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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

#501

Post by jemmyw »

rglullis wrote: post #495
saltcured wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I adopted Linux in college in 1993 and, like many peers, brought it to my R&D job and observed this wave of expansion through the mid to late 90s. Linux was already "going somewhere" in 2000 for IBM to even notice it. Lots of federal grant money was directly or indirectly improving Linux due to FOSS folks like me. It was getting so much commercial and academic engagement that we had the idioms (cliches?) of the "LAMP…

I apologize for the hyperbole, but you are arguing my point: if something took "lots of federal grant money" to become usable in universities and amount to anything more than a research project, then we are no longer about something "free", are we?

From that point of view nothing that requires human input is free. Which is true in a sense, people are using free to mean free to use, not free to improve.

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

#502

Post by blazarquasar »

treis wrote: post #470
blazarquasar wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along those lines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48269481 By “their own index” i assume you mean training data? If so, thats a big part of the issue for me. As an example, if I ask an LLM for some part of the Zig stdlib, I will get an incorrect answer 10/10 times because it will refuse to look up the latest documentation.

No, I mean they're constantly crawling the web. That gets fed into the next model but it's also searchable by the current one. For example, if you ask chatgpt what the latest shooting at the white house was it will tell you about the one from two days ago. ChatGPT has effectively assimilated Google search. You can tell it to look up the latest version of the zig docs and do whatever.

Sure, yes. But that has been quite flakey for me as well.

Regardless, if we stick with the example of the Zig docs, using the search and then opening the actual docs is a much better and faster experience for me. I get the context I need, I don’t get the verbose llm output that packages it and I get there faster.

Mind you, I use AI a lot and have subscriptions to all of the major models, but this is just not a use-case I find useful in my workflow.

I also keep trying to use it this way by looking for things such as decent libraries or frameworks for something new im trying out. I’d say that at least 50% of the time I end up searching for myself and finding popular ones that were completely ignored by whatever LLM I searched with. Always a frustrating experience…

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

#503

Post by rplnt »

BloondAndDoom wrote: post #473
rplnt wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are not actually searching for anything on web. This is more about using google as a web search engine, something it could do maybe a decade ago.

I’m not sure what do you mean. Quite often I’m trying to find an answer to something whether it’s an event, rule, informational. All of them consistently answered for me on AI overview.

That's the distinction I was trying to make - looking for an answer vs. looking for some content on a website. There's overlap in those, and we used to use the web search to find answers, but you can't use chat to search web.

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

#504

Post by rglullis »

jemmyw wrote: post #501
rglullis wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize for the hyperbole, but you are arguing my point: if something took "lots of federal grant money" to become usable in universities and amount to anything more than a research project, then we are no longer about something "free", are we?

From that point of view nothing that requires human input is free. Which is true in a sense, people are using free to mean free to use, not free to improve.

> nothing that requires human input is free.

TANSTAAFL does not need a qualifier to apply. "Nothing is really free, so whatever you got 'for free' from a community member or some non-commercial effort was bound to have limited reach" is more like the point I'm trying to make.

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

#505

Post by rglullis »

esseph wrote: post #499
rglullis wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBS were only amateur efforts. Linux would not go anywhere if it was not for IBM famously investing 1 billion in 2000. You can get some development and innovations built purely on "free", but without actual professionals who can make a living by developing these systems, they never take off to reach the masses. The best example is social media and the Fediverse.

The Software Creations BBS was not an amateur effort. (Just an example) And prior to whatever IBM did in 2000, I already had a job deploying Linux and BSD systems in production at a corporate job.

> The Software Creations BBS was not an amateur effort

Yeah, and it was a BBS ran and backed by a software development company that used it as a channel to promote and sell their software. IOW, they were not offering the infrastructure "for free".

> I already had a job deploying Linux and BSD systems in production at a corporate job

Which means that there was someone paying your employer to support it. Again, not doing it "for free".

I think you and the others responding to me are just trying to disprove the specifics of my comment but entirely missing the meat of the argument: I am far from being "a 27 year-old who just graduated business school", but I agree with GP said: people will not pay for digital services unless they absolutely have to, so companies that try to make a living by offering a quality service in exchange for payment will invariably lose to someone that offers their product "for free" but exploits their customers elsewhere.

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

#506

Post by rglullis »

KellyCriterion wrote: post #467
mancerayder wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really curious perspective. There are a few different angles of attack here, but let's start with this: it WAS free because people were making free content. Before the Internet we were hosting free BBSes (look those up), we then hosted websites which we made ourselves when the Internet was commercialized, and we paid for services like games where it made sense. You'd buy software you'd own forever (like Phot…

>>Google won because it was a single text box. I remember a colleague around 1998, he said: "how will they ever make money? Its just an empty website?" LOL

You are arguing GP's (WarmWash) point and not even realizing it.

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

#507

Post by rglullis »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #423
WarmWash wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Prior to eternal September, the internet was dominated by college students and staff. Everything was free by virtue of there being no secure payment mechanism. That spirit continued as it opened to the broader public.

> Everything was free by virtue of there being no secure payment mechanism.

That and the fact Universities provided free, fast and unmetered internet access. I doubt they would be running anything if they had to pay $1/hour like regular people had to in their dial-up days.

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

#509

Post by rpdillon »

nobodywasishere wrote: post #486
rpdillon wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not intend to spread misinformation here, and would like to hear more about the general-purpose index Kagi is working on. I had based my comment on several Kagi pages, but mostly https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.htm... , which mentions Teclis as Kagi's own index, but https://teclis.com/ makes it pretty clear that it's a "small web"-focused tool: > Teclis is an attempt to surface the less…

Not in production yet, so will have more to share in time.

Fair enough, thanks for replying!

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

#510

Post by acdha »

simianwords wrote: post #460
acdha wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re getting downvoted because you couldn’t even make it through one sentence without dismissing valid concerns. You simply assert that the results are better without showing awareness of the argument, which reveals your accusation of ideological bias to be rather blatant projection when you’re not even demonstrating awareness of the problems, much less the expertise needed to dismiss them. The accuracy issues are…

Are you seriously telling me that ChatGPT is less accurate than Google as a search engine?

I’m saying that when you start by dismissing a large group of people with a range of views as hysterical it’s pretty clear that you’re not here for any intellect reasons but rather just to defend a technology which you’ve incorporated into your self-identity.
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