Comment on Researchers confirm what we already knew: Google results really are getting worse

Kraiden@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• ElcaineVolta@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I use DuckDuckGo, you can configure it as your default search engine in Firefox.

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  • Z3k3@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I find myself hitting the same issues with ddg as with Google. The 1st page trys to sell me the thing I want info on

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    • tiredofsametab@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I find google better than ddg the vast majority of the time... and google sucks

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    • baseless_discourse@mander.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You can turn sponsor off in setting or use start.duckduckgo.com

      I find their ad is much more clearly marked than google.

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  • Kraiden@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I use DDG when coding and generally find it to be a bit nicer, but from the article it sounds like they're prone to the same issues. Anecdotally, I have noticed non-code queries do seem to be similarly crap

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    • victorz@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’ve turned to devdocs.io for my API documentation needs, which saves me the step of searching at all.

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• gullible@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Searx. That it doesn’t ignore operators legitimately arouses me slightly.

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  • AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    If I ever can’t find something I’m looking for using a Searx instance, I switch to something like StartPage temporarily.

    As great as Searx is, on very rare occasion I find myself having to switch to a different engine.

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    • gullible@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s funny, I’m the reverse- Searx is my final solution. I don’t like costing the lovely people hosting it any more than I have to so I start with the duck. If ddg offers nothing, searx always has it.

      As an aside, are you aware that startpage was purchased some time ago? It’s owned by an ad company now.

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      • AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Had absolutely no idea startpage was bought because I never keep up on this kinda stuff. Thanks for the heads-up.

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• Steve@communick.news ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m using Kagi

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• cozy_agent@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I use DDG like others have mentioned, but I also like Perplexity, because it’s not a chat like ChatGPT, it just answers queries without trying too hard to chat to you.

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• z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I use DuckDuckGo Lite in Librewolf with Ublock and NoScript (amongst other addons). That combination used with ddg’s !bangs got me covered. No ads, not even image search (just go to ddg directly foe that), just content.

  I’ve used searx through a docker container, and it’s a strong 2nd choice, but ddg lite is just easier to set up and gives better results imho.

  All said, an LLM like a local Llama and ChatGPT, can fill the gaps for very specific searches. Sadly, the modern internet takes a lot of savvy to navigate quickly and effectively.

  There’s a very good reason so many are typing in “reddit” at the ends of their searches, and that’s if their not using Change GPT to just get them to the answer faster, and using much more computational resources to do so…it’s a big cluster fuck.

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• Reverendender@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I really like Ecosia. Someone told me it’s just bing, but I still like it.

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• TeamDman@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Bing has done well for me

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• maness300@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Startpage.

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• squid_slime@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Ask Jeeves

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• kubica@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Patience and giving up.

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