It’s getting a bit ridiculous out here. I’m using DuckDuckGo but since it aggregates its search from other sources, it’s also gotten bad recently. Is there a search out there that blocks domains that spam AI? Extra points if there’s something like Ublock Origin that filters things based on a community-made list.
Edit: I’m aware of Kagi but it’s pretty expensive and I’m not a fan that they, too, host their own AI tools.
Search is eventually going to be so enshitified that the way to actually find out things is going to fall back on “ask someone you trust who knows things you don’t”. At least by that point those trustworthy people should be better informed than in the past…
I use uBlacklist to filter out stuff from search results, it works with a bunch of search engines. It has various lists you can subscribe to, also including anti-AI ones.
Looks super cool. Too bad they don’t have a way to add custom SearX instances other than modifying and building the extension yourself.
I think the best way to make the Internet less sh*tty is to get away from Google search.
I like the SearX search engine. It gives old-school, relevant search results, not google ranked ones.
It’s also spread out over many separate instances, so you can pick the one that best suits your search needs:
I’ve had good luck as a back up to Duck Duck Go with Mojeek. It’s so old school, it doesn’t always know what you want, but I sometimes want that.
I’ve found Mojeek to be a bit hit and miss; but one thing I really appreciate is that they actually do the indexing and searching themselves (whereas pretty much every other search site uses Bing or Google behind the scenes). So although Mojeek may not be ideal, they are at least making an effort to be independent.
I selfhost it on my laptop, pretty easy, and I always have it just the way I want it. Still pushing shit uphill with the AI crap, but better than any one search engine (it amalgamates many). Relevant to OP I have a large block list enabled, but it’s very much a moving target.
Oh damn. That was like a proper internet 2.0 kinda experience. A feller could get used to that.
Kagi! You can block websites so they don’t show up. It’ll also flag websites that contain a lot of spam or ads.
Man, i was looking up info about arrow rests for recurve/olympic archery yesterday and stumbled on a website that use some sort of AI fever dream for their images.
One kinda looked like a violins neckbrace (i don’t know what those things are called) with some strings attached, but it looked like it should look like a thing but after closer inspection it was actually nothing sensible.
I think we’ve all seen those images that look like a room filled with itema but when you look at a specific item your mind figures out it’s just weird shapes and colors.
What a nightmare that was.
I had a similar experience today looking up beer bongs. Some real cthulu type of shit.
Unless I need something recent whenever I search I update the results to dates from like 1999 to 2021. Filters out a lot of unnecessary crap.
I’m actually using searxng and just blocking any website with blatantly written AI shitcontent.
Ilused to use searx.be , had frequent down times and bad results.
Switched to startpage.com
I’m using Startpage too, but I have a feeling that the search result quality had a massive drop lately.
They use Google and Bing for their results last I checked. So, if those two get worse then Startpage will too.
I don’t know. Maybe Google is actively limiting results for Startpage. When I don’t find what I’m looking for in Startpage I switch to Google and boom, adequate search result. I refuse to permanently go back to Google though.
Could be that. Could also be the fact that Google adjusts results based on their profile of you, giving different results from Startpage.
Have you given Kagi an actual shake? If you are not interested in saving preferences longer term, you can keep cycling through free accounts. Now more than ever, it is a breath of fresh air. If I want a quick AI answer without scrolling through some ad-ridden web page, I just put a “?” at the end of my query. If not, I have no AI garbage on my results.
