Keyboard Maestro Forum Now Searchable via a DuckDuckGo Bang (Abbreviation)

Forum Admin
1

Some time ago I requested a so-called bang for the KM forum at the DuckDuckGo search engine. It is online now, and the bang is !kmf.

For the Google/Bing users: A bang ist a shortcode in the form of “!xxx…” which you can add to the search field in DuckDuckGo. It will redirect you to the search function of the corresponding site.

That is, to search the KM forum directly from DuckDuckGo you simply enter the search term and the bang in DDG’s search field, for example:

 !kmf timestamp macro

It works also with the bang at the end:

 tag:swift !kmf

A complete index of available bangs is here.

@peternlewis: I hope this is OK for you…

Tom

6 Likes
2

Thanks, Tom. That should be helpful.

I tried DDG for a while. Unfortunately, I found that too many times it was failing to find critical links that Google did find. So, I’ve now switched back to Google.

I understand the privacy issues with Google, and have either tried to mitigate them, or accept them.

I found, and have been using, this Chrome extension which eliminates most/all tracking:
Ghostery Browser Extension

I believe it is available for most/all Browsers.

It’s good to see you back in the KM forum. It’s been a while.

3

Hi Michael,

I tried DDG for a while. Unfortunately, I found that too many times it was failing to find critical links that Google did find. So, I've now switched back to Google.

I’m sorry for your bad experience with DDG, but it’s certainly not a strict one or the other thing.

Strangely in the last time I sometimes get more (valuable) search results from DDG than from Google. Not sure why, maybe I’m in the famous Google bubble ;). Have to clean up Google cookies more frequently.

I found, and have been using, this Chrome extension which eliminates most/all tracking:
Ghostery Browser Extension … I believe it is available for most/all Browsers.

Well, as you can imagine, I’m not using Chrome (except for the occasional stupid site that requires Adobe Flash). For Safari nowadays there are quite some blockers that use the new content blocker API. These work quite well and are more lightweight than the old-style blockers (uBlock, Ghostery, …). I wrote a short roundup recently on my blog.

But actually the intent of this post was not to discuss privacy problems. It was meant to notify DDG users (or occasional DDG users) of the handy !kmf bang. I imagine many users are not aware of the convenience of these bangs, I discovered them late, too. Basically they can save you from the hassle of creating web searches in LaunchBar (or KM) for many sites.

It's good to see you back in the KM forum. It's been a while.

Don’t worry, I won’t simply disappear :wink:

4

That is really awesome, I would not have thought that was a possibility!

Thanks so much for this, that is a great thing which I will personally use myself and which I really appreciate!

1 Like
5

I found that when I tried DDG a few years ago and like you I switched back to Google. But I tried again about six months ago and I've found that DDG works well. Occasionally when I can't find something I'll try Google but it almost never finds it for me. I do often use the !i bang to use Google Search for an image.

So if it has been a while, it may be worth giving DDG another shot.

6

This is excellent @Tom ! Thanks for getting this going so many years ago.

1 Like
7

I hope that you and me aren't the only users of the !kmf :wink:

3 Likes