in my article nor in my comments to you. I don't have the pretention to target all readers on the planet, it's expected that some are not targeted by my article(s), if you are happy with one specific solution you're most probably not whining about it being enshittified in the first place, hence my article isn't targeting you. I don't understand how nor why you interpret that as avoiding a critique, it's just stating the facts from my point of view.

I flip your last comment then: it seems to me that you're focussing on a very specific point made in the article (some alternatives for Search I didn't try myself) while glossing over the 99.9% of it. If your argument is "your examples suck" I accept it, I thank you for bringing in your experience in this discussion, and I'll try to do better next time... or maybe not, I'm still imperfect and lazy most of the time so shouldn't make any such promise!

> why you find them worse than Google.

DDG -> Bing -> Microsoft.

Ecosia -> Cloudfare

Graphene OS -> Reskinned Android

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