So til that if you use DuckDuckGo search engine, and you’re not happy with the result and want to run the previous search through Google, instead of copying your search, then heading to Google, then pasting your previous search, you can just add !g to front of your search in DuckDuckGo and that will auto direct you to Google and run that search for you!

For example: !g search term for Google

    • KesharaOP
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      2324 days ago

      Its amazing, I work in the IT industry, I love exploring different areas of tech, but the concept of bangs in a search engine has never come up haha. I’ve seen not ever really used them in a terminal when forgetting to run a command as sudo

        • KesharaOP
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          524 days ago

          I really need to try this out at some point. Just been too lazy to give it a shot

      • andrew_bidlaw
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        824 days ago

        Firefox also allows to make them for different search fields, e.g. if I write pic and then my querry, it brings me images.google.com results. Kinda nice if bangs don’t cover your usecases.

          • @SirQuack@feddit.nl
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            23 days ago

            If you bookmark a URL you can add %s to the URL somewhere to add a query. If you the use a keyword on the bookmark (the bottom field, usually) you can do [keyword] term and it’ll replace the %s with term

        • @SirQuack@feddit.nl
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          123 days ago

          The most powerful bang is ! , which is “I’m feeling lucky”. It combines with everything.

          mdn http status ! will show you the http status code list on mdn, GitHub actions docs workflow context ! will lead you right to the correct docs.

  • ArchRecord
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    5224 days ago

    Bangs are great.

    My favorites are:

    • !w for Wikipedia
    • !d for a Dictionary
    • !t for a Thesaurus
    • !yt for YouTube
    • !archiveweb for the Internet Archive

    and I’ve found it usually works with pretty much any site name you’re thinking of searching (e.g. if you want to look up a movie on IMDB, chances are !imdb will take you there.)

    • TheTechnician27
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      2124 days ago

      This is just one of multiple bangs for the Internet Archive, and probably more intuitive and quick ones include:

      • !ia for the Internet Archive generally
      • !wbm for the Wayback Machine
      • ArchRecord
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        724 days ago

        oh, thanks, that’ll make it way quicker for me to type out!

    • KesharaOP
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      724 days ago

      The dictionary bang is 100% something I’ll be using quite often moving forward

    • @SatyrSack@feddit.org
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      24 days ago
      • !ud Urban Dictionary
      • !startrek Star Trek wiki
      • !stargate Stargate wiki
      • !wayback Wayback Machine
      • !tineye Reverse image search
      • !bang Check if there are any DuckDuckGo bangs for a particular site
      • !itad Is There Any Deal?
      • !steam Steam store
      • !sp Startpage

      You can also use a bang itself, with nothing else before or after it, to just go to the homepage for that website. That can be simpler than typing out the whole URL.

  • @TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca
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    3024 days ago

    Using DDG to route into Google defeats the point of avoiding Google in the first place.

    Use !sp instead to route your search through Startpage, which is essentially Google without the Google BS.

    • KesharaOP
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      1024 days ago

      I hear you, but sometimes when I’m working I want 2 things when trying to solve a problem quickly; 1. Accurate results, and 2. Speed and performance.

      So while I do use SP on occasion, I find that sometimes for me it can take a while to load the results and just generally get a bit laggy. This can really start to annoy me over the course of a day, it’s those moments when I just bite the bullet and go to Google directly if DuckDuckGo isn’t giving me what I need

    • @jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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      624 days ago

      Only needed for about 2% of my queries. So definitely doesn’t defeat the purpose if 98% of my queries don’t leak out to google.

    • The Quuuuuill
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      524 days ago

      it used to be a great way to get google results that weren’t custom. then in 2019 google disabled that api

    • @Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      123 days ago

      DuckDuckGo is an alright default but sometimes I just need that better, more tailored search from Google.

      Nowadays I often use AI for questions though. It gives better results and a more comfortable way.

  • Rentlar
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    724 days ago

    That feature to search a multitude of websites via Duck Duck Go was a gamechanger when I found out about it some years ago. I’ve not gone back since.

  • BarqsHasBite
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    624 days ago

    Or g! Or at the end.

    Also w! for wikipedia.

    I think there’s a few more.

  • @letsgo@lemm.ee
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    623 days ago

    But why would I want a bunch of ads and SEO shit that doesn’t answer my question?

    • KesharaOP
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      124 days ago

      Have the search results on Brave Search improved? I tried it a few months after they launched it and found the results terrible

      • @m4m4m4m4@lemmy.world
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        524 days ago

        I switched to it from DDG which I found was enshittifying lately, but to be honest I don’t really like it that much, just gave a bit better results than DDGs and has bangs, but the AI thing is absolute BS and there’s no way to disable it without saving cookies on your browser.

        Now that I look at startpage again I’m thinking to give it another try but am not sure if it has bangs too and if you can set settings in their GET method as you can with DDG.

  • Cris
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    424 days ago

    Works in brave too!

    I use !gi a lot because brave image search sucks lol

  • FundMECFS
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    424 days ago

    Wanna search on “google” without selling your data to google.

    Well just like duckduckgo is basically bing but with trackers removed, startpage https://startpage.com/ is the same for google!

  • @LambdaRX@sh.itjust.works
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    24 days ago

    Or use !()startpage for more private search using google’s results. Sadly it’s much more typing.

    Edit: there’s !s bang, it’s as short as !g