it really depends if i know what i am trying to search or just researching the general notion. the latter part i will use llms for
Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
491–500 of 609 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#492Search is primarily a portal - you know a particular resource exists, you just don't know its exact URL. You hear about this new programming language called "Frob", and you assume it must have a website. So you google "Frob language". You hear that there was a plane crash in DC, and assume (CNN/AP/your_favorite_news_site) has almost certainly written an article about it. You google "DC plane crash." LLMs aren't ever…
It's been pretty cool to realize that Grok 3 actually prioritizes up-to-date information: I have actually used it for both kinds of your examples, and it worked.
Still use Google for quick generic lookups, spell-checks/definitions, shopping stuff, products, or things I know will return a good result.
Grok is great for finding details and background info about recent news, and of course it's great for deep-diving on general knowledge topics.
I also use Grok for quick coding help. I prefer to use AI for help with isolated coding aspects such as functions and methods, as a conversational reference manual. I'm not ready to sit there pretending to be the "pilot" while AI takes over my code!
For the record, I do not like Google's AI generated results it spams at me when I search for things. I want AI when I choose to use AI, not when I don't choose it. Google needs a way to switch that off on the web (without being logged in).
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#493People keep saying this but I keep using Google and I keep being happy with my results.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I'm increasingly using ChatGPT to research topics. In that way, I can refine my question, drill down, ask for alternatives, supply my own supplementary information, etc. I think of AI as an intelligent search engine / assistant and, outside of simple questions with one very specific answer, it just crushes search engines.
it's especially great in voice mode. I love to take a long walk or jog with earbuds in and use it to learn a new topic. I don't well through indoctrination, I learn much better by asking it to give a very big picture overview, start to build an intuitive understanding, and then start asking pointed questions to fill in the blanks and iterate towards a deeper understanding. I find ChatGPT's voice mode to be very engag…
Yeah, I find setting it in voice mode and then directing it to a specific site that I'm interested in discussing is super useful, so I start off in ChatGPT*, then I switch windows to what I'm interested in looking at. For instance, I want to go over a GitHub repo. I can ask it to verbally ask it to go there and then chat with it as I read through the README file, and it provides great a soundboarding experience. No pun intended. Heck, I'm even dictating this response through Wispr Flow, which I have found to be more useful than I had anticipated.
* Gemini lets you do this by actually streaming your screen through and verbally chatting about whatever is on screen. While interesting, I find the responses to be a little less thorough. YMMV.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#495Yes.
ddg is often faster for when I want to get to an actual web site and find up-to-date info, for "search as navigation".
llm's are often faster for finding answers to slightly vague questions (where you know you're going to have to burn at least as much climate on wading through blogspam and ads and videos-that-didn't-need-to-be-videos if you do a search).
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#496I use Kagi search + Instant Answer. Instant Answer is most often giving me the result I am looking for.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#497Yes, I still use search engines, although my use of them has decreased.
What I tend to use LLMs for is rubber ducking or the opening of research on a topic.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do I know the LLM isn't lying to me? AIs lie all the time, it's impossible for me to trust them. I'd rather just go to the actual source and decide whether to trust it. Odds are pretty good that a programming language's homepage is not lying to me about the language; and I have my trust level for various news sites already calibrated. AIs are garbage-in garbage-out, and a whole boatload of garbage goes into them.
> How do I know the LLM isn't lying to me? How do you know the media isn't lying to you ? It's happened many times before (think pre-war propaganda)
We’re talking about the official website for a programming language, which has to reason to lie.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#499Yes and I'm still, years later, get annoyed that I need to force them to search, instead of making self-humiliating attempts to answer some question that isn't even there while feeding me a bunch of spam blogs and irrelevant but somehow profitable results.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?
#500All the time and no it's not Kagi (not saying it's bad; I just don't need it). I use Google and on good days DDG and DDG is really bad anything local I want to search and so is Kagi (in my limited trial) and by local I don't mean my city but my entire gigantic country.
As for those AI chatbots -those are anything but useful for the general search purposes beyond a bit of surface level answers which you can't fully trust because they (still) hallucinate a lot. I tell chatgpt - "Give me a list of good X. (And don't you make anything yup!!!)" - yeah with those bangs; and it still makes shit up.