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

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.

deadcatbounce,
@deadcatbounce@reddthat.com avatar

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

cerement,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

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

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/be6e8359-dc40-4e49-a901-e906fc3482d6.webp

billbasher,

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

Oha,

startpage is owned by a advertising company and is propriatary as fuck

billbasher,

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

SplashJackson,

I like AskJeeves but a case can be made for WebCrawler

brenno, (edited )

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.

searx.space

Dehydrated,

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 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: mastodon.social/

    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: mastodon.social/

  • 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.

Bebo,

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.

ani,

Bing is the best

Wahots,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

I use a mix of all 3 search engines on firefox

iturnedintoanewt,
@iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee avatar

How would you go about setting searxng for search suggestions? I’m not sure i understand the documentation.

kzhe,

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

lseif,

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

garibaldi_biscuit,

What about metasearch engines/ search aggregators?

WeLoveCastingSpellz,

I use stratpage. I find it reliable

scytale,

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.

joel_feila,
@joel_feila@lemmy.world avatar

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

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