this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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I live in a country which uses a language I don't speak but Google defaults to regional results in spite of my language being set to English. All other engines give me really poor results (not that Google was giving good ones, the image search has really gone to shit since they started populating it with AI stuff).

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[–] kaffeebohne@feddit.de 21 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I use DuckDuckGo and am happy with it

[–] Fubarberry@lemmy.fmhy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Honestly the search bangs are the killer duckduckgo feature. I started using it because I was upset with Google hiding search results, but it's being able to easily search any search engine that keeps me using it.

[–] Rentlar@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Bangs are amazing and I use it about 3x as often as I use the normal search on DuckDuckGo.

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[–] Nolando@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 year ago (7 children)

DuckDuckGo 95% of the time, Google if I’m having trouble finding something.

[–] Faendol@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I switched to DuckDuckGo a while ago and haven't regretted it at all. I honestly barely notice the difference.

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[–] thatonedude1210@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Big fan of DuckDuckGo and Startpage. Brave Search is also a fine choice, as well.

[–] peetabix@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Been using Duck Duck Go too for a while. Not heard of Startpage before.

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[–] fratermus@fedia.io 13 points 1 year ago

Duckduckgo by default, adding !g bang syntax to use google if DDG isn't helping.

[–] sapo@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Nothing compares to DuckDuckGo with bangs, which let you change over to any other search engine with two or three characters. I usually use !g (Google), !w (Wikipedia) and !aw (ArchWiki).

[–] CaptainMinnette@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

I didn't know DDG introduced that feature. That's sick honestly. They even have bangs for my more obscure wikis.

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[–] aski3252@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago

Duckduckgo as default. If I need location/region specific stuff, I will sometimes use google.

[–] TheFrenchGhosty@lemmy.pussthecat.org 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My own SearXNG instance. I get the best out of all search engines.

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[–] The_Digitalfigment@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago

I used DuckDuckGo as my default and it works out for me most of the time. Though, were it tends to fall apart is with image searching. When I can't find what I'm looking for I'll go to Google and find it pretty quickly.

[–] russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use DuckDuckGo, because I really love the "bangs" feature. Want to look up something on the AUR? Use !aur term. Google Images? !gi term, etc. There are tons of them!.

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[–] LucidDaemon@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use Qwant and find it gives me better results than Google most of the time. It claims to be private and such, so I'm happy with it.

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[–] possiblylinux127@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago
[–] OutrageousUmpire@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Brave. It’s interesting getting completely different results than from any of the big players. And the results from Brave are often better.

[–] setsneedtofeed@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

I use the Brave browser on my phone. The searches are good, but I mainly like that I can watch YouTube without adds, and make the video windowed and even turn off the phone screen while it plays.

[–] retnuh@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ve used DuckDuckGo for a long time now and have never had a problem with it

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[–] Nymphioxetine@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Bing, actually. I think it has greatly improved. Mostly. Plus the new Bing and AI stuff has been great. Much better than google

[–] thesanewriter@vlemmy.net 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I also use Bing. I like the AI features and the rewards program. The results are meh in terms of quality, but at this point honestly so are Google's.

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[–] nii236@lemmy.jtmn.dev 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow, are we going to see the downfall of Google in our lifetimes?!

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[–] comicallycluttered@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I mix and match.

DuckDuckGo is my main one, but I often find myself just using bangs and either throwing in !brave or !g before some searches because sometimes the results aren't as relevant as I'd like.

I obviously don't like Google, but if I need super quick results, they're typically better for me, though they've honestly become ridiculously terrible over the last couple of years.

Not just because of promoted content, but because they don't even seem to care about syntax anymore.

If I put quotes around a search term, Google seems to ignore it. Why? Who knows.

As much as I have... let's say mixed feelings about Brave, I find myself using !brave more and more on DDG. More relevant results, at least in my looooong experience of using DDG as my primary.

Startpage doesn't like me because VPN or whatever, otherwise I'd use it more.

I sometimes use a SearxNG instance as well, but that's only if I'm really struggling to find something.

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[–] CliodhnaBaskerville@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

DuckDuckGo. I've become reliant on the bangs. Regular search not giving me what I want? Just add !g. Want to find a word? !wt. Look up an album? !rym. Just want to search something on YouTube quickly? !yt

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[–] EXiLExJD@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

I mostly use Startpage or DuckDuckGo.

[–] ace@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ecosia. If my searches are going to be used for data mining no matter what, might as well have some trees planted as compensation.

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[–] mainfrog@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use the following search engines listed by priority:

  • Brave
  • DuckDuckGo
  • Google / Bing

Sometimes the first two just don't have the right results.

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[–] MetalAirship@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm a developer and I've been trying out wwe.phind.com, has been decent so far. It gives you both a chatGPT/AI answer and a regular search engine result at the same time. Just don't rely on it to write an accurate RegEx...

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

Duckduckgo.com. This is the way.

[–] Silviecat44@vlemmy.net 5 points 1 year ago

I use Bing now due to Microsoft Rewards and Bing AI

[–] Yoru_Sulfur@lemmy.davidbuckley.ca 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I use kagi. It's pretty nice, though it's not free.

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[–] httpjames@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Kagi is a great premium alternative. They focus obsessively on search result quality and adding helpful, but non invasive AI tools. One of them is even free as an experiment!

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[–] kamin@lemmy.kghorvath.com 5 points 1 year ago

Running my own SearX instance, fetching from multiple different sites.

[–] Lionir@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

I use Duckkduckgo, I'd like to use Kagi though, From my short experience, the results were excellent and I'd like to curate the websites I like and don't more as I think that would improve things the results even more.

[–] Tum@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I use DDG pretty exclusively. I've never had issues with it, I set it as default and didn't think about it after that

[–] deedasmi@lemmy.timdn.com 4 points 1 year ago

StartPage or DDG

[–] 10EXP@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Brave search. The results have been better for me than most of the major players, summarizer comes in handy, and the discussions section showing forum posts on the searched for topic + top comment is useful. No native image section, but I work around that by !s bang to search on startpage when I need images. And yes, it has bangs, just like DDG.

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[–] gilbert31@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

DuckDuckGo, if that doesn't work then I go to Startpage.

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[–] drownedPhoenician@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

Duckduckgo. I stpped using google for the privacy stuff but I stayed because of the language switch.

I don't know if I tweaked a setting to achieve it, but I have a language switch below the search bar. Google always showed me german results when searching for something english and the other wy around, so I love this feature. Search results are good enough for me, so duckduckgo it is.

[–] edo@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

I started using Kagi recently and it’s fantastic. The results have been great, it’s pretty customisable and it uses all the same ! bangs as DuckDuckGo. Don’t feel like I have to use Google at all anymore (which wasn’t the case when I used DDG as my go-to). Plus, since it’s a paid service, there are no ads and no guff.

[–] Manticore@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ecosia. It's not a great search engine, but it's good enough most of the time, and it plants trees.

It doesn't necessarily return the results I want, though. Possibly because it isn't tailored to me like Google is (thanks, data-scraping!) so sometimes I use Google if I want a search engine to use context.

For example, I couldn't remember the name of the show 'Voltron'. If I search Ecosia for 'cartoon show giant robots made of smaller robots' then I get pictures, or snippets of the phrase 'giant robot' or 'show giant' or whatever, literally looking for it. But then I swap to Google and it uses context to show me Voltron stuff among the results so I can be like YEAH THAT'S IT NOW I can make my extremely topical joke to my friend, thanks

I hear good thinks about Duck Duck Go, it may even use Google's search indexing but it protects your privacy and doesn't track what you're searching. Which is both 'bad' (your results are harder to narrow down obscure searches) and good (general searches aren't contaminated by obscure guesses).

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[–] awwsom@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago
[–] Sleeping@iusearchlinux.fyi 4 points 1 year ago

I rotate between a handful of public SearX/SearXNG instances. I used to use Duckduckgo but after learning about the deal they had with Microsoft I completely stopped trusting them.

[–] Leora@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

I run my own SearXNG instance, which is a metasearch engine that shows results from a bunch of other search engines. I find it incredibly useful! It's very customizable as well

[–] Bretzel@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use Startpage, a privacy focused search engine which uses Google powerful search engine but without sending the actual data to them. The result are pretty good. You can change both the language and region in the settings. Bad part of Startpage is it is a for profit company (some advertising will be displayed using past search history only)

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[–] parlaptie@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

I use DuckDuckGo. When I first heard about it, I tried it for a bit, found that it didn't really give good results, and switched back to Google. Some years later I found that Google also stopped giving good results, so I figured that if my search results just aren't going to be good, I'll at least switch away from Google.

[–] Watcher@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago

I use ddg most of the time. It fits all my needs. Sometimes when it comes to very niche things or complicated things I use startpage or brave.

[–] Michael@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll be that weird guy using Bing! Ive signed up for Bing Rewards so I at least get some payment for the data they're collecting. Also the Bing ChatGPT feature is interesting and useful at times.

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