HN Explorer

Poll: Which search engine do you primarily use?

34 points by llambda ↗ HN
In light of the recent DuckDuckGo stats, it should be interesting to see what HN users prefer.

Originally choices were listed in alphabetical order but since posting some additional choices have been added. So it may be beneficial to look through the full list of choices before voting. Sorry about that!

(Please be sure to also vote this poll up as well as vote for a choice; voting for a choice doesn't up vote the poll!)

23 comments

[ 7.0 ms ] story [ 159 ms ] thread
thekungfuman
No love for ask? Or webcrawler? Or lycos? :-)
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darxius
Until this morning is was Google. I'm now giving DuckDuckGo a try and LOVE it.
vaksel
Google

DDG seems to be the hipster search engine to me...look at me I'm at the forefront of search technology...sure the results suck compared to Google..but at least I'm not a sheep like the rest of the sheep using the internet.

slowpoke
While the results could sometimes be more relevant, being a "hipster" is by far not the reason many people use DDG. I originally switched because I cared for my privacy, but I stayed for the awesome features, like the bangs and often insanely helpful instant-results (I can't count the number of times my queries were answered without clicking even a single link).
vaksel
the thing is that noone really cares about you enough for you to worry about your privacy.

Hell, even celebrities don't get their Google search histories published in Tmz...so you have nothing to worry about.

And if you are planning to do something illegal, then using a different search engine won't help you one bit

slowpoke
If find it downright disgusting that you imply caring for privacy is in any way related to pursuing criminal activity. I seriously hope you aren't attempting the "if you have nothing to hide" rhetoric. That fallacy has been dismantled into oblivion, and everyone who uses it should be laughed out of the building, never to be taken serious again.

Let me present my point either way: I simply do not want anyone, be it corporation or government, to have aggregated records of my habits, behavior and interests, because I find this to be discomforting and highly dangerous. Information is a powerful weapon in the wrong hands, and nothing guarantees that these data aggregations were, are or will be safe. I do not care about it being published - I care about it the fact that it exists in the first place.

I do not even know how this is an issue of who cares. Apparently, many people care, and privacy is a fundamental (constitutionally granted) right in many western countries, at least on paper. Just because you don't think it matters doesn't mean it isn't an issue for more than enough people.

darxius
I switched to DDG due to them being majorly transparent and them caring about my privacy. Also wouldn't you be a sheep for using Google seeing as it is the most used search engine on the web?
CrazedGeek
I still use Google. DDG is really quite nice, but I find I get more relevant results on Google.
jftuga
I find wolfram alpha to be the most useful in some situations, otherwise I use Google.
strager
80% DDG (primary), 10% Google (fallback), 10% specialized search engines (MSDN, AS3, Hoogle, etc.).

Typically, for general searches, if DDG doesn't give the results I want, I add !g to my query to search Google. (Usually searching for error messages works better on Google, for example.)

bitops
Waaaaay back in the day my favorite search engine was Excite.

Truthfully, I don't see a compelling reason to ever switch away from Google. I always find what I'm looking for there.

riazrizvi
I thought I'd give DuckDuckGo a try, thinking a search engine must be good to have people start using it, when Google does such a bang up job already. Seemed fine at first. Then I typed in my own name, and unlike Google, DuckDuckGo decided to post some other guy with the same name in MY number 1 search result position. I think I'll be switching back now.
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romnempire
i use bing because they basically give you money to use it. (bing rewards -> amazon gift cards -> weeeee). It works out to like 2.50 a month at most, so it's only worth it for penny pinchers, buuuuuuuuut, for just switching search engines, money is money is money (rewards is giftcards is useless-shit-i-would-have-spent-money-on).