Using a search engine that isn't saturated with ads and AI trash also solves this problem.
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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I stopped using Whoogle (Privacy engine using Google search) because of the bad search results. Google's fault of course.
Trying SearxNG now.
SXNG has been great for me. Submitted a PR to add more quick-answers, too.
Same with startpage because google indexing becoming horrible.
But I have some cons. with searxng, earch quality becomes horrible when adding too much sources, and I decided to go with ddg.
Got any recommendations?
DuckDuckGo
I don't know if Bing's search results are better than Google's.
They all suck.
for me it's much better. I don't think they directly use Bing search by the way, just their index. the algorithm should be theirs if I'm not wrong.
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Startpage if you like Google, DuckDuckGo if you like Bing.
Kagi
Gotta say, Kagi has been great. It's helped me a lot in work just by Being able to prioritise search Results and rank certain sites higher
Kagi has an AI search option which IIRC is on by default -- or at least was at one point -- where it'll try to also synthesize an answer and stick it in a box with the results, but you can just turn it off in your preferences. I have it off.
There may be a day when we have AI assistants that are so good that their summaries are better than looking at the original source, but I'd put a high bar on that, and think that we've got a way to go.
It’s off by default, but activated when you end your search query with a question mark. That option can be turned off.
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Searx.space
I started paying for Kagi. Works like Google in 2019. Fast, useful and customizable. One of the best features is hiding results from shit sites like Reddit, which blocks me for using a VPN. $10 well spent just to have that option.
It is the best on the market but unfortunately they just use Google underneath plus their own blog index. And at least to me it seems it isn't going in a better direction.
why would you block reddit results? it's often useful (at least when related to tech, possibly other topics too). I would recommend to install libredirect instead, which redirects reddit to a libreddit/redlib frontend
I believe what he is saying is that he can’t load Reddit results because Reddit blocks his VPN, so blocking Reddit from search results is useful to him
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One of the best features is hiding results from shit sites
I do that with the Firefox plugin "Block or Highlight Search Engine Results" from pistom (on github).
Upside: I can see what was hidden in case I need that and it really helps with visibility.
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Which other trustworthy search engines are there? And I don't mean some different frontend or a meta search engine like ddg, sp, kagi, searx(ng), etc... that mostly just use googles, bings or even yandex and beidu results?
Ages ago I configured and hosted yacy for myself, but that was a different time... Are there any real alternatives? With mayor internet companies like cloudflare, social media sites and many others restricting the access to the net and information, searching becomes more and more impossible if you aren't a huge corporation...
FYI kagi does its own indexing, it’s not just a frontend
The two criteria I suggested were "not saturated with ads and AI trash" (technically just the latter would satisfy OP's problem), and DDG meets both of those with no problem. Its AI "assistant" and its ads can both be trivially disabled. I use DuckDuckGo because I love its frontend and because it gives me fewer problems than Google did. I've only ever used alternative search engines that piggyback off the major ones (as you listed: DDG, Startpage, and SearX), so someone else would have to answer that for you.
Well, you and I just have a different understanding of "search engine" then. For me a search engine is something that doesn't forward queries to third parties.
Searx is fancy about it though, It queries everybody and gives you the results that came back from multiple places. This effectively eliminates ads, AI, and unless they all missed it, spam.
I have nothing against any meta search engine, they are very useful, and I use them primarily as well.
However, they are not a true alternative, because they depend on third-party services. The same as Invidious is a very useful, but also not an alternative to YouTube itself, just a different user interface.
Lets you turn it off for good...until Google removes that feature
Imagine Google killing the searching feature.
Yeah imagine.
You talk as if it is yet to happen.
Google search engine is much worse than it used to be and seems to be getting worse.
udm=14 doesn't seem to improve Google search results by a significant margin.
Bing and DuckDuckGo seem to perform better than Google at present.
Google itself is failing. I'm not going to speculate why.
uBlacklist is my current extension for removing spam results.
There's been a two pronged assault on it over the years.
Mostly from websites doing anything to spam up the results via SEO and mass produced articles about product recommendations, that are little more than the top 10 selling items of that type on Amazon along with affiliate links.
But also from within as Google morphed from a search company to an advertising company. Especially once they reached peak saturation and that all important growth must continue. I just don't think the capitalism machine works for these tech corporations once they reach the size of Google. How do you even grow from there? Enshittification and eating yourself is the only possible outcome.
Lol they put the guy who ran Yahoo into the ground in charge of Google search.
They sure did!
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To add it to Firefox search, open about:config and add a boolean value browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh set to true. This will allow you to manually add search engines. Then open the search settings and click add. Set the URL to https://www.google.com/search?udm=14&q=%s, give it a name and click "Add Engine".
I still like the idea of not using google search as my defacto standard, however once a month I may do an actual google search and this is a nice backup.
Thank you for your work
Thank you! I've been looking for a way to to do that (for a different use case). Works like a charm!
Lots of talk about which search engine to use; surprisingly little talk about extensions.
Block or Highlight Search Engine Results is my personal recommendation. Whichever SE you use, when you see a result that's AI slop or a garbage website like Forbes, just add bullshit.com to the filter, set to hide, and you'll never see that trash in a search result ever again.
Be diligent about it for a good week or so, and your search result quality will absolutely explode, whether your using Google, DDG, or several others.
As in, forever for good, or the "Microsoft" "for good" user settings paradigm?
It would be great if it did anything for SEO, but alas.
Good old six month old articles getting reposted, yup, yup, yup.
Anyone know how to add it to mobile Chrome?
Edit: go to the udm14 site, then open settings/search engine, it'll be in there. I'm not sure if you have to do a search through the site first for it to show up.
There is an addon for Firefox mobile
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