Actually, I prefer Brave over Google for tech subjects because it shows exerpts from forums (incl. Reddit).
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Me too, especially when I search about coding related staff, Brave AI is very accurate. It saves a lot of time for me compared to hunting down a gem in search results.
One thing I want to mention is that youāve probably got an entire life of familiarity with Google Search. No matter what else you use, there will be a (somewhat long) period of adjustment. A large part the of the āthe results are not as good as googleā factor is subjective and based on your familiarity and expectations (there are 100 little ways in which this plays out, from subconsciously knowing how ot phrase queries, to subconsciously knowing where on the page to look, to the happy Google colors (which is probably the only thing I still miss).
Like most people, I was initially disappointed in the quality of privacy search engines, but kept at it due to the privacy advantages. Within maybe a year Iād become mostly comfortable with it but still missed Google. Within a few years, I became very comfortable with DDG and rarely fell back to Google. Then I had my eyes opened to !bangs, and learning to integrate these into my habits exponentially increased the usefulness of DDG and I rely on them extensively.
10 years on, I can truly say I donāt feel Iām missing out on anything by not using Google, its not even fully a privacy decision at this point, Iām just happy and comfortable with DDG, to the point that when I use someone elseās computer I find it a minor inconvenience to have to use Google Search (not that I hate it or anything, its just not what Iām used to and not what I prefer.
TL;DR switching away from the search engine you have used for most of your life will always be uncomfortable at first.
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What is !bangs ?
I need my eyes opened 
on duck duck go, you can do ![bang] to search on different sites such as google, wikipedia, arch wiki, amazon, ebay, and thousands others. Itās great
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Personally, the push away from Google wasnāt for privacy, but from censorship. Rob BraxMan talked about how Google will bias your news and search feed to balance your āextremistā views.
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Essentially they are modifiers that you add to your search query that allow you to search some other search engine (or some websites search function) directly from duckduckgo (or any other browser that makes use of !bangs)
They are useful in many ways:
- it lets you be much more precise
- It allows you to fluidly search basically any provider you want right from your browsers search bar
- It allows you to easily āfall backā to a another search provider, if your default search engine doesnāt answer your question.
- It allows you to search a website directly as if you were on that site.
Maybe you are looking to buy a new phone, you want to check prices on amazon, from duckduckgo you can just !a Pixel 8 to search Amazon directly and go straight to Amazon results. !e for ebay
Likewise maybe you use Linux. And you are looking for info about a technical topic like efistub just type in !aw efistub to search the Arch Wiki or you want to look up info on a certain package !pkg snapper to search the Arch repositories
Or youād like some general info about a historical event, you could search Wikipedia directly !w nakba
Probably the most popular use though, is using !bangs to fall back to other (often less privacy-friendly) search providers when you canāt find what you are looking for with your current provider, or you want to use another option for a specific search. While I prefer DDG for general search, I still often use Google Maps. I can just add !gm to search for something on google maps directly, or !gi for Google Images, of !sp for startpage
The beauty of !bangs when you are first transitioning to a new search engine is, it makes it so it isnāt an āeither or choiceā you can switch providers and still fall back on your old provider as much or as little as you want.
If you use Duckduckgo you can type !bang into your search bar to learn more, and see the full list of !bangs. They exist for nearly anything, I think there are over 10,000 that can be used with DDG. I use about a dozen on a daily basis in a manner that requires almost no thinking, and maybe a couple dozen others on occasion.
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Iāll look into it. Thanks guys.
Donāt forget, you can create your own !bangās also, see DuckDuckGo New !Bang ā¦ it can be handy for a site you own 
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Bangs sound really cool, in this regard DDG is more innovative then Google, but for academic purposes, making the switch from DDG to Google will be tough.
For now I will set my default browser to DDG, but might have to switch back to Google for the sake of time.
This dilemna is largely solved by !bangs . Ideally (in terms of privacy) youād move away from Google completely. But until you get to that point, integrating !bangs into your workflow makes it so your choice of search engine isnāt an āeither/orā choice anymore and you can have the best of both worlds
You can set DDG as your main search engine, and anytime you need to search an academic topic just add !gsc (google scholar) or !g (google search). This workflow makes it so you can have privacy by default, and only fallback to less private options in the specific contexts you need to.
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ever since I started using Kagi, I havenāt had to use any other search engines. ddg/startpage are my backup options but havenāt needed em.
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I totally agree with this; !bangs have been the solution for all the times I donāt find what I want on ddg.
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Donāt forgetā¦ Academic searches in Google gives you political biased results! You have to do your own research even on sites not in searchresults to get an full academic overview which is not biased. Thatās why most academic researchers are on the same political and not always right way, you have to color outside the lines and accept the possible comments if your result does not lineup with given Google results.
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Any source for this claim?
No it isnāt.
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We must not end in a political discussion, but just look at the fact over last 8 years:
- you will not find factbased sites about No climate change
- you will not find factbased sites about medical issues around C-shots and much higher deathrates.
- you will not find factbased sites about growing ice Antarctica.
- you will not find sites who can show that WHO wil get full power and medical ownership over your body as of may 2024.
- solarpannels, windenery, electric cars are more devasting for the world then google shows you.
- etc.
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It might not be directly related to Google Search, but I had seen all of the above in my YouTube feed more than once.
Sure, the algorithm would make you see what you expected to see. But thatās that. It doesnāt show bias results/contents on purpose. There are tons of anti-Google content everywhere on Google owned networks: Google Search, Google News, YouTube, etc. I hope to see more of anti-Apple content regarding its privacy practices BTS.
That isnāt a Google issue. You are not finding fact-based research about these claims because they are not based in fact.
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@exaCORE Whether those claims are true, I think itās off-topic here. I donāt want the topic to be derailed.
The point is, the users can find both sides of the facts/claims on Google Search and its other networks. Various factors could be involved here, thus making one side of the fact/claim to popup more often than another. For example, it is very difficult to find the side effects of C-shots from a year or two ago compared to today.
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My rebuttal to this is, I am a critical thinker, only when it logically makes sense to me, then I am happy to accept it, along with it aligning with my perception of reality, and my observations.
Science and academia are definitely not without their own issues, but you have to think for yourself, does this claim logically make sense? With most conspiracy stuff they simply do not make sense, they do not align with my perception of reality and observations. Furthermore, oftentimes such conspiracies have ZERO evidence.
I can filter BS immediately, that Google may feed me, but yes we are humans and are prone to mistakes, so having unbiased results would decrease the susceptibility we have to making mistakes, so you are right in that regard.
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