Since I went Google free, I've been using DuckDuckGo as my main search engine. It wasn't really the accumulation of your search history that made me move to DuckDuckGo. I just wanted to try something different.

That said, one of the key things that makes DuckDuckGo different to Google is that your searching isn't tracked. When you search on DuckDuckGo, you remain anonymous. I'm not too concerned about my search history being archived by Google, I just wanted to reduce my Google search footprint and to see less advertising on my search results.

One thing I have noticed is that the search results are vastly different from Google in terms of the number of results. Google simply offers more results than DuckDuckGo. It is simple numbers. Google have been around for longer and have had time to build the most popular search engine. However, I can find what I am looking for on DuckDuckGo most of the time. Where the results haven't been successful on DuckDuckGo, I can append the !g operator on my search to tell it that I want to search Google. I don't use this very often now, but it is a nice to have.

A benefit of DuckDuckGo is that the search results can be ad free. None at all. I love this. Search results that are just search results and nothing more.

http://s3.matthewlang.co.uk.s3.amazonaws.com/2013/duck-duck-go-screenshot-1.png Search example on DuckDuckGo

You do need to change this in the settings, but it's refreshing to see a search engine give you this choice. For a while there it seemed that Google was hell bent on pushing as many ads down your throat as possible on a single page.

DuckDuckGo does offer a few extras to help with other tasks besides searching. Aside from the typical math calculations you can enter, you can also do the following:

• Expand shortened URLs with the expand command followed by the URL you wish to expand e.g. expand [bit.ly/a](http://bit.ly/a) with show you the expanded url in a search results page.
• Search other sites for things e.g. hn rails will search the Hacker News website for stories and comments containing 'rails'.
• Generate a password for an account e.g. password 15 strong will generate a stong password of 15 characters.

DuckDuckGo also provides operators that you can use in your searches. It simply means that you can search through other sites right from DuckDuckGo. I use it quite a lot for searches on Amazon using !a and Wikipedia using !w. Couple these with searching DuckDuckGo from Alfred and I have a fast and easy of not only searching DuckDuckGo, but other sites as well.

Since using I started using DuckDuckGo, I've been impressed with its results and its capabilities as a search engine. Everyday I'm learning new shortcuts and ways of searching. That means less mouse clicks for me and less time spent tracking down the search box on other websites. It flexible and fast and well worth checking out if you're looking for an alternative to not just Google, but also Yahoo and Bing as well.