DuckDuckGo
A few months ago I switched my default search engine from Google to DuckDuckGo and I haven’t looked back since. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s superior but it is fantastic, fast and simple, and that’s more than enough for me.
I should start by saying I’m not paranoid about security. Google already knows too much about me, and changing my search engine won’t do anything to change that. I still rely on Google Maps, Gmail and Google Photos and have no reason to give them any less data than I already do. This isn’t about increasing privacy. This is about increasing choice. Though that’s a very strong argument too.
Sure, there’s Bing and whatever service Yahoo no doubt continues to push, but realistically Google holds an impressive monopoly on search. A monopoly on something that is so crucial to how we use the internet doesn’t sound healthy, so when competitors appear on the market — and they’re worth serious consideration — I’m excited to try them. Enter DuckDuckGo.
DuckDuckGo has been around since 2008, but it’s only really in the past few years that they’ve started to push into the arena as a genuine alternative. And rightly so. It’s fast, accurate, and clean. It can apply many of the same filters that you’re used to (targeted countries, safe-search, results from the past day or week) and covers images, videos and news just fine.
It even has the little extras that we’ve come to rely on our search engines for. Searching for the “square root of 12” returns a normal page of results but with a calculator at the top with the mathematical result displayed for you. The same happens for “45 feet in meters”, just as you’d expect. For developers, the top Q&A result is given special consideration, with the accepted answer appearing straight in the search results, meaning you often don’t need to click through to anywhere when you’re looking for that one-line answer to a question.

And the main feature that convinced me to switch? Google is always only two characters away. Add “!g” to any search — including straight from the browser address bar — and it’ll automatically redirect you to Google with your search query. This is super helpful if you know you’re looking for something very specific, or you’re searching for a place and the Google Maps integration with reviews, popularity and open/close times is really what you’re after.
It’s little features like that that convince me they’re onto a winner with DuckDuckGo. They realise what they’re up against, and will happily take you there if that’s what you need. The striking thing to me though is just how good their search algorithms appear to be. I’ve been using it exclusively both at home and at work and I’ve hardly noticed a difference in search results — it’s aware of the same things and returns results in fractions of a second. For a start-up to be even in the same realm as a company that has been refining their world-class algorithms for decades is seriously impressive.
If you’re concerned about privacy, or just want to see what the competition is like, I’d highly recommend taking DuckDuckGo for a spin. After a few weeks of using it I don’t see any need to return to Google, and I’m excited to see where they can take it while staying true to their core values on privacy.
