Full text search vs LIKE

Question

My question is about using fulltext.As I know like queries which begin with % never use index :

SELECT * from customer where name like %username%

Answer 1

Like and contains are very different -

Take the following data values

'john smith' 'sam smith' 'john fuller'

like 's%' 'sam smith'

like '%s%' 'john smith' 'sam smith'

contains 's'

contains 'john' 'john smith' 'john fuller'

contains 's*' 'john smith' 'sam smith'

contains s returns the same as contains s* - the initial asterisk is ignored, which is a bit of a pain but then the index is of words - not characters