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).
DuckDuckGo, if that doesn’t work then I go to Startpage.
I’m using Startpage.com (can set the location - I also have the problem that I use a VPN and keep getting not the language I want. IDK how to make it stick though), and Kagi paid for a bit now.
I mainly use DDG, including bangs to search other sites, but I occasionally still use Google if I’m having trouble finding something.
Ecosia on my desktop (plus some experiments with Kagi), DuckDuckGo on my phone (although sometimes Google’s search widget for quick questions and conversions).
I use one of the searxng instances or startpage.com
I use DDG and im pretty happy with it. I now pretty much only use google if i need to find working hours and location of a store on google maps, as DDG doesnt have that information as obviously available
I use both startpage and duckduckgo, I use different browsers for different uses. For example: duckduckgo browser for work/professional use, mull for social media, tor for general browsing, I also recently started using MySudo for the same purposes with it’s built in browsers
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
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DuckDuckGo always
I use DuckDuckGo and am happy with it
Bing, actually. I think it has greatly improved. Mostly. Plus the new Bing and AI stuff has been great. Much better than google
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.
The rewards and AI are really the only selling parts. I guess it’s the cost of allowing them your data.
Big fan of DuckDuckGo and Startpage. Brave Search is also a fine choice, as well.
I’ve also been using Duck Duck go. I hadn’t heard about Startpage before.
DuckDuckGo 95% of the time, Google if I’m having trouble finding something.
I’ve been trying to switch to duckduckgo but I really struggle with the results. I appreciate the privacy angle but I just can’t seem to find what I want about 80% of the time. It’s like it just ignores parts of my query…
Big fan of Kagi, though Bing chat is unironically very good for most of my needs.
Google has been worse than Bing for most of the last two years, but Kagi was working better for me than either for the last year. Bing chat is a whole different animal, though.
I had never heard of Kagi before; I’ll need to look into it.
I don’t think you can have a search engine that indexes the entire internet without monetization some direction: either as a set of eyeballs for an advertisement engine masquerading as a web search index, or as a subscriber. So, don’t be surprised they ask for money dollars! It’s ok if the maths don’t add up for you, though. For me, it’s nice being able to pay for something I use and know that that is the explicit relationship we have. I get pissy when it’s suggested as free but the cost is my attention, but maybe you don’t work that way and that’s ok too :D
I can completely get behind paying for a service if that means the service works and is better than all the other ones. I’ll at least try it out. Personally, I’d probably prefer if I could pay for a certain number of searches (like pay for a 1000 searches with 20 bucks) instead of the subscription model. I’m glad that there’s an ad-free search service though.
They were working toward adding some billing flavors like that but it’s unclear if it was like a prepaid cellphone or just a “for a sub you get X minutes a month” kinda deal (continuing the analogy). I’m grandfathered into the infinite searches that I’ve never used all that much of so I haven’t really paid any serious attention to it, just kinda peripherally somewhat-aware :)
Yeah, right now they offer 100 free searches and then 5 bucks a month capping out at 300 searches, along with other tiers. Would much prefer it to be more like a prepaid cellphone, and just buy searches… or maybe have the searches roll over to the next month lol. I’ll still try the free searches, but it would be nice to throw money at the thing instead of having the stress of yet another subscription service to remember to cancel if I stop using it.
but it would be nice to throw money at the thing instead of having the stress of yet another subscription service to remember to cancel if I stop using it.
strong agree with that sentiment.
I pay for Kagi annually if it helps. I get bogged down with the monthlys too. They also do a pay as you go for when you go over your plans limit: image of pay per use config
I understand that it’s a lot of work but I’m sorry, a starting plan of $5 per month is WAY to much. I’ll just use searxng.
Sure, if that makes sense for you go for it. To me, 60$ a year is a single pizza delivery, so it seems foolish for me to worry too much about it when it’s something I need consistent use of throughout the day, every day. I find a good search engine way more essential than a tv streaming service, so it really is a no brainer for me.
Edit: I also pay fastmail to host my email for me too, so I’m clearly not against paid-for services :)
