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Comment by username223 | Hacker News Reader

The key to switching from Google to DDG is memorizing a few shortcuts for fallbacks, like "!g" (Google), "!gi" (Google images), and "!gn" (Google news). It can be annoying at first to have to type the few extra characters, but over time you'll find yourself using them less and less. They will never completely disappear, but one day you'll realize you're only using them in a few percent of your searches. In most cases, you will know in advance that you specifically want "Google results" instead of "search results," and can add them on the first query.

From a privacy perspective, using DDG like this denies Google 95+% of the information it would be gathering about you.

Caveat: I have never wanted "local" or "personalized" search results. I'm willing to type "Chinese food near ZIP code" or "Chinese translation" instead of relying on opaque algorithms to use my location and personal data to decide whether I'm hungry or confused.

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For me it was exactly the opposite: It ended becoming an automatism, I used the flag 100% of the time, by default without looking at the ddg results.

That's when I switched back to Google.

> It can be annoying at first to have to type the few extra characters,

Especially on mobile. Can't they use something more mobile-friendly than "!g", such as "gg" or "/g" for example?

Better idea: place a "Google" button after the (say) third search result.

If not done universally, allow me to activate this feature in my preferences.

I tried DDG a few times but always switched back to Google eventually (typing <BACK> and then <SPACE> "!g" <ENTER> is tiring, especially on mobile). I think this option would make me switch to DDG indefinitely.

I just came up with the idea to make a bookmarklet, which converts the current DDG search into Google:

    javascript:(function(){ var s = document.location.search.split("&")[0].substr(1); document.location = "https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&"+s; })();

It's not perfect, but it's a start :)

To be clear: while this button directs people away from DDG to Google, it actually allows people to use DDG as their first (main) search engine, and lets them switch to Google if necessary without much inconvenience. The better the DDG search results, the less views they lose to Google.

Nice idea! However, I still struggle to see the advantage over "!g".

The workflow is exactly the same: Search for stuff in DDG, and if you suspect that Google might have returned a better result, prepend "!g " to your query (which might be even faster than clicking on the bookmarklet, depending on how fast you type).

I imagine the whole idea is that they don't obviously advertise a way to use a competing service...

BTW, you can also search through StartPage instead by using !sp, or Bing, etc so there's nice flexibility there.

DDG is useful if you're american. I'm canadian and the results are mostly crap.

Canadian. DDG is better for me now, stayin' with it.

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