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What search engine(s) do you use, and why?

Norpo

By Norpo
in The Lounge

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What search engine do you use the most?  

53 members have voted

  1. 1. What search engine do you use the most?

    • Google
      41
    • Bing
      4
    • Yahoo
      0
    • Ask
      0
    • DuckDuckGo
      4
    • Other
      4

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Norpo

Norpo

Posted
Posted (edited)

I was just wondering WHY people prefer certain search engines, most of them are pretty much the same (with a few key differences). This was really inspired from me making a database for some things, then I looked up on how most search engines work. It's actually quite an interesting subject.

Of course most people use Google, but why do most people use google!? <philosopher>Do we use the most popular one, simply because it's there? Does it represent the human condition?</philosopher>

Discuss! (And of course, be civil, no "Search Engine Wars", if that's even a thing) :)

(note, I did search the forums for a thread similar to this. All I could find was gossip about google. So if this already exists, I searched. :P)

Personally, I use google, and I use it because it was the default that came with firefox and google chrome. :P Also, it has those neat features (if you type in weather, it shows you the weather for your area, stuff like that.). But I am also thinking about switching to duckduckgo, simply because one of THEIR features is xkcd + number = whichever that one was. Example: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=xkcd+766

General findings from reading opinions will go in this area: note, I am not a scientist, statistician, or expert. If you're some guy hoping for an awesome source of information by trustworthy experts, yer out of luck. In an academic environment, try explaining that you got your statistics from some guy on a gaming forum with the results being obtained from people posting on a public forum without laughing. Try it.

Disclaimer to people of the future: If you're using this in academia, remember this is a gaming forum. Chances are we just grinned wildly while sending green people to their deaths. That is all.

Some people who don't use google do so out of concerns of tracking, etc, or simplicity.

Yahoo USED to be great.

Poll results as of update, Google: 33, Bing: 4, DuckDuckGo: 3, Other: 3

Edited by Norpo
I swear, if I get the multiple spoilers thing one more time...
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astropapi1

astropapi1

Posted
Posted

I've never heard someone say "I'll have to Bing that later".

I know being the most popular doesn't make it the best (argument from popularity, a logical fallacy), but I noticed that google's results are much more accurate and to the point than Bing's. Why was I using bing, you say? Google stopped working for me for about a month during finals.

Essays were made, google was reloaded to no avail, tears were shed, bing was used, souls were lost.

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Spottyq

Spottyq

Posted
Posted

I really like Duck Duck Go's keywords (no idea how they are called.) Just add any of these keywords to get redirected to another search engine/web service.

Examples :

- !yt to search youtube

- ! to directly go to the first search result (Google's 'I'm feeling lucky')

- !w to search Wikipedia

- !wa to search Wolfram|alpha

- !g to search with Google

- !gi to search with Google image

- and plenty of others…

However, I still find Google better for certain types of queries. Anything local for example is better handled by Google (although DDG is getting better with that.)

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cantab

cantab

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Posted

I'm not sure. I've been trying to use DuckDuckGo because of concerns about Google, but I still use Google a lot. DDG often isn't all that good.

I also use Wikipedia a lot, it's my go-to general reference source, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually my most used search engine.

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Drunken Hobo

Drunken Hobo

Posted
Posted
Has anyone actually used ask or yahoo search in the past ten years? I didn't know ask even still existed.

Somebody hasn't tried to install Java recently...

And I use Google, mainly because I'm used to it and it isn't broken. Much like how I used to use IE, until they did break it.

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bsalis

bsalis

Posted
Posted
Of course most people use Google, but why do most people use google!?

Well, once upon a time there were many search engines, without any real dominant one. Personally I used and like Alta Vista.

Google became more popular and the de facto standard because....

a) it started to provide superior search results compared to the others

B) it focused on search and didn't clutter the site with crap and stuff you were not interested in (unlike, say, Yahoo which was one of the worst offenders)

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Nibb31

Nibb31

Posted
Posted

On one hand, I'm trying to move away from Google, because I'm finding them increasingly creepy these days. So I've moved from Chrome/Google Search to Firefox and Duck Duck Go.

On the other hand, some of Google's stuff is pretty convenient and I love Android and lots of the integration stuff that comes with it (even though some of it is creepy), so I'm still using Gmail and Inbox and Google Maps...

The next version of Firefox will have Yahoo as the default search engine apparently, and Yahoo is taking the opportunity to relaunch itself primarily as a search engine.

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Red Iron Crown

Red Iron Crown

Posted
Posted

AltaVista. Because I'm old school.

Seriously though, Google. I'm invested in their services, their tailored results are great, and it's rare that I don't find what I'm looking for on the first page (seriously, you could hide a body in the second page of Google search results). They probably have a fairly complete profile of me, don't care because they use it well.

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