Ddg is acceptable but it doesn’t blow Google out of the water at all.

It’s miles ahead for me because of tracking etc, but I can’t see how anyone could think the actual search results are better

Every time in the last couple of years that DDG hasn't had a decent result, and I've used '!g' to see what else might come up, I've been very disappointed... usually a grab bag of crap sites with barely any relevance to my original search direction. We probably have very different searches.

As DDG was mentioned, feel free to come check out Runnaroo.

Similar to Startpage, the base for organic web results is Google, but it also includes additional vertical sources layered in to provide greater relevance.

It also respects literal searches with quotation marks, which is a common gripe on HN.

Still very new, but improving and growing rapidly.

Example search for React.js - https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=react.js

Existing monetization comes from the new Web Monetization API [0] standard (through Coil members) and as part of the Brave publisher program.

[0] https://webmonetization.org/

Thanks for the heads up. I did some quick tests and it’s much better than DDG and 2020 Google, at least for my use case.

I may be an outlier but I haven't had a good experience with DDG for a while.

I don't really feel like I would recommend it.

What about translation tools or maps. Hear of any good ones on here?

Generally speaking, HN posters are not the people who are going to be harmed by anti-competitive behavior or Google filling the first screen of results with their own products. It's ordinary people who use the web.

You could probably argue that ordinary people don't care about quality and they're best served by using the vertically-integrated Google product, though...