Search Engine Preference

I have been using Google since my beginnings on the web. Here recently I have thought about switching my default search engine on iOS.

What do you all use to search the web?

I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo about a month or two ago. Unfortunately, I’m finding the results aren’t nearly as good. Your mileage may vary.

Google. Privacy sucks, but the search results are the best.

I did bing for a while cause the rewards points are pretty good, but like the others, google has the best results, or at least the results I expect.

I’ve been using DuckDuckGo for a few years, long enough that I can’t say how it compares to Google these days. The goods thing is that Safari on both iOS and macOS can be set to use it as the default search engine.

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DuckDuckGo and if I can’t find it !g brings me right to google. Best part is definitely the bangs and privacy.

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Duck Duck Go with !g as a fallback as well.

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DDG here, too, but I find I need to use the g! very often to get to what I was actually looking for. Especially for tech stuff.

That’s why, using the KISS principle, I just stick to Google. Why use 2 search engines?

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I use Google for all my searches, but just open an incognito or private browser to do the search. That way it’s not tied to my Google account, and I still get the best search engine in the world.

I read that even using incognito mode doesn’t stop Google from tracking you, correct?

Google will still have your IP address. There’s nothing to stop them from noting that they received an incognito mode search query from a particular IP and that IP is also logged into, say, gmail as a particular user.

Duck Duck Go. I like the anonymity.

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I’ve recently been making my own bangs for DDG that aren’t really through DDG. For example, I use my preferred text expander and have !mpu be a link to this forum. It’s made thinking about other potential bangs a lot more streamlined (!yt for youtube search is great!)

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Google. I really don’t care - right now, at least - what they glean from the data they gather as a result.

IP address isn’t enough thanks to NAT routers and multiple users sharing a single IP address, but there will potentially be other factors that Google might be able to use to narrow it down if they really had to (want to) … and that’s a different question.

DDG is usually fine for me.

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Back when I was a kid, I once accidentally used Yahoo search to pull up a site I was pretty familiar with because the URL wasn’t auto-filling. The first few results were all phishing sites. I decided at that point that quality of results was my #1 priority and have kept it as such today, thus I go with Google.

I’ve been using Duck Duck Go for many years, and it finds what I want 99% of the time. For the 1% when it doesn’t get it I just use g! - like many people on this thread.

For research, I use DEVONagent Pro - which is much more powerful than any internet-based search.

I use DDG too but I kinda feel like it’s similar to trying to put out a forest fire with a teaspoon. I mean, unless you use a VPN full time (I don’t), every server between you and DDG gets your IP, and you can bet they’re logging it.