PHRASES ARE NO LONGER SUPPORTED IN DuckDuckGo, this was an OFFICIAL CHANGE:

Quotation marks have been REMOVED from the list of available operators on their official Syntax page: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax/|

For me, this renders DuckDuckGo nearly worthless - as they also now heavily censor perceived "misinformation" and "piracy" sites as well.

How do I get Boolean NOT to work? I want to know the history of "magical names" in culture. DuckDuckGo insists on giving me sites to "name your baby" or "find your secret magical name". I should be able to do "magical names -your" to get rid of all that irrelevant stuff but it doesn't work on DuckDuckGo. I have to use !g (google) to get useful results.

I have lots to learn.only used a computer for 6 out of ?45 yrs at work.. And that was at E TS where not one thing ever went awry. Patience is not easy. RLJ.

Hi, is it possible to select multiple regions for search results? i.e. - if I'm looking for an item to buy - I may want to get results from all countries of European Union instead of making 10 or 20 search queries for every country.

Awesome article! The syntax commands were great. I have tab thumbnails in DDG which lose their corresponding images. Do you know why? Tried force close, restart, etc., no refresh.

The DuckDuckGo.com help site states that search words are treated in "or" syntax rather than "and"syntax, and that's been my experience. It seems to be necessary to use boolean operators to conduct a search in "and" syntax, a serious efficiency flaw in my opinion.

Thanks for this summary! It seems more complete than the DDG syntax site (https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax/), so I'm wondering where you learned all of this. I'm puzzled by this difference (and wonder whether there are more);
the syntax site says that the default operator is OR, not AND: Example
"cats dogs : Results about cats or dogs"

Like the search engine-BUT- why am i unable to exclude the great internet parasite - Amazon, from my searches ?

Can you use the verbal commands like when you ask Google for a business address and then get directions

Have repeatedly submitted the following Bug report:

The multiple site search syntax (comma between sites) no longer works, falsely returning no search results. This same bug now affects DDG, Google, and Bing. Help!!!

DDG search box instructions say: "Site search: ex: yourwebsite.com (For multiple sites, separate with commas: yourwebsite.com,anotherwebsite.com)" https://duckduckgo.com/search_box

So,

site=yourwebsite.com,anotherwebsite.com

generates a non-working search syntax "site:yourwebsite.com,anotherwebsite.com" (now fails, starting about a month ago, by returning no search results)

but the syntax which the DDG seach box code does NOT generate,

"site:yourwebsite.com OR site:anotherwebsite.com"

succeeds.

Please fix DDG code so that DuckDuckGo sitesearch boxes will start returning search results again.

Can you help get this fixed, or suggest a workaround so that the searches generated by the website search boxes that DDG creates will work again?

Thanks!

I have DDG With the FF browser but do not Know how to put the icon into my dock or have it in launch pad.

Yup! Duckduckgo.com is great on privacy, especially with its association with Tor. I also use a similar search engine named Qreoo.com which does not track, it works more like a crowd sourced search engine. But they are using google analytics and ads. Does that mean google can track me through the website, even though the website doesn't track me.

I can't figure out how to make the DDG answer set page scroll a line at a time when I use the down arrow. It keeps advancing to the next item in the list instead.

DDG is the bomb. It's my default everywhere. Every once and awhile someone does a Google search in front of me and it looks foreign.

Any options for time-limited searches. Like within the last year?

Hi, I've just restored my Win7 to a previous time but when I reloaded DDG I lost the large favorite icons I used to have on my DDG home page for the sites I go to the most. I'm sure it is only a lack of knowledge thing but I would like to know how to restore them. I haven't lost my bookmarks just the large visual icons I used to have.

Excellent information, Brett. I do use DDG from time to time, but I use SmartPage for my homepage and new tab page and for most of my routine searches. It's nice to know all the search syntax that DDG is capable of. I'm going to try some of the syntax you discuss to see if it works on SP. I understand SP is basically an anonymous interface to Google, so this might give me a wider set of options for search. If not, I'll use DDG for more involved searches.

Having time it would be cool to translate to Italian. If I do this, providing the due references on its authorship, would you mind?