i've been using DDG for a few years now. i generally like it a lot. however, i have decided to stop using them for image search. their filters are just not good enough.
two examples: I've searched for some kind of speedo (jammers?) and got to see a really problematic image I thought of reporting to the police. and just recently, i image searched 'martin from the simpsons', because I came across his name and forgot which character that was. near the top of the results were some really wtf images (now removed). I don't want to see that stuff - so if anyone at DDG sees this: please up your image filters.
Agreed, with one caveat: DDG image search, in my opinion, is far superior to Google Images because it still allows you to right click -> save image and right click -> open image in a new tab (and it actually opens the image, not the page that contains the image).
Google Images has been deteriorating every year for over a decade now.
Linking directly to the image file (and in fact a cached version of the full image) is one of the best reasons to use DDG.
Reverse image search is also intentionally gimped, unlike non-US jurisdiction Yandex which is quite good.
It's certainly for legal reasons, not technical, but Image Search has gotten progressively worse every year. It used to be godly effective 10 years ago.
It's not often any more that when I search for an image that Google Image Search is my last stop. I use DDG, so when I need an image I try any of !gi !bi !yi or just !i
Yep, Getty Images sued them and Google had to remove the view images button, making the process of viewing the source image more difficult and convoluted.
I've now resorted to using DDG anytime I need to do an image search, and have been using it more and more myself when searching for anything related to IT or programming.
Ok, I will simply stop using google image search.
I should probably stop using google search at all.
The only reason I actually could stand the awful image search result page was that it would let me bypass even more awful websites when looking for images.
Now they remove the only functionality I use I'll search for images somewhere else.
I replaced 90% of my images searches with Bing Images. I like the UI better and the results are almost as good. Since I use DDG for ~80% of regular searches and Google for the remainder, not giving one party all information seems like it should somewhat level the playing field.
Also, I was going to type that a small percentage of my image searches still go to Google for their license selection feature, but I figured I should double check, and whaddayaknow? Bing can do license filtering too. Not sure how good it'll be, but I'll definitely be trying this.
Note that instead of typing !something (which I find quite annoying), you can just bind your browser to a keyword. I type "bi test" in my address bar for Bing Images "test" search, instead of having to type a bang and some by-ddg-defined shortcut and giving DDG the data (not that I distrust them, but need-to-know...). Wiki searching is also super convenient like this: wi for wikipedia, dwi for deutsch wikipedia, owi for openstreetmap wiki, etc. Right click in the search field and choose 'Add keyword for this search' usually does the trick.
Try Bing for images. Again not as good as Google, but a whole lot better than DDG -- in terms of search results, that is. In terms of speed, I think Bing and Google images are on par.
Anyone have any opinions on the state of image search? What do you use?
I find Google Image search, which I used to love, filled with absolute garbage now. 90% of links are to Pinterest which greets you with usual overlays, signup modals etc. I use DDG's image search because I find Google's search unusable.
Also, Yandex image search is probably the best reverse image search on the market. It's crazy how much better it is than Google.
Image Search has also been completely ruined by their push for ML based results without even checking if it's better.
Years ago I could Image Search a frame of a film and get the film title almost every time, now I get a generic "Street" or "Man" search term and then a bunch of photos that have streets in them with a similar color palette which are never from the film.
They've got so excited by the tech that they can identify an object or setting that they've forgotten just finding the same image elsewhere online and using the context of the web page would give a better answer.
two examples: I've searched for some kind of speedo (jammers?) and got to see a really problematic image I thought of reporting to the police. and just recently, i image searched 'martin from the simpsons', because I came across his name and forgot which character that was. near the top of the results were some really wtf images (now removed). I don't want to see that stuff - so if anyone at DDG sees this: please up your image filters.
reply