Bang searching is obsolete as far as I'm concerned. For any bang search I can think of, I'm confident that I can just search Google for the same keywords (without the bang) and still get the result I wanted. If I search for a movie title, I get IMDB in the top ~3 results, if I search for a product, I get Amazon results, etc.
Using bangs, you can skip a step. I suppose if you're using Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" in your URL bar I suppose there is little difference. However, I find there is a bit more effort when you get outside the simple realm of products or celebs.
For example, if you want to search HN, you can just `!hn searchterms` rather than search "hnsearch searchterms", then click. As someone who searches a lot of different resources frequently, the little bit of time saved is helpful.
If DDG's privacy is not a selling point for someone, then I agree with you; bangs are hardly a reason to stick with DDG.
I suppose bangs save a user input step (since I have to search from the location bar then Tab + Enter to select a Google result), but I would gladly trade that for the additional mental steps of deciding which service to search and what the bang shortcut is for that service.
I essentially used bangs extensively many years ago (not through DDG; I set up custom keyword searches in Firefox), and I agree that it worked quite well. I now use raw Google searches, and I think Google is now good enough that it is not worth using bangs anymore (Google privacy issues notwithstanding).
Fair enough. :) As I said in my original post, if DDG's privacy is not a selling point for someone, then I agree with you; bangs are hardly a reason to stick with DDG.
