Mainly that you don't need to set them up. I have set up loads of custom searches in Opera (which was the first to have this functionality, years ago), but there are always search engines you hadn't thought of.
Looking at the !bang help page for DDG, I discovered HN Search, for instance, which I did not know of before. Knowing this, I could of course set it up as my own custom search, but `!hn whatever` is easy enough that I haven't felt the need yet. Additionally, dunno if Chrome or FF do this, but in Opera if you select text and right-click it you can search it with a custom search engine. It's in a submenu of the context menu, and it's nice to not have it too cluttered :)
One additional trick with custom searches in the browser, is to key Google's "Feeling Lucky" to `go` (just append `&btnI=yes` to the search URL) and DDG's equivalent feature to `dd` (prepending `!+` to the query, that's a bang and an encoded space btw). Super useful if you know your first hit is going to be what you want anyway. For some reason, Google occasionally gives you the result pages anyway instead of redirecting you, btw. Didn't use to, but they changed something I guess.
In Firefox it is only a matter of right click on a search-form input + click on "Add keyword for this Search...". Couldn't be easier than this. Reading the DDG help on available shortcuts takes me longer. (In Chrome it is harder and they should really copy the Firefox user experience)
Using DDG for such functionalities makes no sense when this particular feature should be a feature of the browser.
Yes it can. Chrome does it automatically. It also has a better UI to boot.
The way Chrome works is, if you've ever searched a site, typing the first few letters of the site name (say, "go" for google), then hitting tab, will give you the site's search. These are added automatically, as long as you've ever searched a site before.
Advantages of Chrome's way:
* They're added automatically. Visiting your family's house? They probably already have the standard Amazon/Wikipedia searches, no setup necessary.
* Once in the mode of searching a website, the text you typed (e.g. "go" for Google) is NOT part of the textbox. This means that when you press "home", you go back to the start of they text you're trying to type. Want to copy paste the query before hitting enter? Much easier with Chrome.
Disadvantages of Chrome:
* Very rarely, a search isn't added. I don't bother adding them manually cause they're rare.
* The letters you have to type for a site are the first letters of the URL, not site name. This means Hacker News Search isn't "Ha<tab>", but rather "ne<tab>".
That's only easier if what you're looking for is what Chrome automatically finds. If not, you're going to have to set up a custom search somehow anyway.
Looking at the !bang help page for DDG, I discovered HN Search, for instance, which I did not know of before. Knowing this, I could of course set it up as my own custom search, but `!hn whatever` is easy enough that I haven't felt the need yet. Additionally, dunno if Chrome or FF do this, but in Opera if you select text and right-click it you can search it with a custom search engine. It's in a submenu of the context menu, and it's nice to not have it too cluttered :)
One additional trick with custom searches in the browser, is to key Google's "Feeling Lucky" to `go` (just append `&btnI=yes` to the search URL) and DDG's equivalent feature to `dd` (prepending `!+` to the query, that's a bang and an encoded space btw). Super useful if you know your first hit is going to be what you want anyway. For some reason, Google occasionally gives you the result pages anyway instead of redirecting you, btw. Didn't use to, but they changed something I guess.