What's your favorite search engine?

[GekkoP]

There are a few out there.

I like StartPage and DuckDuckGo.
Picking one between these two is quite hard. I tried DuckDuckGo a long time ago and it wasn't smooth and powerful like it is now, so I gave up at first. StartPage uses Google, so I went with it because of better search results, at least based upon what I was looking for.
I switched back to DuckDuckGo lately, and researches now suit my needs. I don't know what they made but they made it good. So ok, let me pick DuckDuckGo for now as my favorite search engine.

[dkeg]

Mainly Google out of habit. But ddg is my a favorite. Honestly just haven't bothered to change the default FF default search. Ixquick is good too. I also really like the endless page style ddg has.

We discussed this a bit when deciding on a default for roaster

[Alad]

Don't know, I always use Google*. It seems it has better results than Startpage - which uses Google!?!

*I've turned off all the "features" in my control panel. I was surprised at all the things it kept on me - even when I thought I was logged out. At least it tells me, right? X(

[bones]

Startpage, sometimes DDG.

[machinebacon]

Startpage, ixquick -- in the past I like scroogle, but that's past. Being in the PRC, google is often blocked, so I sometimes switch to yahoo or the domestic baidu if I need more China-specific results.

[wuxmedia]

just vanilla google.

[RandomCharacter]

Startpage or DuckDuckGo

[ivanovnegro]

Vanilla Google here, too. And honestly, I love it that way, it does what I expect it to do, even a bit customized and not using the localized version, I prefer .com but just in my preferred language.

[kexolino]

Same as Black Ivan, I prefer google.com. I used DDG for a while but Google always seems to give better results.

[pidsley]

I use ixquick. The few times I tried DDG I did not like the results. And I hate that damn cartoon duck.

ixquick and startpage use google as their backend -- they just remove any identifying information first.

https://startpage.com/eng/top-ten-ways-startpage.html

StartPage gives you 100% real Google results in complete privacy.
When you search with Startpage, we remove all identifying information from your query and submit it anonymously to Google for you. We get the results and return them to you in total privacy.

Alad, I don't know why you would get better results from Google, but it's been a very long time since I used Google. Maybe run some side-by-side comparisons with identical search terms.

[Alad]

^ I regularly use site search (site: ...), and startpage seemed to have less relevant results than google with the same pages. I'll try it again.

[machinebacon]

Hmmmm, I was also under the impression that startpage = google, but...

...firstly, startpage displays ads
...secondly, it shows just around 10% of the results

The best way to test it is using links2, for example, which does not store cookies, so the results are really 'clean'.

Talking about cleaniness, startpage looks better in a tiler running a CLI browser. Will stick with startpage nevertheless, it has an inbuilt 'proxy' in case I cannot connect to VPN.

[GekkoP]

Damn you guys, you put me back to StartPage. ;)
Seriously, though, there is one thing that I love with StartPage (and the same can be said for IxQuick): looks much more simpler and less bloated than DuckDuckGo.

[elixir]

DuckDuckGo.

[ivanovnegro]

DDG had a page overhaul. Looks less cartoony now.

[ivanovnegro]

Ok, tried Startpage again, and man, it is so uncluttered.

[Alad]

DuckDuckGo? FuckDuckGTFO.

http://www.alexanderhanff.com/duckduckgone

[machinebacon]

"Trust me. I'm a duck."

Up yours, DDG and Gabriel Weinberg.

[machinebacon]

[irony]
Adding https://www.gigablast.com/ to my trusted search engines ;)
[/irony]

Try searching there for LinuxBBQ, you get one (!) result that dates back to the last millenium. Bravo.

[Subsentient]

DDG because they give Google their money only some of the time.