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Google Alternatives

justprivacy.org

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Re: Google Alternatives

#111

Post by [deleted] »

rlv-dan wrote: post #59
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…

After using DDG for years, I sometimes try Google when DDG does not seem to deliver. Every time I am disgusted by the sheer amount of crap it shows me. Videos, shopping, news etc. I'll take DDGs clean result list over that any time! (And usually, Google has the same results as DDG anyway)

[deleted]

Re: Google Alternatives

#112

Post by cryptbe »

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 use Google Search and tell Google not to log your search history or use the data for advertising purposes. See my comment [1] for how to turn on these privacy controls.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25383289

Re: Google Alternatives

#113

Post by piyush_soni »

amelius wrote: post #93
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…

Yes, imho DDG really needs a button at the bottom of their first search results page that redirects you to the equivalent Google search. This feature would make me switch to DDG. (I tried DDG, but got tired from typing "!g")

They can't expose such a feature, at least until they're sure that their results are better than Google's in most cases (otherwise it'll be like shooting themselves on the foot).

Besides, a userscript that does what you want could be written very easily I guess.

Re: Google Alternatives

#114

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

jaspax wrote: post #98
bogidon wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm advocating for a ranking algorithm aligned to the benefit to the users, instead of the marketers. I think you're not appreciating Google's ranking algorithms lending a hand to the popularity of SEO. Their rankings are certainly not objective. As for "far too valuable of a piece of real estate"... I feel like that's an unimaginative view trapped in the commercial state that we're in. Perhaps if Google had beat Wik…

I don't think that an algorithm "designed to the benefit of the users" is nearly as straightforward as you think it is. We didn't get into the current situation because Google deliberately chose to make their algorithm friendly to marketers; we got here because marketers competed with each other to rank up in search results, effectively reverse-engineering Google's algorithm in an effort to exploit it. This would hap…

> We didn't get into the current situation because Google deliberately chose to make their algorithm friendly to marketers.

This isn't quite true. Google has changed its search results in recent years to cut out content from more than a decade or so ago. You can no longer find the content even if you search for the exact strings in the website. If you have your own old site, it is easy to see from the logs that the Google Bot is still crawling the old pages, it just doesn't index them any more.

There are many instances where the most relevant content to return for a search would be from a website from the early millennium, but Google refuses to show that, while Google will show a big commercial website from more recent times even if the result is less relevant to the query.

Re: Google Alternatives

#115

Post by mackrevinack »

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 got better results once i set the location to the country I live in

Re: Google Alternatives

#116

Post by piyush_soni »

Kiro wrote: post #104
prox wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is a direct quote being downvoted?

The Wikipedia article makes it sound like their search results are from "over 400" sources and their own bot. That's just for the widgets and Instant Answers. Their own Sources page makes this distinction more clear: "To do that, DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (li…

It's interesting that they write "none from Google". Because you never know, Bing might be copying some search results from Google in turn [0] ;).

[0] : https://www.wired.com/2011/02/bing-copies-google/

Re: Google Alternatives

#117

Post by mackrevinack »

cryptbe wrote: post #97

If you want to keep using Google services, here are some Google Alternatives Alternatives: 1/ Google Search, YouTube, Maps: visit https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols to turn on auto-deletion or turn off search history, location history or YouTube watch history. This page also allows you to turn off ads personalization. There are many security and privacy controls on https://myaccount.google.com/ , turn the…

is location history really turned off or do they keep profiling you but just dont show you? there is no way to know since its all closed source

Re: Google Alternatives

#118

Post by the_lucifer »

cryptbe wrote: post #97

If you want to keep using Google services, here are some Google Alternatives Alternatives: 1/ Google Search, YouTube, Maps: visit https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols to turn on auto-deletion or turn off search history, location history or YouTube watch history. This page also allows you to turn off ads personalization. There are many security and privacy controls on https://myaccount.google.com/ , turn the…

For point 2/ if you are unwilling to switch to Firefox and want to keep using Chromium based browsers take a look at Ungoogled Chromium.

I switched from Firefox to Ungoogled Chromium after a long time because of atrocious UI/UX on macOS. However I am stuck with Google pushing Manifest v3

Re: Google Alternatives

#119

Post by piyush_soni »

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…

One problem with most of the comments here that are claiming one is better than the other is that the "quality" of search results is still a very subjective term. I wish just like DxOMark Score for mobile cameras, there is a Search result quality index that makes us take more informative decisions (not sure how feasible is that though).

P.S. - I realize even DxOMark scores and ranks may be disputed, but that's still one (close to objective) index and it's used just as an example here.

Re: Google Alternatives

#120

Post by mackrevinack »

muxator wrote: post #84
autocorr wrote: post #19

I really like keyword searches in Firefox's navigation bar. They are like lower latency and faster DDG "bangs". What I found is that most of my searches are better served by direct searches on Wikipedia and Stack Overflow. For Linux and software trouble shooting, using Google is better, but at least there's less "privacy surface area" than doing everything through Google. There's also so much SEO-spam on Google/Bing…

Sadly, keyword searches are being deprecated in Firefox Desktop, and are already not implemented in latest Firefox for android. There is a plan to extend custom search engines with that functionality, but it is not clear if it can be a full replacement. I tried to find a link to the discussion where Mozilla took this decision, but apparently the decision process at Mozilla is not very open, or it’s documentation is s…

it's mind boggling how many features they keep removing. vivaldi has the same search feature but i liked how firefox let you add/edit directly from the bookmark and also how the same shortcuts would work on the mobile browser.

the only thing stopping me from going back to vivaldi at this point if the containers feature

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