I have used SearXNG for a while, but I switched to LibreX after the search engine started glitching. Recently, though, LibreX has stopped returning any results. I am currently on Mojeek, but the results aren't that great.
I have also tried Qwant, but I wasn't too keen on it. Startpage will be impractical, as I use a VPN and this engine often blocks me because of it. I don't want to use Brave Search for a number of reasons. MetaGer has too many important features behind its paywall. I'm not sure about DuckDuckGo, but I could use it if there was no other option.
I’m not sure this is really a solvable problem but at the end of the day, DuckDuckGo is a for profit corporation. Privacy is more of a marketing angle than something they actually care about. Last year they allowed Microsoft to track mobile users of their “privacy focused” browser which is obviously against their stated purpose for existing. They backtracked after facing backlash but it’s done lasting damage to their reputation. They also got caught by a security researcher, they weren’t at all upfront about it. I think that’s enough to shatter any hope that they are genuine or trustworthy.
I'm here because I'm trying to figure out why dog is giving me curated location based results instead of the actual results, even though I have my region set to all regions.
So I'm not recommending them because their product has gotten worse.e
They use bing results but they most certainly weren't bought by Microsoft. They have a deal with Microsoft to use their results without tracking. At least to my knowledge. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Not that it is a deal-breaker, but this functionality is also built into Chromium browsers if you right click the address bar and select 'manage search engines'
Can you tell us why Qwant wasn't a good choice for you? I heard they work hard on respecting privacy while providing good results... So I am curious about your experience
The engine occasionally throws up a "Sorry, we've detected unusual traffic from your IP address" and then I have to type in my query again after solving the captcha. They're also based in France, which is bringing in anti-encryption laws and suchlike, so (unless I'm an idiot, which is not unlikely) the risk of something compromising Qwant is rising a bit.
On top of that, it's the only privacy-respecting search engine not to achieve an A grade on ToS;DR.
I used it for a while but could not find good results for any kind of advanced query. Qwant in comparison is slightly better but still worse than duckduckgo unfortunately. For really niche stuff I still need to revert to Google..
I use a self hosted instance of Whoogle.
It threw up an error a few days back. Got stuck in Google captcha(probably an IP issue). Now it has reset and it is smooth sailing.
Yeah, it is simply Google results, but I think it's fine...
some here won't like the idea of a premium, private search engine but Kagi is one of the best tech discoveries I've made in a long time. I pay $5/month for 300 searches and always seem to hit the limit at the very end of my month, never payed the 1.5 cents per search after that.
As for what is good, searches tend to pull up relevant info that is not buried under a bunch of seo shit. You can block, downgrade, and upgrade domains (I have blocked Pinterest from all my search results for instance). It's just a very good experience. And long term I feel more confident in their user experience since their profit motivation is not tied to serving you up ads.
My biggest complaint is the 300 searches a month seems a little low.
But give the 100 free searches a shot. I have been very happy with them.
I don’t want to use Brave Search for a number of reasons.
Mind sharing? I'm curious because I switched to DDG several days ago, after a good while of using Brave. My reasons were:
defaulting to Moderate safe search every couple of days
inability to provide me with good results for simple '[word] wiktionary' queries
having to block some elements of their result templates manually, using their own browser's filtering feature (featured snippets, definitions etc)
poorer search results compared to what they were a year, two ago
Some people here mentioned Kagi and I liked it a lot when I was beta-testing it, but I will only start paying for using it when they introduce full support for Boolean operators, which most likely means never.
I don't like Brave as a company. Brendan Eich is an arsehole, Brave Browser has had (minor, but numerous) controversies, their crypto stuff is off-putting, and now they're sticking their new AI into everything.
I have to say I used Random Searx a lot, startpage as Backup. And as VPNs are getting mainstream, it gets a pain in the ass. Mullvad Leta sucks too kinda. Now I use duckduckgo alone and actually never need my specially configured SearXNG search providers, although useful.
I have to say, I use a lot of search engines. Using the "Add custom search" Addon on Firefox you can easily add any URL containing a search word to your browser.
I used SearXNG for over a month but found myself routinely returning to Google for either tech problem searches or because it was returning irrelevant results for homonyms.
I would love to return to it. Do you have any tips for better search results?
You can choose which search engines you actually want to use. SearXNG is a meta search engine, which means it just queries other search engines for their results. Lots of it's results are some random wikis which most of the time do not help.
As main search, among others, I use Andisearch, it's an AI search assistant, with own lenguage model and one of the most private search engine. own reader mode for websites in the search results, so you don't need to visit it, you also can watch YouTube and others sandboxed right in the search results, anonymous use, no ads, no tracking, no logs.
Definitely not. Never mind "out of the frying pan, into the fire"; for me, this is "out of the lake, into the fire".
Using Yandex would involve giving my personal data to Russia. The possibility of my data falling into the wrong hands is the main reason I am looking for a private search engine; I'm certainly not then about to just walk up to the wrong hands and say "here you go". Not to mention the censorship.
Besides, I've blacklisted the .ru, .su, and .рф, .москва, and .yandex TLDs in NextDNS.
Well i am far far from Russia so i don't care, it can't be worst compared to google. I don't believe too much in the real privacy, one way or another 3 letter agencies will get the info.
Edge has integrated source citing for gpt4. It's really nice for not keeping open a ton of tabs but logging them all in one place when researching something.