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Comment by AbacusAvenger | Hacker News Reader

My success rate with DuckDuckGo searches is noticeably lower than Google. I always search on DuckDuckGo first and then fall back to Google if I can't find what I'm looking for, which is about half the time. So I'm actually confused about why you don't have problems with the search results!

So the search quality doesn't keep me attached to it. The main reason I keep using DDG is because of the "bangs" feature:

https://duckduckgo.com/bang

So I can search for "104.20.44.44 !bgp" or things I've used bangs for in recent searches like "ascension kit !nhw", "dark brotherhood !uesp", or "samaxwelladams mass effect !yt" and instantly get what I'm looking for without having to add a bunch of special search engines to my browser.

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I don't know why it never occurred to me to try putting the bangs at the end of the result, but you definitely just saved me a lot of future time I would have spent jumping to the beginning of searches to edit them.

Seriously, thanks.

You can actually put them pretty much anywhere and it still works.

+1. I can't believe I didn't know that.

I do the same, searching DDG and falling back to Google if I can't find what I'm looking for, and I only need Google about 10% of the time, rather than half.

But I never realized bangs worked at the end of the search. Glad you mentioned that.

!sp has google results without google tracking you. Start page I think it's called

They actually work anywhere, even in the middle.

I remember realising this and being astounded at the keyboard efficiency gains such a small thing can bring

> I always search on DuckDuckGo first and then fall back to Google

Why? Why the extra steps? What is the success rate on google? For what I search for for example (which is a wide variety of things) I have great success and really don't have a need to get the type of results that I have gotten from ddg. So my question is if 'success rate with ddg searches is noticeably lower' why do you continue to do that?

I can't answer for who you replied to, but I use DDG because I support what they are trying to do. I will often support something even if it is a bit more inconvenient if I feel like they support my moral and ethical standards.

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