What is the ultimate search engine for developers – You.com vs Google vs DDG?

What is the ultimate search engine for developers – You.com vs Google vs DDG?

Berlin, 7/20/2022

The following post is a slightly rewritten and shortened version of an article published by Tamas Kadar on his website „Hackernoon“. Kadar about himself: „I am a 27-year-old entrepreneur, CEO and one of the two founders of one of the most exciting fraud prevention projects.“

https://hackernoon.com/

„As developers, we depend on good search results every day. If we can easily find what we need, it can make a significant difference in our productivity.

Recently, a new search engine, You.com, hit the market. It promises many features geared specifically toward developers that can speed up our workflow.

„I wanted to compare it to DuckDuckGo (a popular and also privacy-focused search engine) and Google, which is probably the default search engine for most developers.“

Query #1

python euclidean distance

https://you.com/search?q=python%20euclidean%20distance&ref=hackernoon.com

To start, I wanted to know how to calculate Euclidean distance in Python. Both You.com and Google provided great results from StackOverflow and relevant websites. The main difference was how the results were presented.

With You.com, I was able to preview directly on the search results page and copy code snippets from StackOverflow into a page window. Not bad. Plus, I didn’t have to click on each link individually, but could see multiple responses at once in the horizontal bar. Most of the sites I rely on support these features – StackOverflow, W3 Schools, and Towards Data Science, to name a few.

With Google, I also found what I needed, although I had to spend more time than I did with You.com. I had to click on the site first, look around, and figure out where the answer was (possibly getting distracted by other content on the site).

DuckDuckGo’s results were similar to Google’s, although I didn’t like that the first two links were ads, even though Google didn’t show me ads for that query.

Query #2

python array length

https://you.com/search?q=python+array+length

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=python+array+length

https://www.google.com/search?q=python+array+length

I wanted to test You.com, DDG and Google with a fairly simple query and looked at how to determine the length of an array in Python. Again, all the search engines did a good job of displaying results. All three search engines showed me a W3Schools page and a relevant askpython.com article with the answer.

However, You.com’s results were much easier to get to, which saved me time. I could see and copy the answer directly from the search results page. I also found You.com’s results to be visually appealing in the applications.

With Google and DDG, I also found what I was looking for – but had to open the website first or search for the answer in Google’s Quick Facts app, both of which cost me more time. DDG again displayed ads, which I found annoying.

Query #3

genetic algorithm python code

https://you.com/search?q=genetic+algorithm+python+code

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=genetic+algorithm+python+code

https://www.google.com/search?q=genetic algorithm python code

I recently saw a Youtube video that modeled natural selection in Python. I decided to try something similar myself. Searching for Python sample code for genetic algorithms turned up some great libraries and blog articles on Google and DuckDuckGo.

Overall, I was pleased with the search engines, but really liked the results from You.com. Articles from Towards Data Science, which can be viewed in a horizontal view, and Github repos, which can be browsed directly from the search results page, offered me more diverse search results and a quicker overview of the topic. DuckDuckGo’s ads were again distracting and not really relevant.

Query #4

best python machine learning course

https://you.com/search?q=best python machine learning course

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=best+python+machine+learning+course

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=best python machine learning course

I’ve been wanting to deepen my knowledge of machine learning for some time, so I searched Google, DDG and You.com for the best courses on machine learning with Python. I think the screenshots give a pretty good idea of how varied the results were.

On Google, the first 4(!) pages were ads. I barely saw an organic result on the first page without having to scroll. DDG did a better job here, showing me only two ads and a few relevant articles. In comparison, You.com’s results were excellent. The first results were Coursera courses, which were clearly presented in their own app and offered the option to scroll horizontally to get a quick overview of the courses. Since I don’t have to visit the website and still get all the information I need, I save time.

The next result was a recent blog article with some great and quality course recommendations. Reddit is a great and valuable resource for any questions. I also set Reddit as my preferred source and saw several threads from various subreddits right on the search results page.

Conclusion

You can find what you need with all three search engines. However, You.com focuses specifically on developers and offers features like the ability to copy code snippets from the search results page and app support for commonly used sites like StackOverflow or Github, making it faster and easier to get where you need to go.