I was first introduced to DuckDuckGo a couple of years ago. I would say that I am a novice user and in the experimental stage. DuckDuckGo is a privacy search engine. DuckDuckGo’s open source areas include Instant Answers, Community Platform, Static Sites, Mobile Apps, and Addons.
DuckDuckGo does not store your personal information ever. There is no tracking in or out of private browsing mode, and no ad targeting. Privacy search engines do not log your IP address or any searches you conduct. Keep in mind that once you leave the DuckDuckGo results page and link to a website, that domain will probably track you.
Using a search engine that does not track your searches or IP address means that you can avoid the “filter bubble” effect. Using DuckDuckGo you will not get results that the search engine decides might interest you.
I must say as a disclaimer that I use Google, Advanced Google, and Google Scholar all the time and feel very comfortable and secure in my search skills.
Nice features on DuckDuckGo include:
- Search suggestions are offered as you type a query.
- Search results scroll vertically and you do not have to go from page to page to see additional results.
- !bangs allows you to use specific websites extremely fast. Type an exclamation point right next to a keyword, usually the website name, followed by a search term. !bang does not work with every website but you can add a site by filling out a form.
Areas that need improvement:
- At this time it does not match Google for accuracy and intuition.
- Based on my limited testing of DuckDuckGo results and rankings are different.
As I learn more about DuckDuckGo, I try to compare my results using multiple search engines to broaden my scope. I take advantage of filtering options and advance search tips, like adding “news” to a search term to get instant news about a topic, or the word “map” to generate instant answer map results. What are your experiences with DuckDuckGo?