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123

DuckDuckGo starting to give more "personal" search results (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 weeks ago by Cataphract@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml

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Been slowly running into more results from DDG that seem to have some "personal parameter" or difference in search results. I had a search saved from some months ago, went to check it for some references and got new hits involving local organizations that had nothing to do with the search. Opening up a private browser I see that the searches aren't 100% matching up either.

I see this as only getting worse, I want to be able to enter a search and it searches for my query. Not based on my personality or whatever info is being collected. Does anyone know a search engine that's reliable and focuses on giving the same results and doesn't try this "personalized" crap?

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[–] ZeroCool@slrpnk.net 70 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

I had been using DDG for years but switched to SearXNG last fall after reading about it on Lemmy. It’s a privacy focused meta-search engine that can even be self-hosted. It’s wildly customizable and I’ve been pretty happy with the results.

If you’re not interested in self-hosting, or just want to test drive it a bit, there are lots of public instances you can use as well.

https://github.com/searxng/searxng

List of public instances

[–] phar@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 weeks ago

Whoa thank you!!!

[–] TylerDurdenJunior@lemmy.ml 16 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Well. Isn't ddg just a Bing API?

[–] Mojeek@lemmy.ml 9 points 4 weeks ago

pretty much: https://www.searchenginemap.com/, used to be +the Yandex API

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 9 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

DuckDuckGo is also feeding your search terms into AI development now. I've tried it again recently but prefer Ecosia, at least Ecosia lets me more easily get to Google Maps when I want to, rather than trying to push Apple Maps.

[–] taaz@biglemmowski.win 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I just usually do !map

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 2 points 4 weeks ago

Ah I wasn't aware of that shortcut, one of the main reasons DDG wasn't working for me was because I thought I could only do !g and then go to the Google page, and Google had been making it more difficult to go from the main search page to Maps.

[–] seeg@toot.whatever.cz 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

@Cataphract Nowadays I just prefer to pay for search to #Kagi

[–] kionite231@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I am tired of Kagi shills everywhere posting how kagi is great :/

[–] Fuzzy_Red_Panda@lemm.ee 5 points 3 weeks ago

As someone who currently uses searxng and kagi, I can say that kagi gives the best results of any general internet search engine. Do I like paying money for it? Of course not. But it will keep getting mentioned as long as it keeps providing the best results.

Customer word of mouth ≠ shills.

[–] potentiallynotfelix@lemdro.id 2 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah I'm starting to want to change my search engine of choice

[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 2 points 4 weeks ago

Startpage has been my go to for a while. Between it and ecosia I can usually find what I'm looking for