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Google Alternatives

justprivacy.org

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Re: Google Alternatives

#21

Post by kennywinker »

garyrichardson wrote: post #8

I've tried really hard to not use google for search. But DDG is bad. I have it set as my default search. I find myself either: 1) trying duck duck go and then immediately re-searching in google to actually get relevant answers. 2) skipping the search bar and going immediately to google when I know DDG just isn't going to work. Feels like back in the olden days when you had to try Altavista, Lycos and Yahoo to find wh…

I've fully switched to DDG. I still bounce over to google maybe 5-10% of the time, but to me that's a pretty big win. 90-95% of the time I avoid being tracked by google at the cost of 5-10% of the time wasting a few seconds skimming results on ddg before jumping to google.

Re: Google Alternatives

#22

Post by kennywinker »

Currently shopping for an email host. For 2-3 accounts, Protonmail is pretty pricey, compared with tutanota... I've heard good things about protonmail, but does anybody have experience with tutanota or any of the other alternatives listed?

Re: Google Alternatives

#23

Post by taylodl »

garyrichardson wrote: post #8

I've tried really hard to not use google for search. But DDG is bad. I have it set as my default search. I find myself either: 1) trying duck duck go and then immediately re-searching in google to actually get relevant answers. 2) skipping the search bar and going immediately to google when I know DDG just isn't going to work. Feels like back in the olden days when you had to try Altavista, Lycos and Yahoo to find wh…

I have the exact opposite experience. I find DDG's searching to be much better than Google's - which has turned to garbage. Having said that, I've noticed the quality of DDG's search results have dropped quite a bit in the past couple of months. Don't know what could be causing that.

Re: Google Alternatives

#24

Post by jorvi »

woleium wrote: post #10
garyrichardson wrote: post #8

I've tried really hard to not use google for search. But DDG is bad. I have it set as my default search. I find myself either: 1) trying duck duck go and then immediately re-searching in google to actually get relevant answers. 2) skipping the search bar and going immediately to google when I know DDG just isn't going to work. Feels like back in the olden days when you had to try Altavista, Lycos and Yahoo to find wh…

you can '!g search' in ddg to search google instead

I wonder if they log those searches. To be clear: in a privacy-friendly way. It would be a treasure trove to them as they basically get statistics on which searches do bad on their engine. Focus on the most '!g'd search term, and then just work down the list.

Re: Google Alternatives

#25

Post by zabhi »

kennywinker wrote: post #22

Currently shopping for an email host. For 2-3 accounts, Protonmail is pretty pricey, compared with tutanota... I've heard good things about protonmail, but does anybody have experience with tutanota or any of the other alternatives listed?

Migadu is awesome. And way too cheap.

Re: Google Alternatives

#26

Post by cmroanirgo »

raspyberr wrote: post #2

>Google analytics >Google fonts >Cloudflare justprivacy.org

I thought your comment a little terse, and missed it's initial impact. So to clarify for others:

Have a look at the source of justprivacy.org, and you'll see the above 3 products being used. Clearly they're not dog-fooding their own rhetoric.

Re: Google Alternatives

#27

Post by s3r3nity »

egonschiele wrote: post #12

Wish there was more info on the difference between these services. I really admire DDG but I don't think they check their ads well. I have been taken in by a scam ad once before. For email, I've been using fastmail ever since I asked this[1] two years ago. It is terrific. It also provides a calendar. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574

Also came here to mention Fastmail, and was surprised it wasn't in the list in the OP.

Re: Google Alternatives

#28

Post by tored »

dqv wrote: post #17
garyrichardson wrote: post #8

I've tried really hard to not use google for search. But DDG is bad. I have it set as my default search. I find myself either: 1) trying duck duck go and then immediately re-searching in google to actually get relevant answers. 2) skipping the search bar and going immediately to google when I know DDG just isn't going to work. Feels like back in the olden days when you had to try Altavista, Lycos and Yahoo to find wh…

This is an unfortunate paradox of a new search engine: the results suck because no one searches and no one searches because the results suck. I try to continue to work at it until I get a result I’m looking for in the hopes that it helps improve the search results for myself and others. I can say that the ddg results today are good enough that I can actually use it as my default, but this was not true several years a…

Not only has DDG become better, especially for regional/localized searches, Google has become worse.

What Google has done is to prioritize mainstream sources over correct matches. In the old days you could get a match for small unknown blog on the first page, today it is very rare for me that I get that. It is usually mainstream sources on the first page, except when the search is very technical like programming.

This becomes even more apparent for Google’s affiliate YouTube where you can search for the exact title and it doesn’t show up on the first page. Related videos is also broken.

What drives clicks on YouTube today is the very curated home page for a user. This was not how YouTube used to work.

These factors has changed how we, at least for me, consume content. In the old days you found small independent sources much more easily, which meant that it was up to you to make a judgment if that source was interesting or not. Today it is the opposite, "here is a clip that has been viewed 20 millions times before you, enjoy!". This has made the web much worse.

One thing that Google do better is grouping result from same source, like here is all matches from Reddit, this has two main benefits. First it easy to view that group separately. Second is that you can view more matches on the first search page.

Re: Google Alternatives

#29

Post by BallyBrain »

kennywinker wrote: post #22

Currently shopping for an email host. For 2-3 accounts, Protonmail is pretty pricey, compared with tutanota... I've heard good things about protonmail, but does anybody have experience with tutanota or any of the other alternatives listed?

I use mailbox.org. They offer encryption and I believe have a focus on privacy. best part is 1 euro a month, but that is for their basic package which I think should be enough for most people.

Edit: I only use 1 email account with them though, don't know how they go for multiple.

Re: Google Alternatives

#30

Post by bingo_cannon »

kennywinker wrote: post #22

Currently shopping for an email host. For 2-3 accounts, Protonmail is pretty pricey, compared with tutanota... I've heard good things about protonmail, but does anybody have experience with tutanota or any of the other alternatives listed?

I have been using Fastmail for a few years now. Pretty happy with them.
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