I stopped using Google at the same time I closed my accounts with Facebook, instagram, Reddit and Amazon. Currently I’m using Ecosia which I think is German. I’m dumping all the US companies I can based on all the Trump crap. It is taking time and effort but I should be able to actually close the Google account soon and I replaced windows with Linux on all but one of my PCs.
Google’s dominance on search is declining – for the first time ever!
Submitted 2 weeks ago by mesamunefire@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://tuta.com/blog/google-search-dominance-drops
Comments
Jaberw0cky@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
dan@upvote.au 2 weeks ago
Ecosia still uses American services though - they use Google, Bing, Yahoo and Wikipedia for search results.
Redex68@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah but don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Among other things, they just recently announced that they’re starting to build an alternative index with Qwant.
superkret@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
95+% of all websites you visit are hosted on AWS or use Cloudflare.
But that’s their decision, not yours.pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
ecosia is developing their own engine apparently
ITguru@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
Same here! Loved the switch to Linux.
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
[deleted]Jaberw0cky@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I wouldn’t say dogshit, I would say the results are good enough for most purposes, not great, my priority just as the moment is dumping USA based companies and I thought Ecosia planting trees was a nice touch. Although as someone else pointed out it is still possibly using crawlers from google and bing in the background. I’m still keen to try out other search engines.
blanketswithsmallpox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
These numbers underline the current trend to choose European services instead of American ones, which followed the trend to deGoogle.
[the chart shows stats for American Google, American Bing, Russian Yandex, American Yahoo!, American DuckDuckGo, and Other]
JuvenoiaAgent@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Yeah, that statement wasn’t supported by the data at all. It seemed to only be included as a way to link to their other articles about European alternatives and de-Googling.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Russian Yandex
Exceptionally good at finding torrent sites and other piracy outlets, because they aren’t working hand-in-glove with American broadcasters to censor and shadowban these links. Google, Bing, DDG, and the other American mainline search sites all focus on feeding end-users into a discrete set of Web2 mega-site sponsors. Yandex uses the older web crawlers and indexing tools, so it gives more honest (abet fuzzier and less reliable) results. And since nobody really gives a shit about Yandex, the efforts to game its algorithm have been comparatively minimal.
Yandex also has the benefit of being relatively English-friendly, while other popular non-English search sites like Baidu, Qwant, and Naver don’t cater too quite so freely.
toofpic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And they have really good products - the Navigator is great, and Yandex Music was better than Spotify (until the war started and a lot of labels/artists disappeared).
I’m not using their products now as I don’t want to feed the government, but they do(did?) some great stuff.Pirata@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Who still uses search engines to find torrent, though?
Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
[deleted]noodlejetski@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
the discussion is about search engines, not browsers.
Grizzlyboy@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
I switched when the answers I got started to become bullshit. I’d google a simple question just to double check if it was correct, but it gave me something completely different. Something so out of the realm of possibility that I was baffled.
I check the sources for the answer and they were not even related. After that I started paying more attention to how messed up google had become, and I had enough.
Google scholar however is still something I need… even though I dislike American corporations.
turtlesareneat@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
It’s kind of unreal that they took something that worked perfectly well for 25 years and then fucked it up entirely overnight, for no good reason.
Stick in bike spokes meme.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 2 weeks ago
They did that to drive up short term ad revenue and it worked, and joy was in their greedy little hearts. They also did figure out that poisoning search results drives away users, and that search is kinda the fastest gateway drug to their entire ecosystem.
But they’re stuck. Fixing search would lower their ad revenue, and stock holders would kill them for that.
Quill7513@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
and the nature of their 1000s of experiments going at the same time isn’t methodical at all. they don’t actually know what iteration of google search was the best and most useful one. there’s no going back to what worked because at no point did they ever know what worked. the modern shitty google search is the best version we will ever get to use again.
google embedded them as a core piece of information infrastructure and then demolished themselves. now our information networks fundamentally do not work anymore
jellygoose@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Enshitiffication.
cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Why would I google something when the first answer is an inferior AI to chatgpt. I’ll just use a better AI.
Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
I went long enough without using Google (probably a year-ish) that, when I accidentally made a Google search a few days ago, it was a jarring experience.
It felt wrong the same way other search engines did when I first deGoogled. It was kind of nice actually.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The irony is Gemini is really good, and cheap for them, yet somehow they made it utterly unbearable in search.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Gemini is really good at confidently talking nonsense but other than that I don’t really see where you get the idea that it is good. Mind you, that isn’t much better with the other LLMs.
Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
“Significantly better than ChatGPT” and “Good” aren’t the same. Like ipecac is better to drink than sewage water.
FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I had that happen too. Couldn’t find something with DDG. Hopped over to Google and was shocked at how completely unusable it was.
suicidaleggroll@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
I abandoned Google when they started throwing shopping links at the top of every search, even when searching for things that have no relevance to shopping, and they started artificially promoting scams and paid material above actual results.
Google Search was best around 10-15 years ago when their only focus was providing the best results they could (remember when you could actually click the top result and you would be taken to the most applicable page instead of some unrelated ad or scam?). Now their focus is on providing the best product possible for their actual customers (paid advertisers) even when it means trashing their own product in the process.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
15+ years ago you could search for an error code, or an error message, or a part number and actually find it.
sibachian@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
they also ruined their own platform by creating and encouraging an entire business around gaming search results.
Teknikal@eviltoast.org 2 weeks ago
Google’s been garbage for years now, I kind of miss Coppernic Pro which is what I used before Google it searched all the search engines available and combined and resorted all the results.
Statick@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
If you’re tech savvy, look into selfhosting SearXNG.
I think there are public instances as well.
ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Would it run on a Raspberry pi 5?
Dacrydium@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
I’ve fully switched to ecosia. I much prefer their efforts, and they seem to fund decent projects unlike a lot of other carbon offset companies.
MyOpinion@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
I almost never use them now.
mesamunefire@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Its been degrading as time has gone on. The other search engines (like all of them) are getting or surpassing google in certain subjects. AI has really made them look like fools in all of this. Their AI sucks for results and (while I dont like it) others are using chatgpt for search results.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I would say it is just the opposite. Google used to be good before they tried to post-process results in this extreme way and AI is just an even more extreme way to do that. ChatGPT and all the other LLMs just increase the noise to signal ratio (noise coming first because there is so much more of it than signal these days).
mooncake@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
3laws@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Best AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google - included in one $25/mo subscription with our Ultimate plan.
Same trash.
Opisek@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Privacy company offers privacy focused LLMs for users that would’ve otherwise paid for ChatGPT. Unbelievable
Did you actually ever try Kagi or do you just want to spit uninformed delusions?
mooncake@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Ok so what’s your alternative then?
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
[deleted]trougnouf@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I ended up having to install a CalDAV client on my other people’s Android phone.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m glad to contribute to that metric.
L3s@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
!lemmysilver
LemmySilverBot@lemmy.world [bot] 2 weeks ago
Thank you for voting. You can vote again in 24 hours. leaderboard
cestvrai@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
I still include Google results in my Searx.
Definitely miss the good ol’ days where it was optimized to give the best results. Same goes for Netflix recommendations back in the the DVD mailer days…
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Been using Ecosia for up to a year now probably. I like it and I don’t need anything else.
doodledup@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Is Ecosia any good for the privacy-minded folks among us?
potter2010@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
It’s more privacy focussed than Google, but less than others. Personally I use Ecosia at work and Qwant at home.
systemglitch@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Nice to see this choice is making an actual difference.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Ditched Google for DuckDuckGo in like 2019 and used that for a long time until Kagi came out and now I use that and I’m quite happy with it.
stellargmite@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I ditched it around 2014 when I noticed it had effectively become the yellow pages. Its pretending to be one thing to the ‘user’ when its actually serving someone else. This is transparent of course but the balance/compromise or tradeoff of it still providing some utility to the user despite this is what may vary for different people. My threshold was low. That and the privacy violations. Unfortunately its a corporation.
j_co@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yandex is better than any American service by far imo.
Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win 2 weeks ago
Yandex LLC is a Russian technology company that
…
j_co@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sad its results are less censored due to the others pairing with corporations.
scotmartin@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Didn’t read the article but use Qwant since Trump.
Swarfega@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Or Ecosia
HubertManne@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
interesting. looks like yandex and yahoo are the ones who took it.
RedFrank24@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Makes sense when you consider that Yandex is owned by a Russian oligarch, and Google has been fined more money than exists in Russia.
Alpha71@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
ohthankgod!
JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 weeks ago
I work in an education setting and in the last month, Google started preloading the contents of other sites directly on the search page. It is wreaking havoc when combined with our blocking tools because kids will do a Google search for something innocuous and the page will immediately get blocked because it tried to load a result from Reddit or coursehero or something else we have blocked.
It’s incredibly frustrating.
not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
use udm=14. tedium.co/2024/…/google-web-search-make-default/ You can set it as default search provider.
dan@upvote.au 2 weeks ago
This is available in the UI too - there’s a tab labeled “Web”. Sometimes it’s hiding under “More”.
Adding it to the search provider URL is a good idea though.
aceshigh@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Does that work in Firefox? Seems like I don’t have the ability to edit the address.
JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 weeks ago
Thanks for the tip
j4yt33@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Amazing, thank you!
Quill7513@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
time to switch to Qwant, ecosia, or duckduckgo
Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Google search has sucked for a couple years now. DuckDuckGo is better for everything except maps.
Routhinator@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
Thats because for some ungodly reason they use Apple Maps. Not sure why they dont integrat with an OpenStreetMaps like service. At least that way users can start contributing to fill the gaps
JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 weeks ago
That’s been my go to since they started. There is/was a challenge using them when we evacuated them a while back with forcing safe search reliability if I recall the reason.
unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Does that mean any search (AI insight notwithstanding) will get blocked if it includes a Reddit, Coursera or something on the blocklist result at all?
Because if yes, that’s much more than just asinine. It’s basically blocking entire search topics due to the sheer fact that Reddit will appear on the furst page of Google a lot.
JaymesRS@literature.cafe 2 weeks ago
That is exactly what is happening. They type in the search query on their Chromebook, the results page flashes for a second and then the “this page is blocked” screen comes up saying they were blocked from Reddit, et al. Without them clicking on any search results.