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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

#331

You are the google search engine pre-2010, well before Google lost their "don't be evil" motto, made the first results page favour sponsors and added AI overview. You respond to a search query with a list of https:// URLs, each accompanied by a representative quote from the destination page that demonstrates the link's relevance to the query, and nothing else. The query is: We live in the dystopia we deserve. We have…

> We live in the dystopia we deserve. We have built it with our own hands and it is here to stay.

That's a bit unfair. Not all of us who live in it had a hand in building it. In fact, very few of us had the leverage to fight against it.

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

#332
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.

I was searching for reverse sear info and it told me to make sure the steak is at least 37f/3c internally before eating lol

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

#333

I switched to DDG a long time ago (maybe close to a decade now?). There's plenty of reasons to dislike Google, but my main reason for switching was better quality results and a faster, simpler UI. The UI has gotten a bit clunkier over the years, but it's still good, still more focused than Google's. As I write this, I give Google Search a quick try and notice that the first thing you see is a full-screen cookie banne…

+1 I did the same a few years back. It’s fine most of the time. Their AI assist is ok as well. No complaints here, can always fallback to google if the results aren’t good enough

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

#335
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'm using chatbots for search, but that's only because Google became so horrible at it.

I'd rather just have results without chatbot fluff.

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

#336
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 tried it, too. Loved it. Was nearly ready to pay for it. Then I learned that they source their data from Yandex. To hell with that! I'll rather get my search results on paper via carrier pigeon than support the rape of Ukraine.

Do not fund the Kremlin!

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

#337
post #193
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 messes up sometimes (very rarely) I don't believe this for a second. It has constantly the worst output of any serious AI I've seen, by far. It's laughably wrong sometimes, usually just wrong. It can usually cope with mundane keyword searches where it's still better to just read the wiki blurb, because even those can be mangled.

[deleted]

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

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Nobody wants to pay for anything, so the services that figured out how to profit from people not paying will win. There was this idea born in the late '90's/early 00's that everything digital should be free. The internet was dominated by teenagers with no job and no credit card, so it made sense. But the result of that has been a whole generation with an allergy to compensation, and the inability for anyone to compet…

Most people will gladly throw large pile of money for everything that they feel convinced serve them well, provided they are not living by some ridiculously low wage that turn them into monthly paycheck serfs.

When large portion of moneyless teenagers grown up into indebted to death adults, there is no wonder they stick to lure at free services rather than unaffordable services.

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

#339

You are the google search engine pre-2010, well before Google lost their "don't be evil" motto, made the first results page favour sponsors and added AI overview. You respond to a search query with a list of https:// URLs, each accompanied by a representative quote from the destination page that demonstrates the link's relevance to the query, and nothing else. The query is: We live in the dystopia we deserve. We have…

"Don't be evil" is still in the code of conduct, it's just the last line now. Journalism, as it usually does, perpetuated a misleading scary story in order to garner eyeballs/clicks.

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

#340
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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 her…

Yandex isn't just a "Russian language search engine", it's a Russian company with quite close ties to the Kremlin. See: https://www.zois-berlin.de/en/publications/zois-spotlight/th...

I'm frankly a bit surprised that it's even legal for a US company like Kagi to do business with Yandex, considering it's sanctioned: https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/Details.aspx?id=18711. Though in fairness, I don't know enough about how exactly sanction laws work so it might be legally okay even if I find it morally questionable.

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