What search engine do you recommend that isn't Google or Bing?

3 years ago by vermyndax to c/asklemmy

I'm still trying to de-Google my life, little by little. I don't trust Bing for similar reasons. DDG is feeling shady of late. What's the search engine you all recommend that I can inject into my daily life? Is there perhaps a search engine that is focused on code, or have we just all moved on to AI for searching?

Edit: I meant to also express my frustration that most browsers do not let you select a "default search engine" that can be used in the address bar aside from 3-5 pre-chosen engines. Seems like 2023 we should be able to customize that to our own liking.

Edit 2: Thanks for the recommendation of Kagi. I'm going to roll with it for a while. I see they have an extension for Safari that allows them to hijack the address bar, which is just what I needed.

Kolanaki 80 points 3 years ago

I just make a post in NoStupidQuestions and use y'all like a search engine. :P

path: 0 6251139, hotness: undefined, score: 80, children: 6
snooggums 32 points 3 years ago

Posting a wrong answer is a good way to get the right answer in a reply!

path: 0 6251139 6251502, hotness: undefined, score: 32, children: 4
Fal 33 points 3 years ago

Ah, Murphy's law

path: 0 6251139 6251502 6252001, hotness: undefined, score: 33, children: 3
Zozano 19 points 3 years ago

You're thinking of Godwin's Law

path: 0 6251139 6251502 6252001 6252793, hotness: undefined, score: 19, children: 1
Ghyste 31 points 3 years ago

Got 'em

path: 0 6251139 6251502 6252001 6252793 6252980, hotness: undefined, score: 31, children: 0
snooggums 15 points 3 years ago

Almost got me!

path: 0 6251139 6251502 6252001 6252324, hotness: undefined, score: 15, children: 0
ThrowawayPermanente 5 points 3 years ago

I post answers to NoStupidQuestions with most of the keywords you're looking for and a link to my AI-generated blog. Your move.

path: 0 6251139 6263367, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
jflorez 79 points 3 years ago

DuckDuckGo on Firefox. If you truly want to de-google your life avoid Chrome and Chromium based browsers like Edge and Brave

path: 0 6253288, hotness: undefined, score: 79, children: 12
Xatolos 9 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6253288 6253447, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 11
TheMadnessKing 60 points 3 years ago

But it doesn't track you. So, better Privacy

path: 0 6253288 6253447 6253657, hotness: undefined, score: 60, children: 2
rostby 3 points 3 years ago

ublock origin says otherwise

path: 0 6253288 6253447 6253657 6265549, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
Rooskie91 -2 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6253288 6253447 6253657 6255808, hotness: undefined, score: -2, children: 0
cyberpunk007 7 points 3 years ago

How so? It existed before bing.

path: 0 6253288 6253447 6254381, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 7
imkali 8 points 3 years ago

They have changed the way they gather results since they first launched.

path: 0 6253288 6253447 6254381 6259162, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 1
cyberpunk007 2 points 3 years ago

Ok so it's a bing proxy basically?

path: 0 6253288 6253447 6254381 6259162 6266456, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
LastYearsPumpkin 1 point 3 years ago

It used to be Google search without the extras.

path: 0 6253288 6253447 6254381 6400164, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
kzhe 1 point 3 years ago

DDG uses Bing for 100% of its results.

path: 0 6253288 6253447 6254381 6341722, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 3
Jourei 1 point 3 years ago

Interesting, when DDG fails to give me anything worth while, I go to Bing and usually get what I'm looking for.

path: 0 6253288 6253447 6254381 6341722 6343914, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2
frozen 59 points 3 years ago

I'm out of the loop on DDG, what did they do?

path: 0 6250881, hotness: undefined, score: 59, children: 22
GregorGizeh 17 points 3 years ago

Not sure on the shady part, but I have stopped using them simply because they give me the same crap as Bing. Web search is almost dead, I’ve been thinking of trying one of the paid options. I’ve read good things about kagi

path: 0 6250881 6251639, hotness: undefined, score: 17, children: 5
Swedneck 8 points 3 years ago

i don't get this, i get perfectly fine search results with ddg..

i get finding the results slightly worse but dead? stop it with this absurd hyperbole

path: 0 6250881 6251639 6262881, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 4
IronKrill 4 points 3 years ago

Depends what you're trying to do. Looking up a movie? Easy. Looking up niche documentation/issues or error codes just feels hopeless compared to how it used to be.

path: 0 6250881 6251639 6262881 6263641, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 1
Swedneck 4 points 3 years ago

i mean i have no real issues finding info about various linux errors, is that not niche enough?

or have i just never seen the glory days where a google search would automatically fix your issue and bake a nice cake?

path: 0 6250881 6251639 6262881 6263641 6266652, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
GregorGizeh 2 points 3 years ago

Free web search gives me a whole page of SEO pages, cached reddit content that’s been deleted when you click it, or one of like five tech giants and their crap.

Unless you are very specific and already know what site you are looking for it is extremely difficult to simply find information now, if you just want an answer you locate the relevant reddit or discord community and try your luck there, or ask a LLM to give you an answer because you can’t wade through the sheer amount of non- and disinformation out there now.

Of course, the LLM is also trained on this bullshit and not actually smart, so at best you get an idea where you can look for the information it regurgitated if you make it cite its sources, and do your own research from there.

Are you really telling me this is somehow not much much worse than mid 2000s-2010s internet, where you typed something into google and it almost always found that exact thing you were looking for?

path: 0 6250881 6251639 6262881 6263598, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1
berkeleyblue 1 point 3 years ago

Surely anecdotal, but I have never clicked on a Google Reddit link that didn’t let me to an actual post, most of the time with the actual info I was hoping to find and never have I been served SEO pages.

There was a slight influx of AI generated nonsense a couple months back but that stopped. On my iPhone i Use DuckDuckGo and an perfectly happy. On the Mac where I have more ways to block stuff I use google and also don’t have any issues.

May I ask what kind of things you usually search for?

path: 0 6250881 6251639 6262881 6263598 6269955, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
sukhmel 5 points 3 years ago

I'm still using it but it was fun when they had something along the lines of "your privacy is safe with us. Also, wanna leave your email?" 😅

I am thinking of migrating to Kagi now, because search in DDG is often meh

path: 0 6250881 6260704, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
kzhe 1 point 3 years ago

A long ago they had drama for apparently leaking user information to microsoft— but that was a while ago. Really they were accused of having biased results.

path: 0 6250881 6341745, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
b000rg -5 points 3 years ago

[Edited by the commenter to remove incorrect information, see below.] I'm not sure if anything else has come up since then though, and I've continued using DDG, just not for any sort of news or information on current events. I mainly use a search engine for dev stuff anyways.

path: 0 6250881 6251714, hotness: undefined, score: -5, children: 4
nave 62 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6250881 6251714 6253803, hotness: undefined, score: 62, children: 1
otter 1 point 3 years ago

I think rather than either or, it just ranks things differently and doesn't give the best results.

I also remember during the height of COVID, antivax people were saying to use DDG because their random blogs and conspiracy YouTube videos were closer to the top compared to google.

path: 0 6250881 6251714 6253803 6261799, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Lmaydev 10 points 3 years ago

Do you have a source for that?

path: 0 6250881 6251714 6254259, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 0
CmdrShepard42 3 points 3 years ago

Apart from that, the results are often pretty terrible unless you use the exact terms from whatever page you're trying to find. I've also seen a lot of people stating that search results keep changing every time they refresh the page as well.

path: 0 6250881 6251714 6340805, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
OldManBOMBIN -14 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6250881 6251060, hotness: undefined, score: -14, children: 8
FoundTheVegan 27 points 3 years ago

Does anyone have a source?

path: 0 6250881 6251060 6251319, hotness: undefined, score: 27, children: 3
nakal 39 points 3 years ago path: 0 6250881 6251060 6251319 6251486, hotness: undefined, score: 39, children: 1
CmdrShepard42 1 point 3 years ago

Where does that page state that their claim isn't true? All it states is "We don't track you" but it doesn't say that they don't allow other companies to track you instead.

path: 0 6250881 6251060 6251319 6251486 6340815, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
ForestOrca 23 points 3 years ago

I've been using DDG, and Ecosia. So I looked to see what was up with DDG. From what I'm reading, I'll keep using DDG.

May 25, 2022 An article in TechRadar, and another on The Register mention an inability to block Microsoft trackers on DDG.
https://www.techradar.com/...
https://www.theregister.com/...

August 5, 2022 A TEchCRunch article describes DDG's efforts to block advertising requests and other tracking protections
https://techcrunch.com/...

May 12, 2023 Reuters article "No deal between DuckDuckGo and Microsoft to track users online"
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N3792HE/
"Independent experts say that DuckDuckGo blocks known tracking scripts from loading to prevent vulnerable personal identifiers from being exposed, including Microsoft-owned scripts. A separate partnership with Microsoft for advertising on DuckDuckGo’s search results page is limited to ad placements, not tracking users or building profiles, a DuckDuckGo spokesperson said."

Further, "Users sharing the headline, “Google Lite: DuckDuckGo Signs Secret Deal with Bill Gates to Track Users Online” in April 2023 can be seen (here) and (here).

The headline belonged to a story that first appeared on NewsPunch on May 25, 2022 (here), which now redirects to The People’s Voice (the two are affiliated) (here) (here).

The original article was published before DuckDuckGo eliminated, in August 2022, an exception that did permit some Microsoft-owned tracking scripts on websites to send data to Microsoft."
Links are in the article cited.

path: 0 6250881 6251060 6251319 6251773, hotness: undefined, score: 23, children: 0
Lmaydev 10 points 3 years ago

The only thing I can find is they allow MS trackers in their browser. Which isn't great, but doesn't matter if you only use their search.

Do you have a source?

path: 0 6250881 6251060 6252202, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 3
OldManBOMBIN -10 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6250881 6251060 6252202 6252370, hotness: undefined, score: -10, children: 2
Lmaydev 18 points 3 years ago

That's kind of spreading misinformation though right?

path: 0 6250881 6251060 6252202 6252370 6252649, hotness: undefined, score: 18, children: 1
jcrabapple 46 points 3 years ago

Half a dozen people in here already mentioned it, but Kagi has completely changed the search game and changed the way I use the Internet. It's like an old school search engine with modern conveniences like a chat bot and summarizer, but without the ads and other shenanigans.

path: 0 6252578, hotness: undefined, score: 46, children: 13
cashews_best_nut 23 points 3 years ago

Ugh, paid. In this economy!?

path: 0 6252578 6254226, hotness: undefined, score: 23, children: 10
douglasg14b 14 points 3 years ago

It's either your wallet or your personal information...

A surprisingly and insanely expensive to run and manage a search engine that isn't just a reskin on bing (DDG). Even more so when you can't mine your users for data.

Kagei is doing really good stuff and the quality of results I get are much higher. The $10/m is it easily paid off within even a day or two's use in my normal job. Never mind all the personal research that I do.

Is a different model that is a not providing you with the best results that you are looking for. As opposed to steering you towards ads or towards partnerships. I like it.

path: 0 6252578 6254226 6259104, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 2
RootBeerGuy 10 points 3 years ago

I totally get the sentiment of saying when you pay you are not the product, however... what does any company stop from still collecting data anyway? I know that the kagi people deny that but why should anyone trust that.

Companies have fucked customers/consumers over so much, there is no trusting anyone when it comes to data collection. It is just so easy. Even if they don't use it right now, why not just collect it anyway.

So, while I'd love to pay a little bit to support a service like that, I am so jaded by how dishonest companies have been about stuff like that, that I am not really willing to also give them money in addition.

path: 0 6252578 6254226 6259104 6265562, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 1
mammut 8 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6252578 6254226 6259104 6265562 6268431, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0
festus 10 points 3 years ago

I know, that was my reaction at first too. But I tried it for a month and honestly it's an amazing search engine. If it helps you to know, when you search they also use the (paid) search APIs of other search engines and aggregate the results in a way to get something better than any individual engine - so your searches actually have a decent marginal cost for them.

path: 0 6252578 6254226 6255684, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 0
jcrabapple 5 points 3 years ago

$5/month. Worth it.

path: 0 6252578 6254226 6254509, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 5
praise_idleness 15 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6252578 6254226 6254509 6256045, hotness: undefined, score: 15, children: 3
Mr_Blott -12 points 3 years ago

Cool, don't use it then. Enjoy your SEO optimised search results

For the huge majority of people, $5 and 300 searches is plenty, and great value for actually useful results

path: 0 6252578 6254226 6254509 6256045 6259452, hotness: undefined, score: -12, children: 2
jemikwa 2 points 3 years ago

Even better if you can get into a family plan with friends

path: 0 6252578 6254226 6254509 6255134, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
Cralder 2 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6252578 6281303, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1
jcrabapple 2 points 3 years ago

Sorry it didn't work for you...

path: 0 6252578 6281303 6281551, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
nix 45 points 3 years ago path: 0 6251015, hotness: undefined, score: 45, children: 6
canihasaccount 19 points 3 years ago

Seconding. Kagi is the only one that was able to replace Google for me.

path: 0 6251015 6251747, hotness: undefined, score: 19, children: 0
graymess 7 points 3 years ago

I need to try it out. If it's as good as its reputation implies and stays that way, I'd be $5/mo amount of interested. But I have no idea how many times I'm going to need to search for something per month. Not a fan of that limitation.

path: 0 6251015 6259331, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 1
Mr_Blott 4 points 3 years ago

You can get 100 searches for free to try it. I'm using it for purchases and technical queries, because the results are hugely less polluted. If I'm searching for, say, a film or a book, I use Google and not one of my paid searches

path: 0 6251015 6259331 6259478, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
GlitzyArmrest 4 points 3 years ago

This is the only true Google replacement I've found.

path: 0 6251015 6256819, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
drfuzzyness 2 points 3 years ago

It's really good. The price tag is worth it imo as they buy results from a host of other search engines including Google, but the results are actually better.

path: 0 6251015 6256937, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
supercriticalcheese 1 point 3 years ago

For the web search I need to do it's really not worth it. if my job required good web search results to be effective then it would be a different matter but alas I am not a software developer or an analyst...

path: 0 6251015 6261848, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
TiffyBelle 41 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6252307, hotness: undefined, score: 41, children: 3
heyfrancis 5 points 3 years ago

+1 for DDG, but i dont get it why some comments here said it is just bing

path: 0 6252307 6259329, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 2
StupidBrotherInLaw 3 points 3 years ago

Because DDG uses Bing's API. Basically, you submit a search to DDG, DDG submits that search to Bing, Bing provides results to DDG who repackages them as DDG, then provides that to you.

path: 0 6252307 6259329 6266934, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
crimroy 2 points 3 years ago

Which is great, privacy-wise, but results-wise it is just Bing. DDG is what I use, but that's all it is

path: 0 6252307 6259329 6266934 6286008, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
deadcatbounce 37 points 3 years ago

Firefox allowed you to define the default search and have many many engines listed. That's been a standard feature for many years.

path: 0 6251436, hotness: undefined, score: 37, children: 5
cerement 22 points 3 years ago

even simpler – Firefox will auto-detect a lot of search engines – right-click in the search/address bar and if Firefox can detect it, bottom option will be to add that engine to your list

path: 0 6251436 6252620, hotness: undefined, score: 22, children: 0
quirzle 11 points 3 years ago

I'm pretty sure most browsers can. Pretty sure OP's complaint's a big misplaced on that one.

path: 0 6251436 6251738, hotness: undefined, score: 11, children: 3
HRDS_654 6 points 3 years ago

All of them do allow it, but not all of them make it simple. There are times it will change the search in the address bar but not everywhere else in the browser as well. Of the web browsers I use, Firefox is the most friendly to change.

path: 0 6251436 6251738 6253281, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
vermyndax 1 point 3 years ago

The complaint here is the "address bar" search. I've found that most browsers will allow you to use other search engines, but you have to prefix the search with a letter or abbreviation. I'm finding that a lot of browsers will restrict your raw address bar search to their chosen search engines.

path: 0 6251436 6251738 6263194, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
quirzle 2 points 3 years ago

I'm aware of the complaint, and stand by my comment.

Which browsers don't let you change the default search? Firefox does. Chromium-based browsers do. I believe that alone covers "most browsers," though I'm curious if any actually don't allow that to be changed.

path: 0 6251436 6251738 6263194 6263578, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
Anticorp 29 points 3 years ago

Kagi. Nothing else even comes close. Kagi is what Google used to be, before they decided they'll show you whatever is profitable, rather than what they know you're looking for.

path: 0 6260736, hotness: undefined, score: 29, children: 17
MSids 26 points 3 years ago

Not sure I'm ready to pay for search especially not at $5-10/mo.

path: 0 6260736 6261490, hotness: undefined, score: 26, children: 14
COASTER1921 10 points 3 years ago

Yep. Like $1.99 or $2.99 I can easily justify but $5/mo for only 300 searches feels too steep to me reguardless of result quality. I'll just go through the other pages of results from any other search engine.

path: 0 6260736 6261490 6264993, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 3
Anticorp 4 points 3 years ago

$10 gets you unlimited searches now. Idk about you, but I was continually frustrated with the results from all of the other search engines. I figured $10 is a small cost for my sanity, and privacy.

path: 0 6260736 6261490 6264993 6265575, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 2
mammut 2 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6260736 6261490 6264993 6265575 6271623, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1
TonyTonyChopper 4 points 3 years ago

If you're not spending some money then you're not the customer, you're the product. Would you really prefer the web continue to be supported by ads and people who sell data about you?

path: 0 6260736 6261490 6261641, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 9
mammut 8 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6260736 6261490 6261641 6267133, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0
blurg 3 points 3 years ago

If you’re not spending some money then you’re not the customer, you’re the product.

  • BSD (e.g. FreeBSD, OpenBSD, ...)
  • GNU/Linux (e.g. kernel, Ubuntu, Mint, Arch, ...)
  • GNU/FSF/FOSS software (e.g. LibreOffice, Vim, Emacs, , Compiler Collection, Gnome & KDE desktop, GIMP, VLC, Wine, Python, ...)
  • Misc. (e.g. Wikipedia (& Kiwix), Gutenberg (& Calibre), Archive.org, CreativeCommons,org, OpenStreetMap, Lemmy, R, ...)
  • Plenty of public schools, public library, charities, ...

Would like to argue with you. However, supporting these projects directly, if you can afford to, is something of a personal responsibility.

path: 0 6260736 6261490 6261641 6281984, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
ArdMacha 3 points 3 years ago

That statement didn't give you the money to pay for it though

path: 0 6260736 6261490 6261641 6265233, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
MadhuGururajan -7 points 3 years ago

People can do without search. Most will find better uses for 10$ an hour. Those who can't probably won't buy search. So, lose-lose for you who tries to convince people in every post.

path: 0 6260736 6261490 6261641 6261715, hotness: undefined, score: -7, children: 5
RvTV95XBeo 13 points 3 years ago

$10/mo, not hour, god that would be an insane search bill

path: 0 6260736 6261490 6261641 6261715 6262020, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 1
kilgore_trout 5 points 3 years ago

People can do without search

This post is specifically asking for a search engine recommendation.

path: 0 6260736 6261490 6261641 6261715 6272116, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1
Anticorp 4 points 3 years ago

It's $5-$10 per month, not $10 per hour. LOL

path: 0 6260736 6261490 6261641 6261715 6265339, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein 5 points 3 years ago

I appreciate the non-ad-funded option, even if it is expensive, but I'm not sure it's even better than Google, looking at their sample results.

For example, Steve Jobs (again, to be clear, this is the result they specifically provide as an example of why you should pay) has two different links to the same Wikipedia article in the first five results. https://kagi.com/search?q=steve+jobs

Not to put you on the spot, but I'm still open to be convinced - do you have any examples of when Kagi did a great job to compare?

path: 0 6260736 6267442, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1
mammut 4 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6260736 6267442 6268521, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
Faresh 26 points 3 years ago

I use SearXNG. It is a meta search engine so it use results from various other search engines and you can specify which with !. It does the job for me.

path: 0 6254090, hotness: undefined, score: 26, children: 7
dumpsterlid 8 points 3 years ago

Honestly I feel like searxng is way better than it gets credit for. It clearly isn’t as powerful as google but it isn’t drowning in SEO crap so that difference is entirely negated and then some.

path: 0 6254090 6259453, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0
CetaceanNeeded 8 points 3 years ago

My favourite feature is that you can host it yourself, you can even set it up to search over tor or VPN if you're super privacy conscious.

path: 0 6254090 6255853, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 5
____ 6 points 3 years ago

I was a bit wary when I first spun up an instance, but it’s very low maintenance and mostly just works.

Does it choke in some edge cases? Yeah, but far less often than I had expected. For my own use case it’s low resource and does exactly what it says on the tin - nothing more, nothing less.

It’s my default across a variety of devices, and is perfectly happy behind basic auth and a minimal nginx conf.

Occasionally I’ve even surfaced some oddball results that give me unexpected perspective on a topic.

path: 0 6254090 6255853 6256871, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 4
Facebones 1 point 3 years ago

Somebody reply to this so I remember to spin up a container tomorrow lmao

path: 0 6254090 6255853 6256871 6258708, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 3
heyfrancis 3 points 3 years ago path: 0 6254090 6255853 6256871 6258708 6259315, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
zip 2 points 3 years ago

Hey, remember to spin up a container!

path: 0 6254090 6255853 6256871 6258708 6279095, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1
Badabinski 24 points 3 years ago

I've been incredibly happy with Kagi. All of the listicles and blogspam get shunted off into their own sections. Kagi also seems to do a pretty good job at finding "deep" results. Like, when I want to find out more information about some home automation gizmo, Kagi does a good job of finding some random blog post where someone has torn the gizmo apart and analyzed every strength and weakness it has. I still prefer Google for looking up restaurants and stuff, but I hardly use it anymore. I don't at all regret the $10 a month I pay to use Kagi.

Edit: I also like that Kagi lets you define rules. Occasionally I'll be forced to go to Reddit to get some information (I really try to go elsewhere first). I deleted my account, so I go to new Reddit by default (which I hate). I don't want to add an extension to redirect to old Reddit, but I can just replace the www with old automagically for all Reddit search results. Works great.

path: 0 6251810, hotness: undefined, score: 24, children: 0
PopOfAfrica 22 points 3 years ago

Kagi is by far the best search engine I've ever used. It is paid though.

path: 0 6250903, hotness: undefined, score: 22, children: 4
sab 2 points 3 years ago

I've been paying for it for a couple of months now, am pretty happy with it. Feels weird to be paying for a search engine, and as it still only has a finite number of searches every month I still have to get used to not being reluctant to use it, but its results are indeed great. More focused than DuckDuckGo, less bullshit than Google.

path: 0 6250903 6255964, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 3
conciselyverbose 3 points 3 years ago

Are you sure? I had been paying for a higher tier, but I remember they sent an email that they were changing or removing the search metering a while ago.

In US it's $5 for 300 searches or $10 for unlimited.

path: 0 6250903 6255964 6255965, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 2
sab 1 point 3 years ago

Unless they changed something very subtly and very recently, there's a cap on searches on the lower tier and unlimited search on the higher one.

path: 0 6250903 6255964 6255965 6256279, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
conciselyverbose 2 points 3 years ago

You're right. It's $5 for 300 searches or $10 for unlimited. It used to cost more and still have a limit. I didn't realize there was still a cheaper tier.

path: 0 6250903 6255964 6255965 6256279 6256385, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
LinkOpensChest_wav 14 points 3 years ago path: 0 6250588, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 9
cerement 14 points 3 years ago path: 0 6250588 6250665, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 2
drasticpotatoes 2 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6250588 6250665 6282151, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
LinkOpensChest_wav 2 points 3 years ago

This is super rad! I've never heard of this, so thanks for sharing.

path: 0 6250588 6250665 6253188, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
EmasXP 6 points 3 years ago

I really enjoy Mojeek. It gives you results you would not get anywhere else. I see high value in that

path: 0 6250588 6251231, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 1
LinkOpensChest_wav 2 points 3 years ago

Yeah, it reminds me of the old search engines in the 90s. I've come to love it.

path: 0 6250588 6251231 6253199, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
Mojeek 4 points 3 years ago

Thanks for the shoutout, it's always much-appreciated. If you're looking to test new things/ help us out in other ways, we're testing a new algo :D

path: 0 6250588 6742478, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 3
EmasXP 1 point 2 years ago

Coming back half a year later to see this comment. Thank you for thank link. I would love to help out!

path: 0 6250588 6742478 11591057, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
Mojeek 2 points 2 years ago

It's not currently got something live on it to test (you can use it but it should be the same results across both). If you wanna help out then let us know how you find Mojeek via this survey please!!!! https://blocksurvey.io/...

path: 0 6250588 6742478 11591057 11786145, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
LinkOpensChest_wav 1 point 3 years ago

Nice, I'll try it out, thanks!

path: 0 6250588 6742478 6743851, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
KLISHDFSDF 14 points 3 years ago

check out ecosia.org! plant trees while you search! 🌳

path: 0 6255740, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 1
pineapplelover 2 points 3 years ago

Downside is that it sells ads and information

path: 0 6255740 6345711, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
jet 12 points 3 years ago

Kagi.com

Duckduckgo if you use a vpn, everyone else throws speedbumos at VPN users... Prove your a human...

path: 0 6250577, hotness: undefined, score: 12, children: 0
EmasXP 10 points 3 years ago

Been using Qwant for maybe a year or so. Recently found Swisscows too. I am not sure if Qwant uses their own index. I remember that they said that they were to create their own index, but the results looks suspiciously similar to Bing. Swisscows for sure runs their own index, and I find the results to be rather good

path: 0 6251032, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 1
Swedneck 1 point 3 years ago

if nothing else qwant has a good map, based on openstreetmap but with a vector renderer and with tripadvisor integration so it's really easy to find restaurants

path: 0 6251032 6263054, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
bloopernova 10 points 3 years ago

Kagi

It's a paid subscription but it's better than Google, I've found.

https://kagi.com/

path: 0 6251994, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 0
Dehydrated 10 points 3 years ago

Meta search engines:

  • SearX

    Open source, self hostable meta search engine.

  • SearXNG

    Better version of SearX. A list of SearX and SearXNG instances is available at https://searx.space

Also meta search engines, but different:

  • DuckDuckGo

    It's very privacy friendly, but it gets all the search results from Microsoft's Bing.

  • Startpage

    Basically the same thing but it uses Google results. They are really focused on privacy too, they even are on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@StartpageSearch

    They're based in the EU (Netherlands) so they are also subject to the GDPR.

Independent:

  • Brave Search

    They recently stopped using Google and Bing and created their own search index. It appears to be privacy friendly, but the company behind Brave is not ideal.

  • Mojeek

    A small privacy focused search engine, that uses its own index. They're also on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@Mojeek

  • Kagi

    I've seen many many people recommend it, but I have never really used it myself. It's not free, they charge $5/month for 300 searches and $10 for unlimited searches.

path: 0 6263937, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 0
quirzle 8 points 3 years ago

Edit: I meant to also express my frustration that most browsers do not let you select a “default search engine” that can be used in the address bar aside from 3-5 pre-chosen engines. Seems like 2023 we should be able to customize that to our own liking.

Which browsers don't? I think this one can likely be chalked up to user error.

path: 0 6251758, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0
HansSlonzok 7 points 3 years ago

qwant.com

path: 0 6254058, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 1
Swedneck 2 points 3 years ago

qwant also has their own really nice map! https://maps.qwant.com

it's properly open source, based on openstreetmap, and integrates tripadvisor so it's great for finding restaurants.

path: 0 6254058 6263048, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
brenno 6 points 3 years ago

Another option is SearXNG. It's meta search engine, which means that it aggregates other search engines like Google and Bing but without tracking or logging, because your searches are proxied using a public instance, that will mix your search with the ones from other people.

And about default search engine, don't know what you're talking about, both chrome and Firefox allows this, in mobile and desktop.

https://searx.space/

path: 0 6265439, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
Joker 6 points 3 years ago

Kagi is the best around if you are willing to pay. If I had to cancel my subscription for whatever reason, I would go back to DDG.

path: 0 6253080, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 3
cashews_best_nut 0 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6253080 6254248, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
cashews_best_nut -12 points 3 years ago

Do you like to swim in your cash vault like Scrooge McDuck?

path: 0 6253080 6254251, hotness: undefined, score: -12, children: 1
kzhe 1 point 3 years ago

Kagi really isn't that pricy.

path: 0 6253080 6254251 6341747, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Vilian 5 points 3 years ago

ecosia, like knowing that my searchs are helping the world a little

path: 0 6251209, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
jvrava9 5 points 3 years ago

SearXNG

path: 0 6252429, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
billbasher 4 points 3 years ago

I like startpage.com. It doesn’t save your searches and I feel like it gives better results than DDG. Also it’s been around for awhile - it used to be ixquick

path: 0 6250578, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 2
Oha 23 points 3 years ago path: 0 6250578 6250837, hotness: undefined, score: 23, children: 1
billbasher 9 points 3 years ago

Oh wow that happened 4 years ago?! Time to find a new one..

path: 0 6250578 6250837 6251991, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 0
ivanafterall 4 points 3 years ago

Marginalia is cool. It feels like an old-school search engine and truly provides results you don't see through Google, et al.

path: 0 6251284, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
Wahots 3 points 3 years ago

I use a mix of all 3 search engines on firefox

path: 0 6259256, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
WeLoveCastingSpellz 3 points 3 years ago

I use stratpage. I find it reliable

path: 0 6253825, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
lseif 3 points 3 years ago

startpage is alright if u want a quick alternative.

but definitely look into searx. it can be annoying to choose an instance (unless you self host!), but it can be a lot more customizable and decentralized

path: 0 6285146, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
SplashJackson 3 points 3 years ago

I like AskJeeves but a case can be made for WebCrawler

path: 0 6265507, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
sturlabragason 3 points 3 years ago path: 0 6250872, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
shinigamiookamiryuu 2 points 3 years ago

I used to be a part of the DuckDuckGo hype train until I found out they did actually track data (not an issue to me personally, but it betrayed their key marketing point), as used to be demonstrable if you had a slow internet and hovered your cursor over a link (it would show the tracking data loading). It was the one thing separating them from Ecosia, and I decided to join the Ecosia hype train, even if their own promises are themselves highly exaggerated. Every effort to do what Ecosia promises, even failed efforts, are appreciable.

path: 0 6340513, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
garibaldi_biscuit 2 points 3 years ago

What about metasearch engines/ search aggregators?

path: 0 6254535, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
scottmeme 2 points 3 years ago

I run a whoogle instance personally

path: 0 6250930, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 5
Lmaydev 6 points 3 years ago

Of what?

path: 0 6250930 6252197, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 1
scottmeme 3 points 3 years ago

Of shit auto correct, whoogle, open source privacy frontend for google

path: 0 6250930 6252197 6255262, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
girl 1 point 3 years ago

How is an instance a search engine?

path: 0 6250930 6278417, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2
scottmeme 2 points 3 years ago

Whoogle is a self hosted front end for google. You just run it and it will pass the search to Google and strip all the bullshit out.

path: 0 6250930 6278417 6278418, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1
girl 1 point 3 years ago

Thanks for the info!

path: 0 6250930 6278417 6278418 6286478, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
kzhe 1 point 3 years ago

Kagi if you're willing to pay. Otherwise tryaS Searx instance.

path: 0 6341719, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
joel_feila 1 point 3 years ago

You want a free search, Brave. Don't like brave, then qwant. I use Kagi. It costs money but it is great.

path: 0 6252690, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
scytale 1 point 3 years ago

You can absolutely configure the default search engine on your browser to a custom one in some cases. I use startpage and it isn’t in the default options, but it can be added.

path: 0 6340976, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Bebo 1 point 3 years ago

I am generally switching between Google and duck duck go on Firefox. When Google gives shitty results (which is frequently) I switch over to ddg.

path: 0 6283500, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
MrMobius 1 point 3 years ago

I've been using qwant for a few weeks and it gives me quite satisfying and accurate results. Before I had been using ecosia for years but the results can be lackluster sometimes. Especially when you search very specific "niche" things (like obscure Linux problems troubleshooting). But I'm still looking for a browser which let's you pick multiple languages for results.

path: 0 6251909, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
iturnedintoanewt 1 point 3 years ago
path: 0 6341834, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Meltrax 0 points 3 years ago
path: 0 6252039, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
ichbinjasokreativ -1 points 3 years ago

Brave search is also really good now

path: 0 6253251, hotness: undefined, score: -1, children: 4
cyberpunk007 5 points 3 years ago

Brave statement

path: 0 6253251 6254384, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 2
ichbinjasokreativ 3 points 3 years ago

Ican only speak of my own experience. Finding what I'm looking for and not having to deal with the insane amount of ads on google and the likes is worth it to me to make a recommendation.

path: 0 6253251 6254384 6259319, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
kzhe 1 point 3 years ago

People aren't downgotinf because you're right or wrong, but because Brave is homophobic.

path: 0 6253251 6254384 6259319 6343177, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
kzhe 1 point 3 years ago

brave is pretty widely disliked by people (including me) for it's CEO's homophobia. That's probably why you're being down voted.

path: 0 6253251 6341749, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
ShittyBeatlesFCPres -2 points 3 years ago

I use startpage.com on desktop. They provide Google results (sort of like DDG uses Bing results) so it’s not some autonomous magic privacy thing but it’s what I want from a search engine.

It reminds me of Google pre-enshittification.

path: 0 6251135, hotness: undefined, score: -2, children: 0
deadcatbounce -6 points 3 years ago

https://www.startpage.com/

Owned now by a marketing company. I've been using it for many years and never had my results noticeable affect my advertising incoming.

It's a proxy for Google which is why I use it. I have really started to use ChatGPT in anger yet as the trivial don't need it.

I'm not connected to them in any way.

path: 0 6251415, hotness: undefined, score: -6, children: 0
ani -8 points 3 years ago

Bing is the best

path: 0 6260738, hotness: undefined, score: -8, children: 0
asklemmy
asklemmy

@lemmy.world

login for more options
41878
9879
9024

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world


7) No Hit-and-Run questions.

Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.


8) No Bots.

Posts or comments from bots, LLM's, AIs, Neural Networks, Transformers, or Marvin the Paranoid Android are not welcome in AskLemmy. Real humans only please.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


go to feed...