SearXNG best by far
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
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Privacy
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Kagi user here. This search engine is miles in front of all the other ones I've tried. Even has a toggle for searching for stuff within the fediverse!
It's fine. Not a fan of the AI garbage generator at the top. For obscure queries Big G still returns the best results and this will not change any time soon.
Something else that won't change: If you're not paying for a service, then that service will be trying to monetize you in some other way and will therefore have an incentive to spy on you.
You can disable the ai in settings.
I use brave as default search on Firefox, and search in incognito by default. On mobile, brave doesn't save the "disable AI" setting so the slop is there for every search, not to mention slowing down the process.
I really want to switch to brave's search engine from ddg (mainly cuz brave has its own index while ddg uses Bing's). But I have a rlly nice theme on ddg, which makes me feel rlly comfortable. Sure, I can put up user themes/ user scripts whatever for brave search too, but I'm not getting the time to do all that.
Switch to searxng, make your theme, and never get locked in again.
I never tried searx much. I'll do it now :)
Just keep in mind SearX isn't around anymore, as it's been replaced by SearXNG.
Mind sharing what kinda theme you rocking?
Ooo I have a custom one, which is pitch black and has like pink n gray accents n stuff like that. Looks really sexy on my screen
My negative picks are:
- By default it enables sending usage metrics and local search results which they claim to be anonymous.
- Also unlike other search engines it doesn't have parameters for search query which can be used set your preferences, thus avoiding hustle to configure settings everytime.(in cases like delete cookies when browser closed and incognito mode).
I ditched brave for DuckDuckGo, then DuckDuckGo for Ecosia…
I ditched brave for DuckDuckGo, then DuckDuckGo for Ecosia…
you went back to Bing and Google. Congratulations
DDG uses bing and yandex under the hood, no?
https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/
Most of our search result pages feature one or more Instant Answers. To deliver Instant Answers on specific topics, DuckDuckGo leverages many sources, including specialized sources like Sportradar and crowd-sourced sites like Wikipedia. We also maintain our own crawler (DuckDuckBot) and many indexes to support our results. Of course, we have more traditional links and images in our search results too, which we largely source from Bing. Our focus is synthesizing all these sources to create a superior search experience.
I thought DDG used Bing under the hood.
Can you use the brave search engine from other browsers? (Is it a proxy for any other search engine?)
I'm expecting a negative, but a fella can dream.
Full disclosure: currently using StartPage and reasonably happy. StartPage is a proxy for Google as far as I can tell, although I've seen people say (on Reddit) it refers to Bing too.
No, it is not a proxy for another search index/engine.
Yes, you can add Brave search to your other browsers.
Thank-you.
I've just installed Perplexity and reading about it replacing Google on https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/16/opinion_column_perplexity_vs_google/
You can. For instance, look up the Brave Search extension on Firefox. Or you can just set the brave.search link to your home page button on any browser.
Oh thank-you. As you have guessed, I haven't done even basic investigation.
I'll try to add it on as a search engine on Firefox to play with.
Thank-you again kind netizen.
i was using Brave search until i discovered qwant. Been usjng it for months now and quite like it
I use it regularly because it is so far the best free privacy respecting search. But holy shit the lack of features (can't even do boolean search) is insane