we all know Google’s usefulness has diminished if you’re searching for something the algorithm doesn’t have it’s nose on, personally i don’t feel searxng (i used the nicfab.eu one) gives the best or most useful results either, what’s out there?
Been using duckduckgo for years and generally gets the job done. If I want more local specific results then I’ll just add !g to my search which’ll do a Google search
Duck Duck Go is literally just Bing without the personal data. If it works for you then it works for you, but it’s good to know what you’re really using.
from wikipedia: DuckDuckGo’s results are a compilation of “over 400” sources according to itself, including Bing, Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wolfram Alpha, Yandex, and its own web crawler (the DuckDuckBot); but none from Google.[62][3][63][64][53] It also uses data from crowdsourced sites such as Wikipedia, to populate knowledge panel boxes to the right of the search results.[64][65]
deleted by creator
I’m quite aware of that fact. Not sure where I gave the impression otherwise. When it comes down to it, pretty much all the options are just proxies/aggregators for other search engines - that introduce privacy.
deleted by creator
DuckDuckGo/Brave + Kagi.
Others, more specific uses:
I use Perplexity.ai. It was so good, I ended up buying the Pro version. Google ain’t got shit on Perplexity. On the other hand, Perplexity is most useful for information that requires some sort of synthesis. It’s less useful for a basic search like definitions or where to find something nearby.
Thanks for the suggestion I hadn’t heard of this.
I just tried it to find some simple info that I struggled finding last night because I had to shovel through so much crap with Google. It definitely did a better job than Google did.
It’s sad how far the Goog had fallen.
How did you buy a “Pro” version of Perplexity? I have the app installed and there’s no option to purchase anything.
In a browser, there’s an option on the left hand bottom corner if you sign in.
What is different about the pro version?
You get a hilarious 600 prompts per day for copilot, which uses GPT-4.
Lol, sounds like a downgrade 😅
I like the paulgo.io searxng instance for most queries its fine. As for truly novel search engines that dont just scrape google, theres search.marginalia.nu and yacy.net
Great discussion.
Because it’s happened gradually I’ve just gotten used to Google being less and less useful.
It’s good to try something else.
This thread made me try Perplexity, Kagi and SearXNG. I’ll give them all a run over the next week or so and see how they go.
I use Yandex when I suspect Google isn’t telling me everything.
DuckDuckGo works in 98% of the time for me. If I can’t find something on DDG, I’ll switch to Google. But that’s only rarely needed.
I like Ecosia.
It does run on Bing, but I like seeing the lil tree planting counter (•‿•)
I know DuckDuckGo has its own issues, but surely it’s better than Google at least?
Results wise it’s just a bing wrapper. Which is not all that good in all honesty.
Ever since Microsoft nuked it a couple years back (because results included csam) search has been heavily restricted and most definitely was shot in the ankle, used to use bing a lot to find older resources for stuff I needed, now I cannot use it for that any longer
SearXNG is the king
searx.be is my favorite by far. You can get results from DDG, Brave, Startpage, etc. all in one place and it’s self-hostable
Kagi is good.
Seconding Kagi. The pricing model is a little rough, but if you’re serious about getting the most out of a search engine, Kagi is the way to go.
Imo, paying is worth it to be completely free of Google’s services.
Kagi is great but I feel they’ll struggle with their current pricing. I have a discounted rate for their pro tier, $10 for 1500 queries, and I think even that is expensive.
Never heard of it but they have a free trial I am testing out for now.
Never heard of it but they have a free trial I am testing out for now.
DuckDuckGo
deleted by creator
I also use Startpage and have been happy with it. It uses Google’s search engine as the backend but cuts out the tracking and personalized ads so I feel like it is the best of both worlds.
deleted by creator
Kagi
Ah found url. Primo!
Dang. Another subscription model. I will stick with the less great but free brave and DuckDuckGo.
swurl.com is a fun take on search aggregators