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What search engine do you use? (self.technology)

submitted 1 year ago by SemioticStandard to c/technology

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Data on search engine market share is available, but I wonder what that looks like for Lemmy users in particular, who I would assume lean more technical than the average user, so probably use DuckDuckGo and alternates more than Google.

I use a mix of DuckDuckGo and Kagi. I'll also use ChatGPT, which can be good if you're careful to verify the answers it gives you as a check against hallucinations. It's useful for short, direct answers without ads or SEO bullshit.

This article on Ars (and if you're not a subscriber, you absolutely should be, as they are the best tech journalists out there) inspired the question: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/google-admits-reddit-protests-make-it-harder-to-find-helpful-search-results

Fucking Reddit. Enshittification ruins everything.

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[–] Thalestr 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Used to use SearXNG but got increasingly frustrated with it, so I mostly use DDG these days. Although, that being said, most search engines these days are filled with SEO clickbait trash which makes it basically mandatory to do site:reddit.com

Might have to try Kagi some day, despite my reservations about their pricing.

[–] SemioticStandard 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What frustrated you about SearXNG?

[–] Thalestr 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Many SearXNG hosts alter your search results without any easy way of opting out. For example, several will change Reddit links to Libreddit or use another frontend for Wikipedia and so on. Doing this, and not giving an accessible option to disable it, is unacceptable in my opinion. A search engine has no business in tampering with someone's results like this. If someone wishes to use Libreddit then that is their choice to do so - not the search provider's.