Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world vermyndax @lemmy.world 1y ago

What search engine do you recommend that isn't Google or Bing?

I'm still trying to de-Google my life, little by little. I don't trust Bing for similar reasons. DDG is feeling shady of late. What's the search engine you all recommend that I can inject into my daily life? Is there perhaps a search engine that is focused on code, or have we just all moved on to AI for searching?

Edit: I meant to also express my frustration that most browsers do not let you select a "default search engine" that can be used in the address bar aside from 3-5 pre-chosen engines. Seems like 2023 we should be able to customize that to our own liking.

Edit 2: Thanks for the recommendation of Kagi. I'm going to roll with it for a while. I see they have an extension for Safari that allows them to hijack the address bar, which is just what I needed.

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I just make a post in NoStupidQuestions and use y'all like a search engine. :P
- Posting a wrong answer is a good way to get the right answer in a reply!
  
  Ah, Murphy's law
- I post answers to NoStupidQuestions with most of the keywords you're looking for and a link to my AI-generated blog. Your move.
DuckDuckGo on Firefox. If you truly want to de-google your life avoid Chrome and Chromium based browsers like Edge and Brave
I'm out of the loop on DDG, what did they do?
- Not sure on the shady part, but I have stopped using them simply because they give me the same crap as Bing. Web search is almost dead, I’ve been thinking of trying one of the paid options. I’ve read good things about kagi
  
  i don't get this, i get perfectly fine search results with ddg..
  
  i get finding the results slightly worse but dead? stop it with this absurd hyperbole
- I'm still using it but it was fun when they had something along the lines of "your privacy is safe with us. Also, wanna leave your email?" 😅
  
  I am thinking of migrating to Kagi now, because search in DDG is often meh
- A long ago they had drama for apparently leaking user information to microsoft— but that was a while ago. Really they were accused of having biased results.
- [Edited by the commenter to remove incorrect information, see below.] I'm not sure if anything else has come up since then though, and I've continued using DDG, just not for any sort of news or information on current events. I mainly use a search engine for dev stuff anyways.
  
  It’s actually the opposite. The downranked sites they considered Russian propaganda which made a lot free speech enthusiasts mad.
  
  https://slate.com/technology/2022/03/duckduckgo-russian-disinformation-downranking.html
  
  Do you have a source for that?
  
  Apart from that, the results are often pretty terrible unless you use the exact terms from whatever page you're trying to find. I've also seen a lot of people stating that search results keep changing every time they refresh the page as well.
Half a dozen people in here already mentioned it, but Kagi has completely changed the search game and changed the way I use the Internet. It's like an old school search engine with modern conveniences like a chat bot and summarizer, but without the ads and other shenanigans.
- Ugh, paid. In this economy!?
  
  It's either your wallet or your personal information...
  
  A surprisingly and insanely expensive to run and manage a search engine that isn't just a reskin on bing (DDG). Even more so when you can't mine your users for data.
  
  Kagei is doing really good stuff and the quality of results I get are much higher. The $10/m is it easily paid off within even a day or two's use in my normal job. Never mind all the personal research that I do.
  
  Is a different model that is a not providing you with the best results that you are looking for. As opposed to steering you towards ads or towards partnerships. I like it.
  
  I know, that was my reaction at first too. But I tried it for a month and honestly it's an amazing search engine. If it helps you to know, when you search they also use the (paid) search APIs of other search engines and aggregate the results in a way to get something better than any individual engine - so your searches actually have a decent marginal cost for them.
  
  $5/month. Worth it.
https://kagi.com no ads, great results. It’s $5 a month but worth it imo
- Seconding. Kagi is the only one that was able to replace Google for me.
- I need to try it out. If it's as good as its reputation implies and stays that way, I'd be $5/mo amount of interested. But I have no idea how many times I'm going to need to search for something per month. Not a fan of that limitation.
  
  You can get 100 searches for free to try it. I'm using it for purchases and technical queries, because the results are hugely less polluted. If I'm searching for, say, a film or a book, I use Google and not one of my paid searches
- This is the only true Google replacement I've found.
- It's really good. The price tag is worth it imo as they buy results from a host of other search engines including Google, but the results are actually better.
- For the web search I need to do it's really not worth it. if my job required good web search results to be effective then it would be a different matter but alas I am not a software developer or an analyst...
Firefox allowed you to define the default search and have many many engines listed. That's been a standard feature for many years.
- even simpler – Firefox will auto-detect a lot of search engines – right-click in the search/address bar and if Firefox can detect it, bottom option will be to add that engine to your list
- I'm pretty sure most browsers can. Pretty sure OP's complaint's a big misplaced on that one.
  
  All of them do allow it, but not all of them make it simple. There are times it will change the search in the address bar but not everywhere else in the browser as well. Of the web browsers I use, Firefox is the most friendly to change.
  
  The complaint here is the "address bar" search. I've found that most browsers will allow you to use other search engines, but you have to prefix the search with a letter or abbreviation. I'm finding that a lot of browsers will restrict your raw address bar search to their chosen search engines.
Kagi. Nothing else even comes close. Kagi is what Google used to be, before they decided they'll show you whatever is profitable, rather than what they know you're looking for.
- Not sure I'm ready to pay for search especially not at $5-10/mo.
  
  Yep. Like $1.99 or $2.99 I can easily justify but $5/mo for only 300 searches feels too steep to me reguardless of result quality. I'll just go through the other pages of results from any other search engine.
  
  If you're not spending some money then you're not the customer, you're the product. Would you really prefer the web continue to be supported by ads and people who sell data about you?
- I appreciate the non-ad-funded option, even if it is expensive, but I'm not sure it's even better than Google, looking at their sample results.
  
  For example, Steve Jobs (again, to be clear, this is the result they specifically provide as an example of why you should pay) has two different links to the same Wikipedia article in the first five results. https://kagi.com/search?q=steve+jobs
  
  Not to put you on the spot, but I'm still open to be convinced - do you have any examples of when Kagi did a great job to compare?
I use SearXNG. It is a meta search engine so it use results from various other search engines and you can specify which with !. It does the job for me.
- My favourite feature is that you can host it yourself, you can even set it up to search over tor or VPN if you're super privacy conscious.
  
  I was a bit wary when I first spun up an instance, but it’s very low maintenance and mostly just works.
  
  Does it choke in some edge cases? Yeah, but far less often than I had expected. For my own use case it’s low resource and does exactly what it says on the tin - nothing more, nothing less.
  
  It’s my default across a variety of devices, and is perfectly happy behind basic auth and a minimal nginx conf.
  
  Occasionally I’ve even surfaced some oddball results that give me unexpected perspective on a topic.
- Honestly I feel like searxng is way better than it gets credit for. It clearly isn’t as powerful as google but it isn’t drowning in SEO crap so that difference is entirely negated and then some.
I've been incredibly happy with Kagi. All of the listicles and blogspam get shunted off into their own sections. Kagi also seems to do a pretty good job at finding "deep" results. Like, when I want to find out more information about some home automation gizmo, Kagi does a good job of finding some random blog post where someone has torn the gizmo apart and analyzed every strength and weakness it has. I still prefer Google for looking up restaurants and stuff, but I hardly use it anymore. I don't at all regret the $10 a month I pay to use Kagi.

Edit: I also like that Kagi lets you define rules. Occasionally I'll be forced to go to Reddit to get some information (I really try to go elsewhere first). I deleted my account, so I go to new Reddit by default (which I hate). I don't want to add an extension to redirect to old Reddit, but I can just replace the www with old automagically for all Reddit search results. Works great.
Kagi is by far the best search engine I've ever used. It is paid though.
- I've been paying for it for a couple of months now, am pretty happy with it. Feels weird to be paying for a search engine, and as it still only has a finite number of searches every month I still have to get used to not being reluctant to use it, but its results are indeed great. More focused than DuckDuckGo, less bullshit than Google.
  
  ~~Are you sure? I had been paying for a higher tier, but I remember they sent an email that they were changing or removing the search metering a while ago.~~
  
  In US it's $5 for 300 searches or $10 for unlimited.
The best I've found is Mojeek. The results take some getting used to because we're all used to Google's fuckery, but I've been using it for months, and it's quite good.

There's also SearXNG, though I'm not sure if that fits your needs. A couple public instances I've liked are:

https://searx.tiekoetter.com/

https://search.fuckoffgoogle.net/
- Random SearX Redirector – basically just that, sends your search to a random working SearXNG instance
  
  This is super rad! I've never heard of this, so thanks for sharing.
  
  Thanks, friend. My main problem with using SearX was that instances kept dying on me and I would have to track down a new one every week or so.
- I really enjoy Mojeek. It gives you results you would not get anywhere else. I see high value in that
  
  Yeah, it reminds me of the old search engines in the 90s. I've come to love it.
- Thanks for the shoutout, it's always much-appreciated. If you're looking to test new things/ help us out in other ways, we're testing a new algo :D
  
  Coming back half a year later to see this comment. Thank you for thank link. I would love to help out!
  
  Nice, I'll try it out, thanks!
check out ecosia.org! plant trees while you search! 🌳
- Downside is that it sells ads and information
Kagi.com

Duckduckgo if you use a vpn, everyone else throws speedbumos at VPN users... Prove your a human...
Kagi

It's a paid subscription but it's better than Google, I've found.

https://kagi.com/
Meta search engines:

SearX

Open source, self hostable meta search engine.

SearXNG

Better version of SearX. A list of SearX and SearXNG instances is available at https://searx.space

Also meta search engines, but different:

DuckDuckGo

It's very privacy friendly, but it gets all the search results from Microsoft's Bing.

Startpage

Basically the same thing but it uses Google results. They are really focused on privacy too, they even are on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@StartpageSearch

They're based in the EU (Netherlands) so they are also subject to the GDPR.

Independent:

Brave Search

They recently stopped using Google and Bing and created their own search index. It appears to be privacy friendly, but the company behind Brave is not ideal.

Mojeek

A small privacy focused search engine, that uses its own index. They're also on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@Mojeek

Kagi

I've seen many many people recommend it, but I have never really used it myself. It's not free, they charge $5/month for 300 searches and $10 for unlimited searches.
Been using Qwant for maybe a year or so. Recently found Swisscows too. I am not sure if Qwant uses their own index. I remember that they said that they were to create their own index, but the results looks suspiciously similar to Bing. Swisscows for sure runs their own index, and I find the results to be rather good
- if nothing else qwant has a good map, based on openstreetmap but with a vector renderer and with tripadvisor integration so it's really easy to find restaurants
Edit: I meant to also express my frustration that most browsers do not let you select a “default search engine” that can be used in the address bar aside from 3-5 pre-chosen engines. Seems like 2023 we should be able to customize that to our own liking.

Which browsers don't? I think this one can likely be chalked up to user error.
Kagi is the best around if you are willing to pay. If I had to cancel my subscription for whatever reason, I would go back to DDG.
- Do you like to swim in your cash vault like Scrooge McDuck?
  
  Kagi really isn't that pricy.
Another option is SearXNG. It's meta search engine, which means that it aggregates other search engines like Google and Bing but without tracking or logging, because your searches are proxied using a public instance, that will mix your search with the ones from other people.

And about default search engine, don't know what you're talking about, both chrome and Firefox allows this, in mobile and desktop.

https://searx.space/
qwant.com
- qwant also has their own really nice map! https://maps.qwant.com
  
  it's properly open source, based on openstreetmap, and integrates tripadvisor so it's great for finding restaurants.
SearXNG
ecosia, like knowing that my searchs are helping the world a little
I like startpage.com. It doesn’t save your searches and I feel like it gives better results than DDG. Also it’s been around for awhile - it used to be ixquick
- startpage is owned by a advertising company and is propriatary as fuck
  
  Oh wow that happened 4 years ago?! Time to find a new one..
Marginalia is cool. It feels like an old-school search engine and truly provides results you don't see through Google, et al.
I use stratpage. I find it reliable
I like AskJeeves but a case can be made for WebCrawler
startpage is alright if u want a quick alternative.

but definitely look into searx. it can be annoying to choose an instance (unless you self host!), but it can be a lot more customizable and decentralized
Duckduckgo and (downvotes incoming) brave search.

https://duckduckgo.com

https://search.brave.com/

And I disagree with you, I don't know a single browser where you can't change the default search engine.
I use a mix of all 3 search engines on firefox
What about metasearch engines/ search aggregators?
I run a whoogle instance personally
- Of what?
  
  Of shit auto correct, whoogle, open source privacy frontend for google
- How is an instance a search engine?
  
  Whoogle is a self hosted front end for google. You just run it and it will pass the search to Google and strip all the bullshit out.
I used to be a part of the DuckDuckGo hype train until I found out they did actually track data (not an issue to me personally, but it betrayed their key marketing point), as used to be demonstrable if you had a slow internet and hovered your cursor over a link (it would show the tracking data loading). It was the one thing separating them from Ecosia, and I decided to join the Ecosia hype train, even if their own promises are themselves highly exaggerated. Every effort to do what Ecosia promises, even failed efforts, are appreciable.
I've been using qwant for a few weeks and it gives me quite satisfying and accurate results. Before I had been using ecosia for years but the results can be lackluster sometimes. Especially when you search very specific "niche" things (like obscure Linux problems troubleshooting). But I'm still looking for a browser which let's you pick multiple languages for results.
How would you go about setting searxng for search suggestions? I'm not sure i understand the documentation.
You can absolutely configure the default search engine on your browser to a custom one in some cases. I use startpage and it isn’t in the default options, but it can be added.
Kagi if you're willing to pay. Otherwise tryaS Searx instance.
I am generally switching between Google and duck duck go on Firefox. When Google gives shitty results (which is frequently) I switch over to ddg.
You want a free search, Brave. Don't like brave, then qwant. I use Kagi. It costs money but it is great.
Brave search is also really good now
- Brave statement
  
  Ican only speak of my own experience. Finding what I'm looking for and not having to deal with the insane amount of ads on google and the likes is worth it to me to make a recommendation.
- brave is pretty widely disliked by people (including me) for it's CEO's homophobia. That's probably why you're being down voted.
I use startpage.com on desktop. They provide Google results (sort of like DDG uses Bing results) so it’s not some autonomous magic privacy thing but it’s what I want from a search engine.

It reminds me of Google pre-enshittification.
https://www.startpage.com/

Owned now by a marketing company. I've been using it for many years and never had my results noticeable affect my advertising incoming.

It's a proxy for Google which is why I use it. I have really started to use ChatGPT in anger yet as the trivial don't need it.

I'm not connected to them in any way.
Bing is the best

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