DuckDuckGo Bangs

Everyone knows the Google search engine and it needs no introduction. It is the most popular search engine on the internet. Apart from Google, there are other search engines such as Bing, Baidu, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Ask.com, AOL.com, and many others.

The DuckDuckGo search engine is known to protect user privacy and prevent the filtering of personalized search results. It comes with many advanced features that you won’t find on Google and other search engines.

A notable feature is Bang.

With DuckDuckGo Bangs, you can search your favorite sites and blogs without having to visit them in advance. Bangs are shortcuts that quickly lead you to search results on websites. When you enter a search term into a search engine, you usually get different search results from different online sources. However, with DuckDuckGo Bangs, you can jump directly to the site/blog you want faster.

Search desired websites with DuckDuckGo Bangs

Each !Bang command will have an exclamation mark and shortcut for the sites and blogs you want to find.

The typical format for !Bang DuckDuckGo is:

!<bang-name> <search-term>

Similarly, you can search other sites, such as Wikipedia, using the !W <search-term> shortcut.

For example, to search for Linux on Wikipedia, enter the following query in the DuckDuckGo search bar:

! in linux

To find a topic on the Arch wiki, simply type:

!arch pacman

To search for a video / channel on Youtube, enter:

! yt video / channel

To search for something on Amazon, enter:

!a books

To search for something directly on Reddit, enter:

!r news

To navigate to a specific sub-reddit, type:

! sr kalilinux

Search other search engines with Duckduckgo

You can even directly search other search engines with DuckDuckGo.

For example, to search Google from DuckDuckGo, simply enter “! Google <search-term>” in the DuckDuckGo search bar.

Example:

!google <search-term>

To search for an image like Kali Linux in Google Images, type:

! googleimages Kali Linux

Likewise, enter “! Bing <search-term>” to search the Bing search engine from DuckDuckGo.

List of !bangs

Just enter an exclamation mark (!) And you will see a list of popular !Bangs.

Duckduckgo will also list suggestions when you type the first few letters of bang.

There are currently 13,505 Bangs available to easily and quickly search any query on any website from DuckDuckGo.

Hidden features of the DuckDuckGo search engine

To begin with, DDG is not really a search engine. Or rather, not even a search engine at all, but a sort of aggregator of responses from different search engines. In his work, he uses search results from Yahoo, Bing, Yummly, Yandex, Wikipedia, and hundreds of other “reliable” sources.

This feature makes DDG very accurate if the sources contain information on this particular request. It easily gives comprehensive answers to queries like “linux df”, “long happy life”, “Java InterruptedException” or even “is it raining”. But as soon as you enter something more complex, something that isn’t in DDG’s sources, the results will look sad, especially when compared to Google.

Nevertheless, these are the sources of information, or rather a more complex mechanism built on their basis called Instant Answers (instant answers) and is one of the main DDG chips, with which it is worth starting a story about this unusual service.

Instant Answers

What DuckDuckGo calls Instant Answers is actually very similar to how Google’s suggestions work: if a user entered a specific query and the search engine knows the exact answer to it, it will display it on the screen without forcing the user to click again.

The only difference is that Instant Answers follow simple known rules and can be extended by users. The  DuckDuckGo Instant Answer Directory contains about 1200 recipes that allow the search engine to provide information in response to a wide variety of and mostly technical queries.

DuckDuckGo can display brief help on Linux commands in response to a  linux cheat sheet , find the required Debian packages (for example,  debian version vim ), display information about your location ( where am i ), show instructions on how to remove yourself from various services ( delete my facebook account ), tell who is currently in orbit ( peaple in space ), decipher the meaning of ( (O_o) ) emoticons, and even show jokes about Chuck Norris ( chuck norris jokes ).

From a technical point of view, this is a rather primitive system that often does not work if the search query is slightly changed. But in the right hands, DDG is capable of a lot and turns into a full-fledged command line.

The real command line

Among DuckDuckGo’s instant responses, there are many that have little to do with search. One example is those cheatsheets like  linux cheat sheet ,  javascript cheat sheet ,  vim cheat sheet  and many others. In fact, they are hardcoded into the search engine, so it doesn’t even need to go anywhere to show them.

But there are much more interesting examples.

IP addresses, URLs, DNS records and postal address validation

Probably the simplest DDG query would look like this:

ip

It displays your IP, location and even zip code. Simple information, for which you do not need to go to third-party sites.

More complex query:

dns records in-sight.tech

It will show DNS records that belong to the in-sight.tech domain. Simple and tasteful.

If desired, you can ping in-sight.tech:

is  in-sight.tech down

Or check the validity of the email address of one of its editors:

validate xxx@gmail.com

Want to shorten a long link to one of the in-sight.tech articles? No problems:

shorten https://in-sight.tech/

Expand back? Easy:

expand https://is.gd/FGAAbx

You can even generate a QR code to quickly open the link on your phone:

qr https://is.gd/FGAAbx

And all this without going to third-party websites and having to install browser extensions. Simple and straightforward.

Generator of passwords and hashes

DuckDuckGo will help you if you need a strong password of a given length:

password 10

It can even generate a passphrase:

random passphrase

Or encode the data using the Base64 algorithm:

base64 encode <текст>

Need a hash? It couldn’t be easier. Choose:

md5 <текст>
sha <текст>

If the hash already exists, but you do not know what algorithm it was generated by, this is not a problem either:

hash <хеш>

Programming

DuckDuckGo’s programmer-focused capabilities go beyond cheats and auto-displaying responses from Stack Overflow. There are other tools as well.

Are you looking for a Python module in the PyPI repository? Easy:

python pyhub

Need information on one of the jQuery methods? And you can:

jquery .ajaxsuccess

Not sure if you wrote the regex correctly? Check it out:

regex /(?x: (w+) s (w+) )/ hacker magazine

What about complex equations? Google can also count how many will be twice two, but this is definitely too tough for it:

compute Integral Of X^2 Dx Solve X+2>3x

In fact, you can even write a script without leaving the DDG homepage:

python syntax highlighter

Submit this request and you will be presented with a complete editor with Python code highlighting. The only pity is that you won’t be able to launch the application.

HTML codes, colors and CSS

DuckDuckGo is friendly not only to programmers but also to web developers and designers. They have a color table at their disposal (in fairness: a bad 16-bit color table):

color codes

CSS color table:

css colors

And the HTML character table:

html chars

With the ability to search for the desired symbol:

html dollar

Other nice features

DuckDuckGo is not only able to handle formulas, search for packages, and generate passwords and hashes. There are a huge number of other types of requests to which he knows the answer. It can find information about the file extension:

file .txt

Decrypt the numeric representation of UNIX-like OS access rights:

chmod 755

Convert lowercase letters to uppercase and vice versa:

uppercase blacktriangle
lowercase BLACKTRIANGLE

There is a built-in calendar:

calendar

Timer:

countdown 10m

And the stopwatch:

stopwatch

There is even a function for creating banners from ASCII characters:

figlet BlackTriangle

Bang requests

All of these functions are implemented within the framework of the same Instant Answers mechanism. You enter a request and immediately receive an answer right on the search page. But what if you need not one specific answer, but several options at once; it’s not a fact, for example, that the “best” answer from Stack Overflow will suit you. For such cases, DDG has a bang-request mechanism.

Bang requests are one of the most famous and commonly used features of DuckDuckGo. Its meaning is extremely simple: if you want to find information on a specific site, it is not at all necessary to go to it and look for the search box. You can do this:

!so Java InterruptedException

And DuckDuckGo will take you to the Stack Overflow answers page. Likewise, you can search Twitter (! Twitter), eBay (! Ebay), YouTube (! Yt), Facebook (! Facebook), and over  9,000 other websites.

By the way, there is about the same feature in Chrome: you type in the name of the site, press the space bar and enter a search query. However, Chrome requires you to visit this site at least once before the function works. And bang requests will work even if you use a browser that does not store data about your actions (for example, Tor Browser or Brave), or, say, download Tails from a flash drive.

[ad name=»Responbl»]

Operators

Like Google, DuckDuckGo supports operators to refine your query. With their help, you can, for example, search for a string only on the specified site:

gentoo kernel panic site:linux.org.ru

Or find only certain types of files:

android security report f:.pdf

Or search by page titles without considering their content:

intitle:"iphone 8"

You can immediately exclude words that do not interest you from the query:

intitle:"iphone 8" -android

And of course, there are “and” and “and / or” operators:

(apple)AND((macos)OR("os x"))

This query will find all pages containing apple macos or apple os x.

Settings

DuckDuckGo has another important advantage – an advanced settings system that allows you to change many different parameters, from the appearance of the search window (six themes are offered and the ability to make your own) and the choice of a map service by default to HTTPS settings (enabled by default) and display advertising (yes, advertising can be disabled by standard means).

Thank you all, good luck everyone!