Better documentation and implementation of (DuckDuckGo?) bangs

Well, apparently, Brave Search supports DuckDuckGo bangs: one can, for example, search for “!yt Brave” and the YouTube Search Results will open. Honestly, this is a great feature because this is the most important thing that is keeping me using DDG, although I sometimes don’t want to use it (due to the Bing-sourced results).

Yet, I have two problems with this feature.

First, it is nowhere mentioned that bangs are even supported. There are no autocomplete hints for them, no announcement, nothing. Honestly, I am not even sure if the inclusion of those is legal. Hopefully it is :sweat_smile:

Second, Bangs in Brave Search only work for non-empty search requests. In DDG, for example, typing “!yt” (without any request) will take you to the YouTube main page, and I’ve been using this as shortcuts to the websites I often visit: “!yt”, “!tw”, “!w”, “!t”. In Brave Search, however, instantiating an empty Bang request will not take you to the website, but rather show the Brave Search results page for the bang entry. So, “!yt” opens Brave Search results for, well, “!yt”

I think inclusion of Bangs (or similar technology, be it under a different name or not) is crucial if you want DDG users to migrate. I’d like to have more clarity about the current Bangs situation and the future plans.

P. S. Now that “!d” leads to DuckDuckGo, what is left for “The Free Dictionary”? :thinking:

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@NickKaramoff,
Thank you for your feedback.

We have more robust documentation for Search in the works presently – appreciate your patience here.

I believe this feature is also being implemented in future releases. Please remember that Search is still in Beta and many features/amenities are still yet to be included.

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