There are public instances, or you can self-host it.
Its a “meta search engine”, meaning that it aggregates, and reorganizes results from the indexes of whichever search engines you want (after removing AI, Ads, and sponsored content from those results).
You could set it to index only Google if you wanted, and you’d basically have pre-enshitified google. I have about 20 indexes active in my personal instance, but they have ~100 indexes that you can use, allowing you to see results that wouldn’t turn up on Google or DDG.
It’s free, and it works better than Google ever has.
I had been searching for a specific rare game ROM for literally years, to no avail. I ran one SearXNG querry, and found the ROM from the 2nd link on page 1 (that’s right, pages, none of this infinite scroll rigmarole).
noai.duckduckgo works very well for me. I left ddg years ago because I thought it was crap, have used ecosia, and startpage since then, but ended up on noai.duckduckgo this year and I see no reason to change
I’ve been using startpage lately, but I find it meh… although to be honest I don’t know if that is so much their fault as it is how SEO has ruined the web
what I can say is that whenever I search a topic, the first half dozen results I click on are just AI generated bullshit all with the exact same web page layout. and that’s just the ones I click on, not the ones that I scroll past that I can tell are the exact same shit
I don’t know exactly why all the search results nowadays are websites that were clearly AI generated under the same template and have a whole novella about how it’s important to use the correct torque for your oil drain plug, but like dude I just want to know what the torque spec is for my car because it’s not in the manual
Ecosia feels like a greenwashed Bing, but I have stuck with it as my default for a few years now and it feels “good enough”
I have an instance of SearX for an alternative that I haven’t quite gotten the hang of, though
It feels really temperamental and apparently it just pulls from DDG anyway? Glad to be part of Lemmy so I can get some new suggestions for alternatives to Google
You can use MetaGer, Ecosia, Startpage, Mojeek, Qwant, specific page searches… or all of these. if you want a deeper research. After more than a quarter of century I’ve anyway half the internet in my bookmarks and only use the websearch in few occasions, or for security checks of unknown URLs.
I know, but the problem of Google isn’t the index, the biggest out there, the problem is the SEO crap and the handling of it by logging your searches and showing the results by it (filter bubble), Google show you what you want to see, not what really is fact.
Startpage, Whoogle and others use the Google index, but without all this crap, AI and filters.
Anyone have recommendations for search nowadays? Ddg is pretty meh lately.
SearXNG
There are public instances, or you can self-host it.
Its a “meta search engine”, meaning that it aggregates, and reorganizes results from the indexes of whichever search engines you want (after removing AI, Ads, and sponsored content from those results).
You could set it to index only Google if you wanted, and you’d basically have pre-enshitified google. I have about 20 indexes active in my personal instance, but they have ~100 indexes that you can use, allowing you to see results that wouldn’t turn up on Google or DDG.
It’s free, and it works better than Google ever has.
I had been searching for a specific rare game ROM for literally years, to no avail. I ran one SearXNG querry, and found the ROM from the 2nd link on page 1 (that’s right, pages, none of this infinite scroll rigmarole).
I would be interesting in learning to set this up. I’m not super familiar with self hosting tho. Do you have a guide you’d recommend?
Not off the top of my uead, but i could probably find one.
What OS do you use?
I have mint and Windows.
Ok cool, I set mine up on Mint and it was super easy
Are you familiar with Docker? (If not it’s cool, it’s very easy to learn)
I am familiar with docker
Awesome, then you already have all of the knowledge you’ll need to stand up your own private instance (and troubleshoot if needed)!
https://docs.searxng.org/admin/installation-searxng.html#installation-basic
Let me know how it goes
noai.duckduckgo works very well for me. I left ddg years ago because I thought it was crap, have used ecosia, and startpage since then, but ended up on noai.duckduckgo this year and I see no reason to change
This is also interesting https://marginalia-search.com/
I’ve been using startpage lately, but I find it meh… although to be honest I don’t know if that is so much their fault as it is how SEO has ruined the web
what I can say is that whenever I search a topic, the first half dozen results I click on are just AI generated bullshit all with the exact same web page layout. and that’s just the ones I click on, not the ones that I scroll past that I can tell are the exact same shit
I don’t know exactly why all the search results nowadays are websites that were clearly AI generated under the same template and have a whole novella about how it’s important to use the correct torque for your oil drain plug, but like dude I just want to know what the torque spec is for my car because it’s not in the manual
Self host 4get
It works great!
Ecosia feels like a greenwashed Bing, but I have stuck with it as my default for a few years now and it feels “good enough”
I have an instance of SearX for an alternative that I haven’t quite gotten the hang of, though
It feels really temperamental and apparently it just pulls from DDG anyway? Glad to be part of Lemmy so I can get some new suggestions for alternatives to Google
You can use MetaGer, Ecosia, Startpage, Mojeek, Qwant, specific page searches… or all of these. if you want a deeper research. After more than a quarter of century I’ve anyway half the internet in my bookmarks and only use the websearch in few occasions, or for security checks of unknown URLs.
not to discourage you, but half of those are powered by google indexing.
I know, but the problem of Google isn’t the index, the biggest out there, the problem is the SEO crap and the handling of it by logging your searches and showing the results by it (filter bubble), Google show you what you want to see, not what really is fact. Startpage, Whoogle and others use the Google index, but without all this crap, AI and filters.