this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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I ask because I've been doing a lot of research the last few weeks and Google search has really let me down. I've been finding better results on DuckDuckGo and Bing. Is this a recent thing with Google or am I out of the loop? Any other search recommendations?

Edit: In no particular order, some recommended alternatives to Google
SearXNG
Whoogle
Ecosia
Brave
Dogpile
DuckDuckGo
Kagi
Swiss Cows
Qwant
Bing

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (9 children)

DuckDuckGo uses Bing results. Also DuckDuckGo is not your friend.

I personally use SearXNG for best results. Public instance list.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That article is about their web browser. Agree that it doesn’t exactly instill confidence that their search engine is squeaky clean. Regardless, DDG results are much more useful than Google results, as the entire first page isn’t ads.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This. It was an interesting read and gives me doubts, but it's undoubtably better than using google and I can set it to my default search engine in safari

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Iwould honestly not use Safari either. Mozilla Firefox is the way to go (unless you're on iOS where there actually is no real choice, although the probably still better to use the Firefox front end)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

«DDG results are much more useful than Google results» -- not if one is searching in anything but english; not sure for english either (had very poor results myself whenever i tried it) but at least can't disprove it.

[–] pixelpop3 1 points 1 year ago

DDG is really good for my English searches. I was shocked yo learn that it relies on Bing because Bing searches are always trash for me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The English results are pretty good from what I've seen. Hit and miss in some areas though, like if you want to search in quotes.

Simple searches in other languages seem to work OK. It might depend on the language though. Google does better overall.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

@BrikoX Thanks for that link on DuckDuckGo - interesting read.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the link on SearXNG never heard of that before.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah although this is specifically the Duckduckgo web Browser rather than their search site. The only web browser to use is Firefox, set up the privacy and tracking settings correctly plus add in privacy extensions.

Duckduckgo website doesn't track you in the same way, but still it is a company and should not be treated as a virtuous entity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

For me searxng hasn't been working (tried multiple instances, throws mixed errors). I've been using whoogle and it works pretty well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I honestly went back to Google after seeing every fucking link in DuckDuckGo behind MSN. Almost every alternative search has Microsoft’s claws in them.

Glad to see a potential alternative in SearXNG. Thanks for the info.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

same here (concerning going back to google every time); unfortunately can't share optimism for searxng: afaiu it's not a search engine but an aggregator/frontend, i tend to get all the same sh*t with it no matter which combination of search engines / settings i tried. finally just gave up for the moment with an internal promise to do more testing in a year or two.

[–] pixelpop3 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Huh That's odd. The MSN bullshit is what I see in bing. DDG always is great. I wonder if it's because I'm mostly comparing Edge+Bing vs Firefox+DDG and Firefox is the magic?

[–] pixelpop3 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Huh. That's odd because bing search sucks and DDG does not. Work IT forces Edge+Bing as default at each Citrix login so force of habit url bar searches wind up there first somewhat often. So then I immediately go to DDG and search and find what I want... that's a poser. On my own machines/phone I use Firefox with DDG as default search engine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My site doesn't seems to be index. Is there a way to let SearXNG instance know about my URL?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It doesn't crawl the sites itself, it just parses the rusults from all the existing search engines and combines them.

Ask Google and Bing to index your site. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9012289#request_indexing
https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/url-submission-62f2860b

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

DuckDuckGo is not your friend

please, PLEASE, never forget that the CEO of DuckDuckGo is also the founder of the "Names Database". it is insane to me that anyone trusts DDG. where do you think they get all the money for marketing from? i've seen a DDG ad on a fucking bus stop in the middle of nowhere

edit: throwing in an honorary mention for Qwant, which is an EU-based privacy-oriented search engine. i've been using them for a couple of years now and have yet to hear anything bad about the company. SearX is also supposedly a safe bet