Search?

[darkemeralds]

 Where are people going for online search now that Google has utterly succumbed to enshittification?

Comments

[tehomet]

enshittification

LOL

I use ecosia.org currently.

[darkemeralds]

I wish the term were original with me. Cory Doctorow coined it in 2022, and though it sadly didn't make Merriam Webster's great new words list in 2023, the American Dialect Society did name it word of the year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

I'll check out ecosia. Thank you!

[donutsweeper]

I switched so my browser's default search engine is duckduckgo years ago. No ads is ideal for me. Occasionally I poke about at different engines if I am searching for something specifically that I couldn't find that way, but it mostly works just fine.

[darkemeralds]

Good to know. I haven't found anything yet that beats Google's image search, but practically everything now beats its horrible AI-infested, ad-wracked results. Why, Google? Why??

[donutsweeper]

For reverse image search I've had some luck with https://tineye.com/

Another search engine I use when I remember is https://www.startpage.com/ but since it's not my computer's default I usually forget.

[darkemeralds]

Ooh, thank you!

[darkemeralds]

Hey! This startpage is pretty good! Nice clean interface, fairly reliable looking results. Thank you.

[donutsweeper]

Glad you're finding it helpful :)

[yourlibrarian]

I've used Startpage for a very long time, back when it was Ixquick. It's my default search engine and I rarely use others, though I do use Wikipedia when I'm looking for info on specific things.

[darkemeralds]

Duly noted. This looks very promising!

[azurelunatic]

That's what my partner uses. I've still been suffering along through Google.

[darkemeralds]

Me too, and I'm just so tired of it.

[batdina]

duckduckgo? It's not perfect, but it's less shittified than the alternative.

[darkemeralds]

That's a second vote for Duckduckgo. Honestly, I've disregarded it because the name is kinda silly--but then...google. I mean...

[ranunculus]

I've used Duckduckgo for some years. Don't do many photo searches tho. I do use Google once in a long time, if I think I'm not finding something. Keeping your cookies cleared out defeats some of Google's ad stuff. I clear almost all cookies a couple times a month. It is annoying, but works well.

[darkemeralds]

Good suggestion. I dread all the re-logins and stuff, but there doesn't seem to be a perfect solution so it's a question of balancing priorities, I guess.

[ranunculus]

If you are using Firefox you can clear individual cookies. Settings>privacy>cookies Doesn't help much if you have months and months of them, but for a few or even a few dozen it works well to avoid all those re-log in's. I -think- there is a way of telling Firefox to remember some of them routinely even if you "clear all" but I've never dug deep enough to set that kind of thing up.

[darkemeralds]

Thanks. Firefox is the browser that keeps being mentioned. I haven't used it in a hundred years. I should give it another look.

[branchandroot]

I’ve been using Duck Duck Go, but because that one is an aggregator it does tend to be influenced by the the SEO nonsense that pushes terrible “let us sell you crap” sites to the top in Google/Bing/etc. So I supplement with Qwant, which I believe builds its own index and is less susceptible.

[darkemeralds]

Qwant is new to me. This looks very promising! Nice and simple, clean results. Thank you!

[cookiemom6067]

Duckduckgo. I switched to it when I started using Firefox exclusively.

[darkemeralds]

Duckduckgo is winning in this survey!

[sporky_rat]

https://www.mojeek.com/

They aren't a metacrawler.

[sporky_rat]

https://restoreprivacy.com/google-alternatives/ has some good Google alternatives for several things.

[darkemeralds]

Fantastic resource. Thank you! I love that the page says I don't have to do this all at once. It can feel overwhelming. How intertwined my life has become with one giant and rapidly enshittifying company!

[darkemeralds]

This looks really clean and nice. I tried a fairly obscure search and got some good results that didn't surface with Google or Brave. Thanks!