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Comment by thirdsun | Hacker News Reader

I try DDG every once in a while for a couple of weeks since I'd like to switch. Yet even today, the results just aren't good enough. Particularly when debugging and searching development related error message I had to use the "!g" bang almost constantly.

For easy queries, DDG is great, but so is Google. When we reach just mildly confusing queries, the differences are very noticeable. One example from the top of my head: Searching for "devise", a popular ruby gem, yields several unrelated results before the actual Gem on DDG, while Google has the Github page as first result. Due to the popularity of devise I wouldn't rate this as a difficult query, yet problems already emerge on DDG. Multiply that by the number of queries you input daily and it becomes annoying.

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I have noticed the same, and find myself using the !g feature in DDG a lot for searches... I suspect this could be related to Google knowing that you tend to search for code (i.e. Ruby) a lot, thus bumping related results to the top. Since DDG avoids storing context for users (from what I gather), I wonder if they'll ever be able to deliver the same quality of results as Google do.

Maybe he could add a 'context' flag on the search. Instead of the engine trying to discern what you are looking for from your history, maybe there could be a way you could tell it. #programming, #cooking, etc. Not sure what the UI should be.

Why not just expand the original query? A search for "devise ruby" works pretty well (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=devise+ruby).

I've long given up searching for trendily-named JavaScript libraries without adding "js" to the search term.

There are some stupidly named plugins & libraries out there, not to mention films and music too. Sometimes you need context. One of my favorite bands is called Perfume, results are terrible unless I provide context or type their name in kanji. I say "one of" but there aren't any others <3

nocchhiiii

I'm thinking more along the lines of collecting the info that google does, but not attaching it to people. Turn it into some sort of group profile that I can elect to be a part of for a particular search- so if I search 'mixers' as one group I get mozilla dev network results, and as a different group I get kitchen equipment, and as a still different group I get local singles' meetups. The difference in the last group is that I wouldn't also get numbers for local divorce lawyers showing up as ads.

(Edit- clarification re: ads)

Or if you think it might be on github, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=devise+github

Or better yet: "!github devise".

Or, even better: "!rubygems devise".

I would guess this is ironically the result of google tracking you and knowing you want the gem. Someone who does not search for code stuff wont get the gem at all I expect.

IIRC, the incognito/private mode doesn't matter here either, at least for chrome's omnibox

Use startpage.com, that uses Google results and doesn't track you. github repo is the first hit for "devise."

Startpage is a mystery to me. Why would Google simply provide a competitor with search results? If they're bought, and that can't be cheap, where does the money come from?

Interestingly, if I search for that on DDG, I get a github.com/plataformatec/devise as third result. Without more context, I don't think that's particularly bad. Adding "ruby" to the query bumps that link to the top.

> Searching for "devise", a popular ruby gem, yields several unrelated results before the actual Gem on DDG, while Google has the Github page as first result.

That's probably because of the lack of tracking. "Devise" has meanings outside of the Ruby world that are - arguably - more significant than the name of some authentication/session library. Google knows this, but - since it's able to profile you and stick you in the "Ruby programmer" pigeonhole - it knows to promote Ruby gem stuff. DDG has no such information, so it focuses on dictionary definitions first, since those are more commonly-useful than the Ruby gem.

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