• qyron@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Okay.

    Now that we already know we are pretty much at the hands of one pupeteer, what options are there?

    I already read about Kagi (apologies if mispelled) but I like to write as a hobby and 300 searches per month go fast.

    What other options are there?

    Edit:

    For those who may be arriving now:

    • Kagi seems to be a good option for an alternative search engine; it is a paid service, for which I don’t have the €€€ right now. Many speak very well about it.
    • SearXNG is a thing as well, to my understanding a decentralized search system. Worth the try, in my opinion. If it’s something that is decentralized, it is worthy to support and divulge.
    • There is mojeek.com, supposedly not very good but any option that goes against the monopoly is worth the try! I’m going to try this one.
    • Brave.com is an option but is a bit shady.
    • You should try Ecosia if you want to support reforestation efforts. Read somewhere in the thread it is part of the Bing ecosystem.
    • Yep is a thing as well. Somewhere in the thread, a lemmy points they use the search results for AI trainning. So… That is that.
    • And it seems there is a search engine by the name of dogpile.com.
    • Startpage is another search engine (portal?) suggested by another user. I’ve used it before and like it. Read somewhere it somehow piped a standard google search but removed tracking and ads.
    • and I just remembered Presearch.com. This is a really shady one (crypto warning!) that I suspect is a fork/collab with Brave Browser. I’ve used it, they have reward-per-search reward system (or had) where they give you crypto for every search. Good results, some that don’t come up neither on DDG nor Google.

    p.p.s Should I start categorizing these from “shady” to “worthy”?

    p.p.s 2 Does anyone remember StumbleUpon? I know it was never a search engine to begin with but it was the best source of good internet content I ever got acquainted to.

    Can we get something like that back?

    • joneskind@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      That’s a nice hobby

      I would suggest you to install a local instance of a LLM (mistral or llama3 for example) to widen your source of information. Go straight to Wikipedia instead of “googling” it if you don’t already.

      Anyway, I didn’t know about kagi so I might take my own advice and give it a try.

    • sugartits@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Just pay the extra for unlimited searches. It’s not much money, especially if it’s a tool for work.

      • Jarix@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        Listen sugartits, some of us don’t have much money. So if it’s not much money we still don’t have it

        (Mostly i just wanted to point out your username by using it in a comment)

        • qyron@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          That was one of the most out of the blue comments I have ever read. It sounded so… unreal. Something out of a sitcom. Then I read “sugartits” is the name of the lemmy you were replying to. That’s was really top mark. Kudos for you.

      • Mojeek@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        you can also send us in queries where we’re not perfect, or let us know elsewhere, and we’re keen on fixing them