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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

#321

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.…

Kagi uses Yandex which is Russian.

But does it surface relevant search results?

Many things on the web use Yandex.

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

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other countries do you want nothing to do with?

This is so funny, as though wanting to boycott specific entities is some kind of absurd notion, and as though saying "Sure, what ELSE don't you like?" is some kind of proof that it's an absurdity

Maybe not that ridiculous, since one can guess that the underlying thoughts are more about geostrategic concerns than favorite color of the day.

The United States (I guess that's also the premise here, I'm not USA citizen myself) has notable rivalries with several countries, including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. These nations are often considered adversaries due to various geopolitical tensions and conflicts.

I guess that Kahi is doing nothing illegal, so if people have that kind of question, it feels legitimate to reply with a demand of what is the extend this patriotism stance is going beyond the judicial requirements.

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

#323
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> didn't realize Kagi had no aspirations to build their own general purpose index Kagi employee here. We're actively working on building our own indexes beyond the limited ones we have now, not just a general index but also purpose built indexes for things like programming, etc.

[flagged]

yandex provides objectively better results for many things than google/ddg/bing

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

#324

I pretty much only use Google for news searches these days. Even then, it’s mostly just to get a surface-level view before cross-referencing with other engines for anything important. There’s so much content getting buried now. If you’re looking for anything remotely niche or legally gray, like sports streams or ebooks, you’re often better off using Yandex or you’ll never find it. The old Google search engine that us…

I'm using Ground News for skimming through the news, their ads are everywhere, but it is a somewhat good product. I pay for the most basic plan and it is pretty cheap. If I want a deeper dive in some story I look the links to the original posts their provide

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

#325
post #310

The funny thing is that as much as everyone complains about AI overviews and Google losing the plot and so on, about a year and a half ago the “where did you hear about us” field on my website stopped being dominated by “Google” and started being dominated by “ChatGPT”. Normal people are using AI for search more already, Google is just trying to stop their primary business from completely disappearing.

I do mostly use AI instead of Google these days. When I do use Google, it's because I want to use Google and not an AI. But Google increasingly shoves AI in my face.

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

#326
Haha, I was going to say "why not bing.com?", but I just tried it with search term 'opencode' and got literally only 3 text results and then the "next page" button. The next page had 6 results, the next page had 13 results. I'm not sure how, but having more money seems to result in worse technology

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

#327
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…

If the AI overview produces plausible sound answers, how do you know that it messes up very rarely?

If I search topics I am knowledge about, the overviews are almost always at least slightly wrong.

Not all websites are correct sources of information, but I am generally aware of which websites are trustworthy and can cross check.

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

#328
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that people produce content because they want visitors to their sites. If ChatGPT and Google just vacuum up content for AI summaries, people may stop producing that content. It really is, in the long-term, an existential issue for the web if search providers push people away from visiting websites.

Curious to know your stance on Google discouraging Adblock. And whether users are morally obligated to not use Adblock.

Have you not encountered the eleventy billion subscription services and merch stores? Those make a loooooot more money for creators than ads these days. Even the dirt cheap ones. Similarly, there's a reason so many youtube channels get their own sponsors instead of relying on youtube's ads pittance.

If you successfully block adblock (tall order is tall), a lot of people really do just go do something else, instead of resigning to the ads firehose. And adblock users are still (somehow) in the minority, I think.

Also, this loops right back around too Google's ad monopoly. They have a stranglehold on both sides of the market, able to maximize spend from marketers and minimize payouts for those showing the ads, to maximize Google's profit at cost to everyone else.

Before theft-by-Gemini-Summary, there was Google News, with Google just wholesale copying articles into Google's feed reader so they could collect the ad revenue instead of the writers and publishers.

They've abdicated any right to complain about copyright violations of their own IP, at this point. Either copyright law is the law, or it isn't: can't be both ways. In practice, lawyers cost money and Google has much more than Random Adblock User 6, but morally speaking, they have no high ground to speak of.

Anyway... If Google doesn't any longer drive traffic to websites, then the operators of said websites will no longer have a reason to allow Google to index them in the first place. You can't have a very effective search engine if too many major sites block its crawlers.

I don't think the AI bubble is going to last, but if it did, I expect this all would end up compounding the "LLMs training on LLM generated content and churning up other LLM content" spiral into ever more useless drivel.

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

#329
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> didn't realize Kagi had no aspirations to build their own general purpose index Kagi employee here. We're actively working on building our own indexes beyond the limited ones we have now, not just a general index but also purpose built indexes for things like programming, etc.

[flagged]

Ru-speaking audience is ~2 times bigger than Russia, why would they cut this? Only because of SJWs like you? I'd much prefer one search engine that searches well on two languages, instead of using different engines for each language. Ru-net has huge amount of usefulness in it, cutting it out is like cutting a finger. Fun fact, before the RU-UKR war, most Ukranians contributed to the Runet, so that would cut their heritage too.

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

#330
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It messes up sometimes i have the opposite experience as i've found it to mess up a lot to the point that I can't trust the AI Overview answer at all. I've seen it be confidently wrong too many times and now the trust factor just isn't there.

Never ever trust AI summary cooking instructions. Holy crap. I made a serious error with that once.

Did you add glue to a pizza?
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