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Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

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Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#121

Post by Matl »

rpdillon wrote: post #100
d12bb wrote: post #7

I switched to Kagi little over a year ago and couldn’t recommend it enough. The search results are actually what I’m searching for, there is AI for the occasions I want it (and only then), and it comes with nice extras like search personalization and a great translation app. Tried to live without it when my first year of subscription ran out, but I didn’t last long…

I paid for Kagi for a bit, but got a weird vibe when I realized they were working pretty hard to paper over the fact that they pay a third party to scrape Google search results for them. The public-facing side of that coin is Kagi's position that Google should make their index available to competitors (see https://blog.kagi.com/waiting-dawn-search ). All that's to say: when I paid for Kagi, I thought I was investing…

I am the same, but at the same time I don't want to make assumptions about how viable it is to run a useful index for a small company. I assume they looked into it and deemed it non viable, but would like to know more.

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#122

Post by asciimoo »

Ohi, I'm the author of the open source Searx metasearch engine.

I'm working on a self-hosted search service called Hister with the same goal when I started Searx development: reduce dependence on online search engines.

Hister is a full text indexer for websites and local files which automatically saves all the visited pages rendered by your browser. It provides a flexible web (and terminal) search interface & query language to explore saved content with ease or quickly fall back to traditional search engines. This is a fundamentally different approach than what Searx follows and solves most of the weaknesses of metasearch engines. Of course it has its own weaknesses as well, but most of these are not conceptual and can be resolved by improving the software (and datasets)

I've been using it for a few months and as my local index is growing I can avoid relying on external search engines - and even websites listed in results - more and more frequently.

The initial reception is overwhelmingly positive with already more than 30 contributors and hundreds of contributions. Currently it can help with "recall" type searches mainly, but I'm planning to provide pre-indexed thematic datasets and I'm drafting a peer-to-peer index sharing concept. Maybe you can find it useful as well (or at least have some constructive criticism =]).

Links: - https://hister.org/ - https://github.com/asciimoo/hister - Background/motivation/beginnings: https://hister.org/posts/how-i-cut-my-google-search-dependen... - Small read-only demo: https://demo.hister.org/

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#123

Post by rpastuszak »

Bombthecat wrote: post #92
nekzn wrote: post #18

I must be the only person in this website who is happy with the AI Overview feature. It messes up sometimes (very rarely) but so do websites. And between ads, cookie popups, newsletter popups, notification permission popups, websites with a high Time to First Byte, and all the useless filler around the content, websites are a nightmare to browse. I would say that for almost all of my searches the AI Overview feature…

As a user: I love it! As a former blogger: I hate it. But I knew years ago where things were heading and stopped. No point in blogging/ writing etc.

Forums, engaging with people directly still works!

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#125

Post by seviu »

vitally3643 wrote: post #27
d12bb wrote: post #7

I switched to Kagi little over a year ago and couldn’t recommend it enough. The search results are actually what I’m searching for, there is AI for the occasions I want it (and only then), and it comes with nice extras like search personalization and a great translation app. Tried to live without it when my first year of subscription ran out, but I didn’t last long…

I've been a Kagi subscriber for several years now. If you're questioning the AI features, know that I am only barely aware they exist. I have never, not even once, accidentally or otherwise, engaged the AI features without going out of my way to do so. I've never seen what their AI is like. I have no idea what it's for or why I'd want it. It's beautiful. Kagi has AI I suppose, but it's over there and not in my face.…

The small thing that annoys me is that I am 100% sure somebody at Apple has a directive: never allow Kagi search integration.

I am truly baffled (and annoyed) about this fact.

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#126

Post by neya »

rpdillon wrote: post #100
d12bb wrote: post #7

I switched to Kagi little over a year ago and couldn’t recommend it enough. The search results are actually what I’m searching for, there is AI for the occasions I want it (and only then), and it comes with nice extras like search personalization and a great translation app. Tried to live without it when my first year of subscription ran out, but I didn’t last long…

I paid for Kagi for a bit, but got a weird vibe when I realized they were working pretty hard to paper over the fact that they pay a third party to scrape Google search results for them. The public-facing side of that coin is Kagi's position that Google should make their index available to competitors (see https://blog.kagi.com/waiting-dawn-search ). All that's to say: when I paid for Kagi, I thought I was investing…

They also had a browser called Orion and till date that gave me anxiety because YouTube videos won't play the first time you load them, you need to refresh the page (randomly) and similar other weird quirks. It's state hasn't changed much over the last year either, so I switched back to Brave now.

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#127

Post by feedyourhead »

dmd wrote: post #84

I really really really really want to love Kagi, but every time I try it (and I just spent a month trying it, ending a week or so ago), I end up back at Google, finding that my search results are better. I think the reason is my searches are almost entirely long-tail searches that Kagi's index just isn't good enough for. I am never searching for something like "best mattress" or anything else that is heavily SEO'd -…

> my searches are almost entirely long-tail searches

any chance you have an example of such searches off the top of your head that you wouldn’t mind sharing?

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#128

Post by mapt »

reactordev wrote: post #24
nekzn wrote: post #18

I must be the only person in this website who is happy with the AI Overview feature. It messes up sometimes (very rarely) but so do websites. And between ads, cookie popups, newsletter popups, notification permission popups, websites with a high Time to First Byte, and all the useless filler around the content, websites are a nightmare to browse. I would say that for almost all of my searches the AI Overview feature…

It no longer searches for me but tells me to search for what I’m looking for, which brings it back to itself, telling me to go search for what I’m looking for…

Yesterday I tried Gemini "Can you find the origin of this story I remember from 10+ years ago? Here's three paragraphs of what I recall"

"Yeah, it sounds like a very common copypasta back in the early 2010's, related to XYZ"

"So... uhh... provide me a link please"

"I can't provide links"

"You're a search engine"

"I don't have a current connection to the Internet."

"Well can you give me any examples of anything even vaguely resembling this topic?"

"Yeah, like in the Reddit thread titled ABC, where $two_paragraphs_of_description"

"I can't find that Reddit thread"

"I'm sorry! I hallucinated that it was a common thing, but actually you told me a unique thing that you just made up."

"This sounds like a contradiction. Where did you pull the information about the Reddit thread from?"

"I can't link it, but it was on the sub _____ and it was titled _______ and it talked about your thing at length"

"When I google that I find nothing"

"Sorry! I hallucinated that I knew the link. Actually there is no link, there is no discussion like that, and the thing you provided was totally unique."

I then proceeded to try Googling various permutations of the topics for the thread it brought up, which kept giving me 10 nonsense results, and a grouped collection of Reddit posts that it would not expand on / separate.

Re: Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

#130

Post by daft_pink »

seviu wrote: post #125
vitally3643 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a Kagi subscriber for several years now. If you're questioning the AI features, know that I am only barely aware they exist. I have never, not even once, accidentally or otherwise, engaged the AI features without going out of my way to do so. I've never seen what their AI is like. I have no idea what it's for or why I'd want it. It's beautiful. Kagi has AI I suppose, but it's over there and not in my face.…

The small thing that annoys me is that I am 100% sure somebody at Apple has a directive: never allow Kagi search integration. I am truly baffled (and annoyed) about this fact.

I know right. It’s simple. Google pays them over a billion dollars and Kagi doesn’t.
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