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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

#571

Post by account42 »

Dwedit wrote: post #400
nobodywasishere wrote: post #162

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.

How do you build a search index in the days of Anubis pages everywhere?

Anubis is easy, just use a whitelisted user agent or a headless browser if some sites disable that - you need one to index web app abominations anyway. Cloudflare and Google reCaptcha are bigger problems.

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

#572

Post by account42 »

ljm wrote: post #298
nobodywasishere wrote: post #162

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.

What are the challenges of doing that when so much of the internet has turned itself into SEO slop to fit Google's algorithms? I imagine there is still a whole load of stuff out there on the internet that Google would never surface because it doesn't have enough adsense or whatever. Are you finding that?

There is a very easy 90% solution to that: massively downrank everything with ads with some exceptions added as needed.

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

#573

Post by account42 »

pjc50 wrote: post #354
yehat wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a search engine starts censoring by whatever means, I'll not be using it, neither free or paid no matter how good it is (and by definition it can't be). Shills can provide a list of countries they don't want to see, hopefully some crooked search engine will satisfy their desire for censorship.

No search engines are uncensored, not even Yandex. Partly because they have to exist in a country somewhere, and partly because really nobody wants to index CSAM.

Yes of course and if you think that's all that western search engines censor then you can keep using Google and Bing - but some of us actually do want the full picture.

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

#574

Post by account42 »

mort96 wrote: post #345
yehat wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a search engine starts censoring by whatever means, I'll not be using it, neither free or paid no matter how good it is (and by definition it can't be). Shills can provide a list of countries they don't want to see, hopefully some crooked search engine will satisfy their desire for censorship.

Censorship of search results and deciding which companies to do business with are two completely separate topics.

In this case it isn't since there is no alternative that covers the censorship holes that Yandex does.

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

#575

Post by account42 »

virgil_disgr4ce wrote: post #281
ragazzina wrote: post #245

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

Perhaps provide alternatives first if you want people to go along with your boycott.

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

#576

Post by account42 »

redeeman wrote: post #323
jwr wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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

I'm not sure about better but they do censor different topics and viewpoints which makes them an important source to aggregate.

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

#577

Post by account42 »

varispeed wrote: post #358
redeeman wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Western companies also bought strategically important Nazi Germany industrial products in the 1930s because they were considered superior. Commercial convenience and technical quality are not moral or geopolitical absolution. Would you buy cheap quality gold if the Nazis were selling it knowing what it supports?

What about Israeli companies or American companies?

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

#578

Post by account42 »

freehorse wrote: post #427
xnx wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're actively working on building our own indexes Lip service. You'll have some token index of Wikipedia or something so you can say your results are "a blend of our own index and other sources".

Wikipedia is prob in "other sources", as they actually say they have a direct license for it. https://blog.kagi.com/waiting-dawn-search#:~:text=Wikipedia,...

Lol everyone has a direct license for Wikipedia.

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

#579

Post by account42 »

mancerayder wrote: post #295
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…

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…

The thing is, even today much content on the internet is still made for free without anything being paid to the author - we just have third-parties who have inserted themselves to profit from it. That's mostly a failure of society to provide the needed infrastructure as a public good.

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

#580

Post by account42 »

hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #313
wholinator2 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll pitch in that since youtube was bought by Google it's become pretty anticompetitive too. They've absolutely been caught degrading their product on all browsers except chrome. I've witnessed this numerous times on Firefox on my android. Videos refusing to play, subtitles appearing off the screen, refusing to fullscreen, and at least 3 more annoying things i can't remember anymore.

This is incompetence, not malice. YT devs would skip testing on Chrome if they could get away with it, but are forced to.

Incompetence at scale is malice. We're talking about a mega-corporation gobbling up some of the brightest minds of our generation, not some garage startup that is barely able to keep the lights on.
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