cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/47107360
Google is making its Search more centred around AI, turning it into a conversation.
Besides being a worse experience, the websites from which it sources its information are losing all traffic and recognition.
Recommend a list of alternatives:
- Kagi - Paid but better experience than Google
- Ecosia - Similar experience while supporting a good cause
- Qwant - Increasingly unique results and building a EU-first index
- DuckDuckGo - Privacy-focused search, but quality of results may vary
More options: https://purchasewithpurpose.io/category/search-engine/
Google search as I know it shit the bed over a decade ago.
I wouldn’t know because I mainly use DuckDuckGo and haven’t had a reason to use Google in a long time.
DuckDuckGo is just Microslop Bing with a different front-end.
Yeah, whatever bias and censorship Micro$lop’s search index has, except supposedly without the tracking. It’s a step up from Google and Bing, but not the perfect solution.
What do you recommend?
If you live in Europe, the French search engine Qwant is great.
Kagi. It does work and they are making anti AI a priority.
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Not using meta search engines and going directly to the sites with the info and searching them for instance.
Ah yes, good thing I kept a rolodex of websites for every useful website that I might need.
Can you search your rolodex for “caddy tls configuration” for me?
Thanks fri… wait, you’re not who I replied to. Do you have your own rolodex of websites?
Isn’t every alternative search engine just bing or google in the background?
Not all, but mostly, yes: https://hachyderm.io/@BoydStephenSmithJr/116609141864889111
Eu-first index, you say? I might wanna check that out!
Yeah I don’t think that one will go over well with the current wording on their FAQ.
Frequently asked questions What is this? This is a metasearch engine that gets results from other engines, and strips away all of the tracking parameters and Microsoft/globohomo bullshit they add. Most of the other alternatives to Google jack themselves off about being ““privacy respecting”” or whatever the fuck but it always turns out to be a total lie, and I just got fed up with their shit honestly. Alternatives like Searx or YaCy all fucking sucks so I made my own thing.
Sounds like a straight shooter to me. What’s not to like?
‘globohomo bullshit’ doesn’t strike you as a red flag?
Maybe they are trying to ‘take back’ a bigoted term, but I don’t get that feeling. Especially since the vast majority of people using that term are shithead chuds.
Google Search has long since diminished from it’s peak. 15 years ago we used to play a “game” by describing something as vaguely or strangely as possible and would be entertained to find it still on the first page of search results.
SEO and paid ranking caused a steady decline in Google search performance, and LLMs are the kill shot.
Indexing and ranking were already a solved problem, and conventional algorithms accomplished it much better than LLMs do. Unfortunately, LLMs need to find uses to justify investment, so now they must be used for any task that they can be used for, even if its worse than the solutions that we already had.
SEO and paid ranking caused a steady decline in Google search performance
Yeah, this much started eating into the users’ need for that one good answer.
even if its worse than the solutions that we already had.
Like Gemini replacing Assistant. Holy shit, what a dumpster fire.
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The other factor is companies, interests, paying the Google and their ilk to not include things in search results. And only include what they choose as an alternative.
Then you might have different interests gaming the search results to bury something they don’t like.
This is only amplified by LLMs
Absolutely nailed it.
SearXNG. I will never understand why it doesn’t get used more. It is so easy to set up.
Yup, easy peasy. And if you really want AI deep research, how about plugging it into your own local LLM with Vane
are you aware of any instances that have lasted longer than a few months?
exactly what i needed; thank you!
Ugh, damn post title. I went through the whole article looking for the alternatives before realizing the title of the article says nothing about alternatives.
Sorry, it was in the post body. Will update post to make this clearer.
Kagi and Startpage are my go-to search engines these days.
I have a paid Kagi account and feel it is very much worth the investment.Too much AI with Kagi.
