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.

jflorez,

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

Xatolos,
@Xatolos@reddthat.com avatar

DuckDuckGo is Bing. It’s just stripped of Microsoft “extras”.

TheMadnessKing,

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

cyberpunk007,

How so? It existed before bing.

imkali,

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

cyberpunk007,

Ok so it’s a bing proxy basically?

kzhe,

DDG uses Bing for 100% of its results.

Jourei,

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

cyberpunk007,

People use bing? I find the results just like a dogs breakfast. Such a mess.

Jourei,

I use bing more and more. It’s not fantastic but feels like it’s on track to be ome better than google.

LastYearsPumpkin,

It used to be Google search without the extras.

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

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

ThrowawayPermanente,

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

frozen,
@frozen@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz avatar

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

b000rg, (edited )

[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.

Lmaydev,

Do you have a source for that?

CmdrShepard42,

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.

OldManBOMBIN,

deleted_by_author

    •
    Lmaydev,

    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?

    OldManBOMBIN,

    deleted_by_author

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    Lmaydev,

    That’s kind of spreading misinformation though right?

    GregorGizeh,

    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

    Swedneck,
    @Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    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

    IronKrill,

    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.

    Swedneck,
    @Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    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?

    GregorGizeh,

    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?

    berkeleyblue,
    @berkeleyblue@lemmy.world avatar

    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?

    sukhmel,

    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

    kzhe,

    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.

    jcrabapple,
    @jcrabapple@infosec.pub avatar

    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.

    cashews_best_nut,

    Ugh, paid. In this economy!?

    jcrabapple,
    @jcrabapple@infosec.pub avatar

    $5/month. Worth it.

    jemikwa,

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

    praise_idleness,

    except it’s not for me… I search way, way more than 300/month and $10/m honestly sounds a little unreasonable for a search engine.

    Mr_Blott,

    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

    skeeter_dave,

    For that price I can just spool up a vps and run a Searxng instance.

    festus,

    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.

    douglasg14b,
    @douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

    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.

    RootBeerGuy,
    @RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    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.

    Cralder,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    jcrabapple,
    @jcrabapple@infosec.pub avatar

    Sorry it didn’t work for you…

    nix, (edited )
    @nix@merv.news avatar

    kagi.com no ads, great results. It’s $5 a month but worth it imo

    canihasaccount,

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

    GlitzyArmrest,
    @GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world avatar

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

    drfuzzyness,

    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.

    graymess,

    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.

    Mr_Blott,

    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

    supercriticalcheese,

    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…

    TiffyBelle,
    @TiffyBelle@lemmy.world avatar

    I personally enjoy DDG. Their privacy policy for their search is straightforward and there’s no evidence that they’re not abiding by it. I find it tends to prioritize higher quality blogs and articles ahead of social media results.

    I sometime use Brave Search as it seems to do better at giving social media/forum results as they seem to be prioritized higher by it, when I’m looking for more discussion-based content.

    heyfrancis,
    @heyfrancis@lemmy.ml avatar

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

    StupidBrotherInLaw, (edited )

    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.

    crimroy,

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

    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

    Anticorp,

    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.

    MSids,

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

    TonyTonyChopper,
    @TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz avatar

    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?

    MadhuGururajan,

    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.

    RvTV95XBeo,

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

    MadhuGururajan,

    Funny i understood it meant $10 per month but made the mistake typing.

    Anticorp,

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

    kilgore_trout,

    People can do without search

    This post is specifically asking for a search engine recommendation.

    MadhuGururajan,

    Yeah but they aren’t coming in here for the lack of options. They wanted to hear what’s everybody else on. I suppose you can make the argument that demand is there for paid search… but that’s because people have trained helplessness. Apart from 1 paid company i am not sure if people will have appetite for more companies in this space… because enshittification will happen here too.

    ArdMacha,

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

    blurg,

    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.

    COASTER1921,

    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.

    ReallyActuallyFrankenstein,

    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. 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?

    Faresh,

    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.

    CetaceanNeeded,

    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.

    ____,

    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.

    Facebones,

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

    heyfrancis,
    @heyfrancis@lemmy.ml avatar

    Try remindme bot - github.com/PangoraWeb/remindme-bot#usage

    zip,

    Hey, remember to spin up a container!

    Facebones,

    I did, thanks! 😛 Took a few tries but was over complicating the configs apparently lol

    dumpsterlid,

    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.

    PopOfAfrica,

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

    LinkOpensChest_wav,

    The best I’ve found is Mojeek. The results take some getting used to because we’re all used to Google’s fuckery, but I’ve been using it for months, and it’s quite good.

    There’s also SearXNG, though I’m not sure if that fits your needs. A couple public instances I’ve liked are:

    searx.tiekoetter.com

    search.fuckoffgoogle.net

    EmasXP,

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

    LinkOpensChest_wav,

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

    cerement,
    @cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

    Random SearX Redirector – basically just that, sends your search to a random working SearXNG instance

    LinkOpensChest_wav,

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

    Mojeek,
    @Mojeek@lemmy.ml avatar

    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

    LinkOpensChest_wav,

    Nice, I’ll try it out, thanks!

    KLISHDFSDF,
    @KLISHDFSDF@lemmy.ml avatar

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

    pineapplelover,

    Downside is that it sells ads and information

    sturlabragason, (edited )

    Duckduckgo and (downvotes incoming) brave search.

    duckduckgo.com

    search.brave.com

    And I disagree with you, I don’t know a single browser where you can’t change the default search engine.

    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…

    Joker,

    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.

    cashews_best_nut,

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

    kzhe,

    Kagi really isn’t that pricy.

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