What search engines do you use?

Open Source@lemmy.ml – 39 points – 10 months ago

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/4448974

I've recently started using a self hosted SearXNG instance but I'm still using the search engines enabled by default (google, duckduckgo and qwant). What search engines do you have enabled or which ones do you feel you've gotten the best results with?

Recently switched to Duck Duck Go and honestly I find the results better than Google. More accurate, less "sponsored" results, ...

DDG doesn't like to exclude words from your searches though. It lets you exclude sites using the -site: parameter, but won't exclude individual words. And it constantly gives me search results that don't include the words that I'm searching for.

Have you tried using exclusive terms with quotation marks? Like "how to get rich fast" That should only feature sites with exactly that search term. Additionally you could link words with + between them i think.

I have tried, and it really doesn't work that well. Often I'm looking for a specific word, and if I search the page that DDG gave me, the word doesn't appear at all. Either it finds words it thinks are close enough, or it just ignores the request.

Vor the site you have visited and has some hidden SEO spam related to its topic.

I used to use SearXNG until I discovered 4get

Isn't this how all the privacy respecting search engines started?

The issue is the search index.

Afaik, only Brave uses its own search index. (It acquired Tailcat, so there's that.)

I use Duckduckgo, but it uses Bing as its base.

Searx for piracy stuff. (occasional use)
Google because kinda used to UI and the direct quick answer without having to look for it in the site
duckduckgo is the default on Firefox and it's about as good as Google when i use it.
Yandex is weirdly the best one for image search.(occasional use)
Bing via the AI because it acts as the best teacher I've ever had. Patient, understanding and adapting to my level ( use a lot recently )

I really like Brave search

Doesn't work reliably in SearXNG unfortunately

Works fine on it's own

I know, I used it before but I wanted to try out SearXNG and it has some features I really like that other search engines don't have

I've been using kagi for the last few months, I like it but due to the pricing it's changes how I use search.

I've used it for about a month, but the number of searches I do is over the $10/month plan, so I should switch to the next that is $25/month, definitely too much! I'll keep using Google within it's own container in Firefox so that it can't track anything and without any ads thanks to PiHole (or is it uBlock Origin?).

Google for most things.

Bing in an incognito window for weird porn.

Yup, Bing used to be the best at Porn. Iirc, beta testers trained it that way.

Your comment is so weirdly specific it made me really laugh.

DuckDuckGO for the bangs, with a custom !bang made for my favorite SearXNG instance; on which most of my 'googling' actually happens.

I just define my own bangs. Both Firefox and Google let you set up custom search engines easily. For example I just type d bag of holding into my URL bar and it searched my favourite D&D reference site. Faster, private and I can select whatever search engine I want for regular search.

That's good to know! And I'm sure it's beneficial information for those that were unaware of that. However, (unless I'm wrong) the method you described requires you to be deliberate and precise in the placement of your own bang; i.e. bag of d holding or bag of holding d wouldn't work. As I often just start typing whatever I want to search/look for and only notice midway/afterwards that I hadn't specified where I would like to search, the built-in 'bangs' in Firefox/Chrome just wouldn't cut it unless I would try to rewire my behavior.

I guess that is true. It isn't an issue for the way my brain works. You could type Home d Space but that is a bit more awkward to type.

What is this? Could you elaborate?

Whoogle.

Google results without the tracking. Only the pros.

I heard that Google has been getting quite a bit worse over the years, so I hoped that someone may know a search engine that's better

I use 4get.ca

@Fisch DuckDuckGo and StartPage

StartPage. It's Google search results, including calculator, weather, etc., but without sponsored results.

My Searx instance has Google, DuckDuckGo, Startpage, plus Wikidata and Wikipedia. I also have it configured to block all results from all the socials, including Reddit.

Google probably isn't necessary given I have Startpage enabled, but FOMO.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ecosia!