Has DDG become any better for programming-related searches?
Asking, because last time I tried using it for more than a handful of queries, I ended up jumping back to using Google because searching for obscure programming error messages seldom led anywhere useful.
I use DDG for everything but searching for code and programming issues. Google seems to have much better results for code related searches, but for everything else, DDG does well enough.
I tried using DDG a while ago. For most things it worked fine, but my biggest (only real) issue with it came when searching for solutions to technical problems.
For example, say I'm programming and I run into some obscure error message generated by some 3rd party library. From what I remember, DDG (in general) tended to require more fine tuning of the search query than Google in order to find in order for me to find the information I was looking for.
Unfortunately I can't think of an example of the top of my head, as this was awhile ago.
edit:
Another example: Say I remember an obscure forum post from months ago. Which search engine is more likely to find it? DDG is great, but it still needs to improve somewhat in these areas before I switch over to it entirely.
In practice ddg is great for everything except searching for programming related things. I guess Google knows I'm a programmer and filters my results accordingly. Sadly about 60% of my searches are programming-related.
You're right, nowadays DDG is really not bad for satisfying everyday web search needs. On the other hand, I cannot help but switch to Google (g! at the end of the query) for anything programming related because Google just finds things that DDG doesn't.
In my attempt to switch over to DGG, I found its programming-related search results to be particularly bad. Searching DDG would give relevant results of questionable quality, or completely unrelated results (like links to tennis racket information when searching for help with the Racket programming language). The same search on Google would return relevant Stackoverflow threads and blogs which seemed more reputable.
I still use DDG about half of the time, and can't think of any egregious examples I've encountered recently. Perhaps they've gotten better, or I've learned to write better search queries.
I have a rather better experience than you. Yes, DDG isn't as good as Google in programming queries, but it's good everywhere else, and I like knowing that most of my searches aren't tracked. That's worth having to retry a few searches once in a while.
I used DDG for two months and as a developer trying to find the latest bugs, code snippets, and help; It was a lot harder on DDG than in Google. I would always end up having to type google.com <tab> in my address bar to search for programming related items. That being said, people have pointed me to resources to help me improve my search results.
DDG has basically equivalent results for most things, but I find that I use !g for programming stuff enough that I've gone back to just using the Google site for those searches. It feels like Google has better results for more recent programming topics.
I prefer DDG for general search, but google was too good at digging up obscure code errors. I end up spending more time looking for errors than general stuff (which I guess means I'm a terrible programmer), so grudgingly switched back to the googs.
I'm going to take the contrary. I switched to DDG for a few weeks, but since have switched back to google. DDG is fine with general things ("Java", "Vim tutorial", and so forth), but fails with the specific (programming errors, how to set up esoteric programs, etc).
So DDG could do the job for about 60-70% of the searches I would make, but it sometimes would just turn up absolutely nothing and just say "why not try google?" It was cool to see DDG admit they aren't perfect, but I started wondering (as it happened more) why I wasn't just using google anyway. So I switched back. Really, using DDG so much has made me appreciate google more for being able to really scry into the crannies of the internet and 5 year old forum posts for the answers that I need.
DDG works well enough for me on anything but programming. The moment I need to search for anything programming related, Google works much better for me.
I too switched over to DDG around the same time, and I mostly agree - but I've had the exact opposite experience specifically with programming questions.
I can't even count the number of times I've searched for something (usually semi-obscure errors) on DDG and come up dry, only to enter the exact same query on Google and the first or second result will have the answer I needed :(
DDG has improved substantially recently. I've had some technical search queries that gave me 2-3 results on DDG, and when I used the !g bang to lookup in Google, I got a "no results" page. =P
I use DDG search most of the time, but I find this to be untrue. DDG is pretty good, but struggles with context a lot more than Google does. For example, when searching for an error in a programming library, DDG is likely to return the library homepage, whereas google is more likely to return the specific github issue where the error is being discussed.
Maybe it depends upon the specifics, but for technical queries I've found DDG to be hands down better than Google for years at this point. Google used to be great, but with the dropping of both code search and specific matching even when using quotes, I've found it to be pretty terrible in recent years compared with a decade back.
I have tried to use DDG for technical queries but Google still trumps them in this regard. However, I have noticed that DDG has gotten considerably better in general non-technical queries over the past year.
Asking, because last time I tried using it for more than a handful of queries, I ended up jumping back to using Google because searching for obscure programming error messages seldom led anywhere useful.
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