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Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

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Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#151

Post by csnover »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #69

Can someone tell me why Bing, and thus DDG, has switched to prioritizing local results? I'll search the most inane things, like lyrics to a song, and get results for local businesses containing maybe one word in common. It's most frustrating with phone numbers. I picked up the habit of searching the random numbers that called me, to try and find out if they were possibly important. I used to get a bunch of spam sites…

Man, thank you for saying this. Stuffing results with geolocated local junk despite explicitly opting out by choosing “All regions” is so frustrating. This wasn’t happening a year or two ago. I submit negative feedback about it constantly, but I guess not enough people are doing that for anyone to notice or care.

I’ve also noticed a significant increase in attempts to stuff news into regular search results. I really do not appreciate being force-fed mental health poison. I don’t need it ever, but I especially don’t need it when I’m searching for some specific technical thing and then get emotionally sabotaged by some clickbait headline because … why? Some bullshit KPI? Why are tech companies so obsessed with pushing news into every orifice?

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#152

Post by hannasanarion »

tedunangst wrote: post #147
virgildotcodes wrote: post #138

I really don't understand why anyone writing articles about ChatGPT uses 3.5. It's pretty misleading as to the results you can get out of (the best available version of) ChatGPT. For comparison, here are all the author's questions posed against GPT4: https://chat.openai.com/share/ed8695cf-132e-45f3-ad27-600da7...

Why does OpenAI continue to offer chatgpt 3.5 if it's so bad?

GPT 4 is THIRTY (30) times more expensive.

In the llm-assisted search spaces I'm involved in, a lot of folks are trying to build solutions based on fine tuning and support software surrounding 3.5, which is economical for a massive userbase, using 4 only as a testing judge for quality control.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#154

Post by boomboomsubban »

callalex wrote: post #131
boomboomsubban wrote: post #69

Can someone tell me why Bing, and thus DDG, has switched to prioritizing local results? I'll search the most inane things, like lyrics to a song, and get results for local businesses containing maybe one word in common. It's most frustrating with phone numbers. I picked up the habit of searching the random numbers that called me, to try and find out if they were possibly important. I used to get a bunch of spam sites…

I’m confused, you are searching for, specifically, a local phone number and you are upset that the machine interprets that as you looking for a local result? That’s what most people expect from a local number search. Perhaps the incorrect thing is not your internet search results, but actually your phone carrier for lying to you and telling you that a caller has a local number?

The number is local, and occasionally I've searched and found the number was a local clinic or business that had legitimate reason to call me but not leave a message. In those scenarios, close to all ten of the numbers are found on the page.

The top result being my local police department because it shares the same area code and has maybe one other number in common is clearly a bad result. It does this even if the phone carrier isn't lying to me and the caller does have a local number, like the increasingly common political spam calls.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#155

Post by shaldengeki »

naet wrote: post #133

I think the result grading is too opinionated here. For example, the first query is "download YouTube videos", for which Google is ranked "terrible" for not showing you a command line open source program. But the literal first result is an ad supported site where I can paste in a YouTube link and download it right from the browser. That seems like exactly what most people would want or to the CLI tool the author is s…

The author describes that site as such, which seems fair to rate as "terrible":

> Some youtube downloader site. Has lots of assurances that the website and the tool are safe because they've been checked by "Norton SafeWeb". Interacting with the site at all prompts you to install a browser extension and enable notifications. Trying to download any video gives you a full page pop-over for extension installation for something called CyberShield. There appears to be no way to dismiss the popover without clicking on something to try to install it. After going through the links but then choosing not to install CyberShield, no video downloads. Googling "cybershield chrome extension" returns a knowledge card with "Cyber Shield is a browser extension that claims to be a popup blocker but instead displays advertisements in the browser. When installed, this extension will open new tabs in the browser that display advertisements trying to sell software, push fake software updates, and tech support scams.", so CyberShield appears to be badware.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#156

Post by vitorgrs »

Weird article. Basically, the author thinks that anything that is not yt-dlp is a bad search result, which is pretty insane.

Like, for me at least, I already know yt-dlp exists. When I search "youtube downloader", it's exactly because I want an online-website page to download youtube videos.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#158

Post by freediver »

Current Kagi results for those without an account to compare:

youtube downloader

https://kagi.com/search?q=youtube+downloader&r=us&sh=_szITdy...

ad blocker

https://kagi.com/search?q=Ad+blocker&r=us&sh=-BHzV2ZoCDpmgOu...

download Firefox

https://kagi.com/search?q=Download+Firefox&r=us&sh=zkkmc_EQX...

why do wider tires have better grip?

https://kagi.com/search?q=Why+do+wider+tires+have+better+gri...

why do they keep making cpu transistors smaller?

https://kagi.com/search?q=Why+do+they+keep+making+cpu+transi...

vancouver snow forecast winter 2023

https://kagi.com/search?q=Vancouver+snow+forecast+winter+202...

I agree with the author that there is too much spam on the web. I think Kagi in general does a pretty good job at downranking it (number of ads/trackers is a negative ranking signal on Kagi) but we can always do better. Kagi has special search modes like "Small Web" which virtually eliminates spam.

I welcome such scrutiny from the community. Please continue to keep us honest.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#159

Post by vitorgrs »

simonw wrote: post #141
refulgentis wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit hard to use for most, either $20/month fixed for a limited # of messages, or you need to be able to reason through how to get an API key, or get another 3rd party service with similar cost & limits.

You can use GPT-4 for free via Bing - though I find it a little hard to explain to people how they can do that because I'm never sure what the rules are with regards to creating Microsoft accounts, whether you can use any browser or have to use Edge, what countries it's available in etc. Actually maybe the recommendation should be to use GPT-4 for free via https://copilot.microsoft.com/ instead now. (Except I can't t…

FYI: Balanced doesn't run pure GPT4. Balanced uses a combination of multiple models. Precise and Creative is pure GPT4.

About GPT4 Turbo, to check if you are on Turbo, ctrl+U > ctrl+f > check if "dlgpt4t" exists. If it exists, you are running turbo.

You can also double-check by, well, asking stuff after 2021 knowledge cut-off as well ("What are the oscar winners?") with search disabled.

But you'll notice because turbo is much faster on bing (and better too).

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#160

Post by wisemang »

golol wrote: post #143
tentacleuno wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] but that also speaks for how hard evaluating search quality is. Would you be able to share some of your personal highlights regarding this? I've partially kept up-to-date with the DIY, non-corporate search space (YaCY and friends). I'd love to understand a bit more behind the engineering decisions made when creating a search engine; it seems like a very hard problem to solve. P.S. Marginalia is a very impress…

I just tested Mariginalia and it was completely unable to lead me to a Wikipedia or imdb page when searching for "driver ryan gosling" and variations. It just listed lots of random articles.

That.. is kind of the point of this particular search engine.

> This is an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed.

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