So… I was just wondering what search engine alternatives you would recommend/what the best alternatives are. I’m looking to ditch Google search. I know Bing does a bunch of data harvesting, which I’m not interested in.
I use duck duck go
11 Likes
I’ve heard about it, any negatives to it?
not really. bout the only thing that does not invide your privacy
1 Like
Not as fleshed out in comparision to google but does offer a bit of a different approach to searches. Works fine but you may still have to use something else from time to time. There are gaping holes in certain search types but that may be strickly corporate control of access and not really ducks fault.
1 Like
Y’all need searx and yacy in yo life:
https://asciimoo.github.io/searx/
No need to trust a third party. DuckDuckGo has zero incentive not to monetize as soon as they reach a target audience size.
3 Likes
I use startpage.
I strictly use Duckduckgo. I used to have trouble with search results not being accurate enough, but I’ve noticed over the last six months to a year that the results have been getting better. I rarely use the !g bang anymore.
2 Likes
I stopped using duckduckgo because of the accuracy, as you mention. Maybe I should give it a shot again. Thanks!
thats why I use startpage, basically all your queries go through a 3rd party server in france to anonymity the data.
Unless you’re signed into google account 
Accuracy may in part be due to your conditioning from using Google. A lot of the others just use Google by proxy. That kind of defeated the purpose.
You usually in part need to reset how you do searches to not the ‘google way’
I like startpage. Basically, it acts like a proxy search for google. Its still google, but you’re doing a search anywhere in the world.
The “privacy” startpage and workalikes convey is meaningless.
It’s still better than giving all that data to Google themselves. Spreading your private data over different services makes it a lot harder to connect the dots.
Sure, YaCy etc are better, but setting it up is a lot more work for most people than simply selecting a different search engine.
2 Likes
DuckDuckGo has this great feature where it’s actually every search engine on the web in one. This is accomplished through a command called a !BANG. To use a bang, type an exclamation point followed immediately by an abbreviated form of the desired site and DuckDuckGo will proxy the search results back to you.
All of the following searches are valid on DuckDuckGo and skip several clicks:
- ln(1/x) !wa
- hydroponics !w
- SSD !newegg
- level1techs !yt
- birds of paradise !i
2 Likes
hmm
Thanks for letting me get a laugh
3 Likes
That is an awesome bug! They nest! Never thought of that.
1 Like
Using !g in a duckduckgo search will do this too.
1 Like
Or I could use a proxy search.