Tired of duckduckgo using MSN's amp thing for news or blocking some websites, and it's now adding shit AI too. Don't want to spend any money running a searxng instance for the time being and most public instances are too overwhelmed.
Any suggestions? Doesn't need to be perfect, just not too annoying.
I’ve found Kagi has been good enough to justify the subscription price. I like that I can block certain sites, pin and promote others. It has some neat AI features but they only activate when requested and never replace actual results.
I tried it out after getting a referral code from somebody I know granting a 3 month trial. I've been hooked. It's the first search engine that has rivaled Google search, it's so good. I'm often disappointed with DDG (switching to Google later to find what I need), and Mojeek never finds anything. SearXNG has been very close, but is essentially an aggregator, not exactly a Google replacement.
I use DuckDuckGo. AI isn't bad inherently, just the proprietary, censored, corporate stuff. DuckDuckGo's AI isn't forced on you, is private, open weights, and less censored than the main players.
just started using Firefox with ublock origin for the same reason. I run the kagi plug-in on Firefox so I can tailor my search engine preferences (https://kagi.com/). I go back and forth between those two mostly.
Kagi seems to be really good, according to John Gruber. I don’t do enough web searches to need an alternative or justify paying for a subscription, so it’s all third-hand for me.