this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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So I'd cut Google out entirely for the last year or so, but I still haven't found a good search engine. DDG has been my go to, but it's not great, and this old style Google seems to be close to how things were before all search engines sucked ass. Do you have any recommendations for alternatives?
I'm hesitant to say it because I've gotten some ridiculously hostile reactions for it, but I've really liked Kagi.
Yes, it's a subscription service but that means they have an incentive to not show you shit results. According to some, paying for a search service is wrong because online services should be free, and I'm just astroturfing if I even mention it
When it came down to it I realised I use search many many many mores times a day than I do Netflix so it became a no brainer for me to use Kagi... it's funny my wife (who laughs at me for paying for search) was looking for a particular recipe yesterday and she was bouncing around Google unable to find exactly what she wanted... I put it into Kagi and it was literally the first item returned. She still laughs at me 🤷🏻♂️
What I will say is Kagi is pretty useless for local searching though, eg looking for a local business, Google is still much better at that but you can Google through Kagi to help protect privacy.
Couldn't you just pay for VPN and have the same benefit?
I think that is the basis of the reason people think that the whole thing is a bit weird. If you're already paying for a VPN, which presumably you are if you're the sort of person who pays for search, then you're already protected. So why do you also pay for search?
You sort of didn't read my whole post and just looked at the last bit - I pay for excellent search results with Kagi, the fact it's also private (because I pay) is a bonus. However for local searches, I find Kagi is a bit US centric, so a simple !g bang operator gives me a private search through Google which still excels at these types of things... for anyway, who knows what Kagi has up their sleeves 🤷🏻♂️
A VPN with Google would still give me rubbish Google search results and marginal privacy against Google's algorithms (their fingerprinting likely knows it's me anyway), and I'd need to keep switching it on and off to make full use of my 1gb/s cable internet speed.
I use Kagi and Ecosia, and my experience has been very positive. I recommend both.
What are you searching for that DDG is giving disappointing results?
Duck duck go is particularly bad at local searches and business data.
Back before Google gimped their own searches, Google was better at finding one-off things.
I've moved to SearXNG, which still makes my local searches suck, But the results are usually much better than DDG.
https://www.mojeek.com
Startpage is basically a Google Search frontend and it works very well.
It used to be, it's Bing nowadays I believe.
//edit: it says it uses google on the site, but I remember there was a bit of shitshow on the internetz ~year ago when they used bing instead. So... I'm confused now.
https://support.startpage.com/hc/en-us/articles/4522435533844-What-is-the-relationship-between-Startpage-and-your-search-partners-like-Google-and-Microsoft-Bing
So it uses both? Interesting.
not very different from DuckDuckGo, SearXNG, or Kagi.
Ecosia?
Quite satisfied with Brave Search.
Aside from the transphobia and crypto shilling, I'm sure they're great
Is google better? I get you dont like brave as a company (i dont either) but their search engine works well
I don't use Google either
i dont either, all im saying is that its still an improvement
Transphobia?
Sorry, homophobia!
Really? But when did this happened? 😰
Brendan Eich. He donated money anti marriage equality organisations and politicians, and half of the Mozilla board resigned when he was appointed as Mozilla CEO. He stepped down from that role after 11 days, and went on to found Brave.
He's also an anti-masker/pandemic conspiracy theorist
Oh no… should I stop using Brave after knowing this? I believe I might actually do.