I’ve been using DuckDuckGo for the past several years.
Is it just me or does it seem Google is either AI filled or becoming obsolete? Is there an up and comer that can be what Google used to be? Or are we stuck oogling stuff forever?
Submitted 19 hours ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
theywilleatthestars@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
inbn@lemmy.zip 16 hours ago
noai.duckduckgo.com is the best drop-in replacement for a free pre-AI search engine.
kagi.com is great if you can justify paying for it.
I’ve used both for a long time and have never missed Google, especially in its current state.
okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
If you aren’t paying for it, you’re the product being sold.
P1nkman@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
If the grass is free; you’re the cattle.
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 13 hours ago
I use kagi for free but my dad is addicted to google so I might see if he likes it…
Honestly he’s in the demographic that might prefer the ai slop :/
GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 18 hours ago
DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia are the two big ones that tend to come up in these kind of questions, although there’s a handful of smaller search platforms out there as well. Bing is even worse than Google at this point. If I recall correctly Ecosia uses a custom search algorithm but still relies mostly on Google’s index at this time, DuckDuckGo is entirely independent.
hexagonwin@lemmy.today 18 hours ago
duckduckgo uses bing doesn’t it? the results seem mostly identical to me
GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 17 hours ago
If I recall correctly it queries the Bing API among other niche sources for indexing and acts as a proxy for ad purposes, so while there’s a lot of Bing results, it’s not one-to-one. Unless they changed things recently, it’s possible I missed a press release.
DrFunkenstein@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
I’m pretty sure yes, if you use ddg news there’ll be a lot of results from MSN, owned by Microsoft
crandlecan@mander.xyz 17 hours ago
I fully switched to presearch.com
Witchfire@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
I’ve been using Kagi as well to good success
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Google has been getting worse since before AI, it’s because it’s advantage stemmed from indexing the public web, but as the web turned into a half a dozen walled gardens it lost that edge.
It’s losing customers to AI so it’s trying to clone their features, pretty, but it’s been trying this with just regurgitating Wikipedia for a while.
I don’t know for sure but I suspect internally the incompetent middle management layer are pushing AI usage as a metric and forcing engineers to ruin their best product because management don’t know the value of Google (because they are by and large morons who use AI).
The AI usage can be avoided with other search engines but the walled garden problem is here to stay, on a closed Internet search is always going to suck.
Formfiller@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I use duck duck go. Google is tech bro trash
MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Duck Duck Go is my default, but increasingly I use the Wikipedia app, because usually I’m looking for detailed information, and it’s a cut-to-the-chase option.
TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 19 hours ago
Oh they’re planning to replace the standard link view with AI overview in general :3 source
There’re quite a few alternative search engines; I personally use duckduckgo, but startpage is also good, I hear, I’ve been trying it out in cases where ddg doesn’t get my desired results :3. There’s also searXNG which is more technical, but quite good in terms of fetching results from a bunch of stuff, and a lot of people I know swear by kagi, but that one is a paid service. Those are the main “big” ones I see around. Of course they’re by far not the only ones
AlchemicalAgent@mander.xyz 18 hours ago
Going to pop in with a vote for Kagi. They are paid, but they also run their own index so they don’t use Google at all. Well worth it.
mereo@piefed.ca 16 hours ago
I host searXNG on my home server. It’s heaven. I get better results Google.
Kevlar21@piefed.social 17 hours ago
These days I just go straight to Wikipedia when possible
Steve@communick.news 17 hours ago
Patnou@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Yea but kinda seems like I have to pay for privilege.
Steve@communick.news 14 hours ago
Someone always pays for your search.
It’s only a question of who, and what do they want you to see when you search?sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 13 hours ago
You can use it for free if you’re frugal with search. I use DDG and only kagi when I really need it.
faltryka@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I’ve been using kagi and even replaced the default search on my iPhone with it. Works great
mech@feddit.org 18 hours ago
Bing is still worse. Today I searched Rufus on Bing.
The website of the project wasn’t even on the first page of the results.Telodzrum@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
That’s odd, the entire first page of results is about the software when I just searched on Bing. The official site was the top result.
mech@feddit.org 6 hours ago
Oops, I already conditioned myself to ignore the top result cause it’s offset from the others by Bing’s design.
Looks like a sponsored or AI result.
hexagonwin@lemmy.today 18 hours ago
doesn’t seem very popular but ive been using etools.ch lately and it’s decent. it also works without javascript
RamRabbit@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Google seems hell-bent on AI; DuckDuckGo lets you easily disable AI search. Try it out.
duckduckgo.com
squirrel@cake.kobel.fyi 18 hours ago
They provide this handy url as well: https://noai.duckduckgo.com
CubitOom@infosec.pub 18 hours ago
Duckduckgo is just bing search