Stop using Google. You can’t change them, you have to leave.
I’m using Duck Duck Go now.
Is it a viable alternative? How is it going?
It’s really good these days. Kagi is still the beat, but if you want free, DDG is the way to go.
I’ll have to give this kagi a shot I never heard of it! DDG just doesn’t ever seem give me what I want and I’ve been trying it forever. It’s like I’m always playing this cat and mouse game with the search engine and it just gives me alllllmost what I want but not quite.
It’s not free, but I find it worthwhile. I really hope Apple includes it as a default engine in the next update.
Kagi doesn’t sell you shit, so if you use Google for that, you can’t get that replacement data:
I’ve been using kagi for 6 months or so.
It’s lit.
Free Google (& other) proxy: SearXNG
Further reading / Instances: Searx.space
One good instance: SearXNG.site
For basic searches (kinda a Bing reseller with disappointing results): DuckDuckGo
Vote-with-your-wallet alternative: Kagi (who may have astroturfed or may have not, but great engine at $10/mo unlimited - have tried their free trial)
Comments of mine RE: why everybody’s just reselling search ($1b+/yr to operate your own crawler): one and two
works fine for me, and their implementation of AI (only letting it use wikipedia and maybe some select other sources) is pretty nice IMO, perfect for answering questions like “how many people live in X Y Z cities in total?”.
You can also look into Ghostery private search also. I’ve been using it some and it appears to be at least as good as DDG. YMMV
I am also considering switching to Bing.
DDG drops ads in results too just not as many yet
Slight update to this comic, to call out the dangers of Google’s Sponsored Results.
Examples, for those that are not aware of this risk:
- https://www.techradar.com/avoid-google-ad-malware
- https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/scams-verify/google-ads-scammers-redirect-website-url-different-search/536-4ef6c41d-087e-4db9-a281-86bcf7637c68
- https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/01/using-google-search-to-find-software-can-be-risky/
- https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/01/rogue-sites-causing-trouble-in-google-advert-results
I rarely trust top results from google, since I’m uncertain if I somehow missed the tiny gray text saying that it’s an add.
Yeah, that shit is illegal where I live and search engines do it anyways. Unfortunately not enough lawsuits…
I’m honestly amazed no one’s sued google over the site telling them things like “Jump off a bridge if you’re depressed” or that products have been recalled that haven’t
by using uBlock Origin, uBlacklist, and then something other than Google.
Do you mean to tell me that I keep scrolling I’ll eventually get to the yellow promised land?
Just one more “o”, maybe it will be there…
that’s what she said
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It might protect you from a lot of Google’s shit show but it won’t show you good results too.
Kagi is the only usable search engine for me right now. Yes, it’s not free. I needed a whole year to convince myself to pay for searching but I finally did it and it is absolutely worth it. I’m a SE though, so searching stuff is like half my job.
I’m with you. At first I thought it was getting shilled, but the search results are great. I also bought a 12 month subscription to Nebula. I’m giving these services a go and see if they can replace all the enshitified services.
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Well, sure. If it works for you then by all means keep using it.
I’m just recommending a service which I find very useful. I actually first heard about it on Lemmy and I’m grateful for the recommendation so I spread the word in hope of helping someone else.
I thought everyone was overreacting until I used Google on the computers at my college and I realised that DDG had been insulating me from all that horror. Thank goodness I switched when I did.
until bing goes down again
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I haven’t used Google in about 3 years. I use duckduckgo and I just eventually figured out how to use it, you have to be a little more specific but I can get what I’m looking for straight away these days. I’m aware they’re not private anymore since they got bought out but I use technology like this with the assumption any data that can be collected, is collected, and will be sold off at some point, so don’t search anything you wouldn’t want your grandmother knowing about lol.
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This started to become noticeable years ago when Google decided to start censoring searches even with SafeSearch off.
I switched to Bing at that time, which was good for a while, but eventually they have started doing the same thing.
I can now no longer find a search engine that actually works to find me all the relevant results. I’ve tried all that I’ve heard of, and none will provide complete results.
The easiest canary in the coal mine for this is NSFW stuff. If I search for a popular character of which I know there’s lots of porn/hentai, with SafeSearch off, and do not get a heavy mix of SFW and NSFW results, I know that search engine is messing with those results, and is also definitely doing it with searches that are not so obvious.
I’m currently prioritizing DuckDuckGo over Google and others for a better quality of search results. There ain’t much ads to mess your attention, and the results are quite good most of the time.
kagi.com for me has been more than worth it for the price with unlimited searches.
Try out the searxng browser plugin. It pretty much takes you back to the first pane.
I just subscribed to Kagi to try it out.
Great! Everyone should try the free tier just to have a look at alternatives. To be honest after a few weeks and several specific searches I’m not ready to do the switch though.
Been like this for years now, I jumped ship 4 years ago to DuckDuckGo, might even jump that ship if it gets any worse, but alternatives…
I tried using DDG for about 3 months, until I had to ditch it. I want to use it, but its results are even worse than Googles.
While on Google I might have to scroll past the ads, sponsored links and obvious AI blog results, the first page will usually at least contain a relevant result somewhere, whereas DDG simply doesn’t bother to show any relevant results at all. Even on it’s first page, it will stray far from the actual search term.
Use Ecosia.
