1y ago

Which search engine should I use?

I have used SearXNG for a while, but I switched to LibreX after the search engine started glitching. Recently, though, LibreX has stopped returning any results. I am currently on Mojeek, but the results aren't that great.

I have also tried Qwant, but I wasn't too keen on it. Startpage will be impractical, as I use a VPN and this engine often blocks me because of it. I don't want to use Brave Search for a number of reasons. MetaGer has too many important features behind its paywall. I'm not sure about DuckDuckGo, but I could use it if there was no other option.

Any suggestions, or am I being too picky?

99 comments

Why are people so against DDG here? Just wondering because I use it and think it’s fine
- US-based meaning 3 letter agencies can get your data without a court order and that you aren't protected by the GDPR if you don't live in the EU
- Anything US based should be avoided.
  
  General good practice
- They track their users, even though not tracking users is supposed to be their thing.
- DDG is basically Bing
- I’m not sure this is really a solvable problem but at the end of the day, DuckDuckGo is a for profit corporation. Privacy is more of a marketing angle than something they actually care about. Last year they allowed Microsoft to track mobile users of their “privacy focused” browser which is obviously against their stated purpose for existing. They backtracked after facing backlash but it’s done lasting damage to their reputation. They also got caught by a security researcher, they weren’t at all upfront about it. I think that’s enough to shatter any hope that they are genuine or trustworthy.
- I'm wondering the same. ddg has been great for me.
  
  US is a big red flag
- I'm here because I'm trying to figure out why dog is giving me curated location based results instead of the actual results, even though I have my region set to all regions.
  So I'm not recommending them because their product has gotten worse.e
- Because it's just a proxy for Bing, with all the pitfalls of that.
- I think they got bought out by Microsoft or something, so naturally people are weary of it now.
  
  They use bing results but they most certainly weren't bought by Microsoft. They have a deal with Microsoft to use their results without tracking. At least to my knowledge. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I primarily use DuckDuckGo, and occasionally have to use a !bang to get to the Startpage or Google.
- This, I used DDG !bang a lot, !git, !yt, !g, !alt
  
  Not that it is a deal-breaker, but this functionality is also built into Chromium browsers if you right click the address bar and select 'manage search engines'

If SearXNG worked for you, why not use a more stable instance?

What issues did you have with SearXNG?
You could try to self host it, or even just run it on your local machine.
Shameless plug on how to set it up locally, and how to set up custom filters (to block junk websites and redirect reddit to the old interface).
- It stopped returning results. I tried other instances: same problems. However, I think the issue may have been fixed.
  I am currently on an iPhone, and I'm not really in a position to self-host (although I did try to set up a FreedomBox the other day).
  
  Ah fair enough.
  I started by having it on my laptop, and used it only there. Liked it so much that I'm renting a VPS around $5 a month to have it on all my devices.
  But to be fair, I'm also hosting other things on that VPS (SearXNG is very light), so it's multi-purpose.
- I used it for a while but could not find good results for any kind of advanced query. Qwant in comparison is slightly better but still worse than duckduckgo unfortunately. For really niche stuff I still need to revert to Google..
  
  You can get both qwant, duckduckgo, and Google with SearXNG, unless the instance you used had a config to not have them as an option...
  That's why I just prefer to use my own.

Can you tell us why Qwant wasn't a good choice for you? I heard they work hard on respecting privacy while providing good results... So I am curious about your experience
- The engine occasionally throws up a "Sorry, we've detected unusual traffic from your IP address" and then I have to type in my query again after solving the captcha. They're also based in France, which is bringing in anti-encryption laws and suchlike, so (unless I'm an idiot, which is not unlikely) the risk of something compromising Qwant is rising a bit.
  On top of that, it's the only privacy-respecting search engine not to achieve an A grade on ToS;DR.
  
  Oh, very good points you mention here, definitively few red flags. As for the unusual traffic for your IP I experienced it because I'm using a VPN

I use a self hosted instance of Whoogle. It threw up an error a few days back. Got stuck in Google captcha(probably an IP issue). Now it has reset and it is smooth sailing.
Yeah, it is simply Google results, but I think it's fine...

I use Startpage, it’s based within the EU and a proxy for Google results!
- Vpn block...
  
  What?
- Google results
  which these days are very very bad! especially if you search something tech/programming related.

some here won't like the idea of a premium, private search engine but Kagi is one of the best tech discoveries I've made in a long time. I pay $5/month for 300 searches and always seem to hit the limit at the very end of my month, never payed the 1.5 cents per search after that.
- can you explain more on why it’s worth that subscription?
  
  You can sign up for a trial with 100 searches.
  As for what is good, searches tend to pull up relevant info that is not buried under a bunch of seo shit. You can block, downgrade, and upgrade domains (I have blocked Pinterest from all my search results for instance). It's just a very good experience. And long term I feel more confident in their user experience since their profit motivation is not tied to serving you up ads.
  My biggest complaint is the 300 searches a month seems a little low.
  But give the 100 free searches a shot. I have been very happy with them.

Swisscows and Yep come to mind
- Can anyone else endorse this? Looking for an alternative to duckduckgo. Thanks
  
  Try Brave search

Qwant and kagi have been a great pair. Brave search was good, but they had some controversy a bit back.

I don’t want to use Brave Search for a number of reasons.
Mind sharing? I'm curious because I switched to DDG several days ago, after a good while of using Brave. My reasons were:
defaulting to Moderate safe search every couple of days
inability to provide me with good results for simple '[word] wiktionary' queries
having to block some elements of their result templates manually, using their own browser's filtering feature (featured snippets, definitions etc)
poorer search results compared to what they were a year, two ago
Some people here mentioned Kagi and I liked it a lot when I was beta-testing it, but I will only start paying for using it when they introduce full support for Boolean operators, which most likely means never.
- I don't like Brave as a company. Brendan Eich is an arsehole, Brave Browser has had (minor, but numerous) controversies, their crypto stuff is off-putting, and now they're sticking their new AI into everything.

I have to say I used Random Searx a lot, startpage as Backup. And as VPNs are getting mainstream, it gets a pain in the ass. Mullvad Leta sucks too kinda. Now I use duckduckgo alone and actually never need my specially configured SearXNG search providers, although useful.
I have to say, I use a lot of search engines. Using the "Add custom search" Addon on Firefox you can easily add any URL containing a search word to your browser.
I maintain some lists of search engines that need updating.

I'm using https://metager.de/ it's German and sometimes the results lean towards that but in 99% of cases it doesn't matter.
- There's an English version out there, but some essential features are paid, such as enabling moderate safesearch or adding Mojeek as an engine.

I tried using SearXNG for a few weeks but I kept needing to chance instances. I'm using DuckDuckGo for now.
- You can self host for a better experience

I'd say give SearXNG another try. Whats the issue exactly?
- I used SearXNG for over a month but found myself routinely returning to Google for either tech problem searches or because it was returning irrelevant results for homonyms.
  I would love to return to it. Do you have any tips for better search results?
  
  Depending on your language, use language codes like :en or :de. Very important if your native language isn't English.
  You can choose the search engine using DDG shebangs like !g (or redirect yourself to Google using !!g
  If SearxNG using Google gives you much worse results, it just means Google has that much info about you. Nonetheless, that's not my experience
  
  You can choose which search engines you actually want to use. SearXNG is a meta search engine, which means it just queries other search engines for their results. Lots of it's results are some random wikis which most of the time do not help.

I'm using Startpage, and I also have a self-hosted Adguard DNS on my network so that helps a bit too.

I use MetaGer as my daily driver and you.com for deeper niche searches

As main search, among others, I use Andisearch, it's an AI search assistant, with own lenguage model and one of the most private search engine. own reader mode for websites in the search results, so you don't need to visit it, you also can watch YouTube and others sandboxed right in the search results, anonymous use, no ads, no tracking, no logs.
https://andisearch.com
Easy add it to your search engine list in your browser https://andisearch.com/?query=%s

tbh im not sure but if you want google results with safesearch try resulti

Maybe some will dislike , but i use yandex, i don't know why, but i get good results. I prefer to give them my info and not google
- Definitely not. Never mind "out of the frying pan, into the fire"; for me, this is "out of the lake, into the fire".
  Using Yandex would involve giving my personal data to Russia. The possibility of my data falling into the wrong hands is the main reason I am looking for a private search engine; I'm certainly not then about to just walk up to the wrong hands and say "here you go". Not to mention the censorship.
  Besides, I've blacklisted the .ru, .su, and .рф, .москва, and .yandex TLDs in NextDNS.
  
  Well i am far far from Russia so i don't care, it can't be worst compared to google. I don't believe too much in the real privacy, one way or another 3 letter agencies will get the info.

I use Brave Search, it's quite good imo
- Brave
  Its surprisingly good... I rarely need anything else

A random thought
Do we really want search engines ?
Or, do we want AI to tell us the answers to our questions?
- We want search engines. GPT-3.5 has a knowledge cutoff in 2021, so I only really use it for software recommendations and text/code formatting.
  
  I am surprised that we wouldn’t prefer better AI.
  Search engines today are geared to point us to a site where we then search again for our answer.
  I am now just realizing I’d rather get a range of answers.
  I wonder if that’s where we end up, a massive “wikipedia” of online nuggets of varying degrees of preferential truthiness….
- Considering how often chatGPT gives complete and utter bs answers, I think I'd rather find the info on my own.
  
  Edge has integrated source citing for gpt4. It's really nice for not keeping open a ton of tabs but logging them all in one place when researching something.
- Let me go ask chatgbt for the answer, hold on one second.

99 comments