I use Google Search rarely but <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;ncr" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;ncr</a> is still in my muscle memory. 
Nowadays I just ddg.gg and in the rare case I&#x27;m not satisfied with the results I add g! in the search bar.
The g! seems to give me the same results as <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;ncr" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;ncr</a>. (I like to consider this a feature and not a bug.)<p>To give you some perspective: I live in Germany but prefer to read programming or scientific topics in English. My English is not so good but the amount and quality of English content counterbalances this by large. When using Google from Germany (google.de or google.com, doesn&#x27;t matter what) looking for English search terms gives me subpar search results.<p>There is another reason for avoiding local Google search (google .com or google.de without ncr). From about October to mid December whenever I&#x27;m was not logged into Google I could only search when I OKed a popup to accept Google&#x27;s terms. There was only an OK button so I could only search if I explicitly accepted their terms or logged in (I did neither). ncr avoided this problem. They stopped doing this but still nag with a big banner to accept their terms.<p>Just to be clear: I&#x27;m not complaining. I just think that most HN readers are not aware of this and some might prossible be interested to know how using Google another country feels like.<p>The only use case I have for Google search is localized search. For example: Yesterday I wanted to look up the ensemble of a local theater. There is nothing that can beat Google in this regard.