Technology

DuckDuckGo here.

I'll give a search on Duck Duck Go, and if I can't find what I need then I'll use Google.

But at this point I'm using Google Bard and ChatGPT more and more, at least at work.

DuckDuckGo for me personally.

DDG for everyday usage. Sometimes I try searching the same things on google just to compare results. I've tried searxng instances on and off in the past but its rarely been reliable for me and self hosting isn't really an option for me.

Google. As much as I'd like to use other search engines, their search results are all severely lacking and not adequate for my needs (often pertaining to research) and they're generally not as great on the multilingual front or in searching pdfs.

I also have some keywords set up in my browser so I can directly search sites I use (e.g. Wikipedia).

I use DuckDuckGo, but mostly as a "terminal to the internet". In a few keystrokes i've opened a new tab, navigated to the homepage (https://start.duckduckgo.com/), then used a Bang to do a direct search inside the particular site or thing i need. For many things specially tech questions i do fall back to Google though

Duck duck go. Google for maps

They're all garbage. Content farms and SEO nonsense has been flooding search engines with useless garbage for years. Either that or pages that simply copy forum threads over and over and over so you get a whole results page of what appears to be different sites, but are all a copy of the same forum thread from 2007. Or they grab your search string and then you have a page that looks like it's exactly what you need, only to find out it's scammy bullshit. But AI is making that whole problem exponentially worse.

I've tried DDG many many times over the years. Sometimes it's ok. But overall, most of the results i get just aren't relevant, and it seems like over the last year or two DDG's results have gotten way worse. I always end up back on Google. As crappy as Google is, the results still end up being more relevant overall.

SearXNG, searches every search engine and regroups them in a single list, alongside the very powerful "bang" variant they use ("!!" is like "!" for ddg, and "!" is to only search with this search engine, ":en" is to choose a specific shortcode language.)

I use Ecosia. It works quite well, and if I ever need to search something on Google instead (like a coin flip/stock ticker) you can just do #g or #yt for Youtube They also plant trees and are carbon negative

I use DuckDuckStart (https://duckduckstart.com/). It searches Startpage by default and uses DDG if you include a bang.

Ecosia. I like trees.

Used to use SearXNG but got increasingly frustrated with it, so I mostly use DDG these days. Although, that being said, most search engines these days are filled with SEO clickbait trash which makes it basically mandatory to do site:reddit.com

Might have to try Kagi some day, despite my reservations about their pricing.

A combination of DDG and Google. DDG's results too often look like a list of sponsors so when that happens I fuck right back off to Google.

Get an ad blocker, get Privacy Badger, use a VPN, experience the internet the way it was before corporate shitbags got hold of it. Mostly.

The only correct answer here is to use an instance of SearXNG because it's open source, utilizes privacy, and queries every kind of search engine that exists on the internet.

Can we stop trying to coin cute terms like "enshittification"? What that term describes is just capitalism working as intended.

There is a term that describes this behavior that we've been using for at least decades (to describe behavior that has happened since the inception of capitalism): rent seeking.

Self-hosted SearXNG. Very easy to self-host, and (for the most part) works just fine