Quack

There are various online search engines which managed to make a name for themselves, but it doesn’t mean the lesser known engines can’t live up to expectations. There are also desktop applications which make searching more comfortable, and Quack is a suitable example, retrieving results from DuckDuckGo.

First of all, the application can be put to good use from the moment download is done, because it’s not packed inside an installer. This also means it can be your personal search application to be used even from a USB flash drive on other computers. Note that .NET Framework is a mandatory requirement for functionality.

On the bright side of things, the application doesn’t modify registry entries, nor does it make any changes to the default search engines used in your web browsers, so you can rest assured that your system remains intact. It does, however, rely on your default web browser to display results, but this is more of an advantage rather than an inconvenience.

As far as the visual design is concerned, the interface displays an edit field for input of strings, as well as a set of controls. As mentioned, the application retrieves results from the DuckDuckGo search engine in a new page from your default web browser.

Configuration options aren’t abundant, and make it possible to choose the location of settings, and can either be from cookies or URL parameters, which you manually need to provide. A cool trick in this regard is to assign a hotkey command to the program’s shortcut, just so you can launch it regardless of the explorer location.

All things considered, we can state that Quack might not come with a great variety of configurations when it comes to the search engine used, but it gets the job properly done. It doesn’t make any changes to your system, displaying results in your comfortable, default web browser.