In September 2025 I published a piece entitled “Alternatives to Google: Is DuckDuckGo Useful for Research?” where I explored whether DuckDuckGo is useful for research purposes. Since then I have been using DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine, though I have not completely “de-googled.” Today, I wanted to write about my experiences transitioning to a new search engine and explain how it has influenced by work so far. I should note that these reflections were written in December 2025.
First, it is important to clarify how I use DuckDuckGo and Google. DuckDuckGo is my default search engine on both my computer and my mobile phone. I still use Google, but primarily for specific services—Google Mail, Google Drive, and most importantly Google Books. The use of these services is partially dictated by the sort of projects that I am involved in, which have overwhelmingly opted to use Google Drive as a place to store and collaborate on files. Others, such as Google Books, are driven by convenience and the need to access or identify relevant academic materials easily.
The above clarification goes a long way to explaining my workflow. When I conduct a search I do so in DuckDuckGo, but if I am researching and writing I will often also have a tab with Google Books open to conduct searches there and ensure that I do not miss any important materials. This might sound a little convoluted, but when Google was my primary search engine I would often search in the same way—a Google Search in one tab and a Google Books search in another. In other words, my basic searching behaviour hasn’t really changed and my basic workflow hasn’t really increased.
After I published “Alternatives to Google: Is DuckDuckGo Useful for Research?” some people told me in conversation that they couldn’t transition to an alternative search engine, because alternatives to Google provide poor search results. This is not something that I have found to be true in the case of research. Search results are different, but not necessarily “worse.” I have been pleasantly surprised by the general quality of the results and my ability to discover resources that I have previously overlooked. For example, when searching for different kanji, DuckDuckGo often refers the user to Kanji Jiten Online, whereas Google often recommends other sites such Kanjipedia. Prior to transitioning to DuckDuckGo I didn’t use Kanji Jiten Online very much, but I have found it to be a very useful resource especially during the process of transcription when looking for alternative or historical kanji.
It must also be stated that the basic functionality of Google and DuckDuckGo are quite similar—if you search for definitions DuckDuckGo provides some at the top of the page and if you want to translate something DuckDuckGo has a translation tool just like Google.
Figure 1: DuckDuckGo‘s definition and translation tools.
Where I have noticed a difference in search results is when searching for images or locations (i.e. maps), where my personal opinion is that Google performs better. For example, if I search for hashika-e (Edo period prints about the topic of measles), Google provides what I would describe as “desired” results i.e. images of measles prints, whereas DuckDuckGo returns a large number of “undesired” results that are literally illustrations of measles. As such, if I have to do an image search or use a map, I might open Google to do so instead. I have also used standard Google searches on occasion, but these are invariably for non-research related topics.
Figure 2: Comparison of an image search for hashika-e on DuckDuckGo and Google.
There are three facets of DuckDuckGo that I really like. First is the ability to turn off AI features. One can turn off the Duck.ai search removing AI results from the top of a search and it is also possible to automatically filter out AI images in search results. Second is the ability to easily select a country to search from. This means that one can easily choose to search from Japan, thus removing Chinese-language results. When I visit the UK, Google often provides a large number of Chinese-language results when I search in Japanese regardless of the number of times I change the language settings. This issue is effectively eliminated by the country selection button on DuckDuckGo. Finally, is the lack of advertisements that dominate Google search results.
In conclusion, I have had a generally positive experience using DuckDuckGo as my default search engine. It often provides different results from Google, but that does not necessarily mean that the results are qualitatively worse. I have not sensed that it has had a negative impact on my research or workflow even though I still have to use some Google services such as Google Mail, Google Drive and Google Books.I like the option to turn off or avoid features that I feel have a negative impact on user experience on other search engines such as AI search results and advertisements. The only parts that I have found to be lacking are image and map searches. I highly recommend giving an alternative search engine a try if like me you are fed up with the type of results that Google provides or due to privacy concerns—you won’t know how it really affects your daily life and work until you’ve given it a try.
Cover Image: “DuckDuckGo” by ijclark is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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