I suspect that this is the direct result of AI generated content just overwhelming any real content.
I tried ddg, google, bing, quant, and none of them really help me find information I want these days.
Perplexity seems to work but I don’t like the idea of AI giving me “facts” since they are mostly based on other AI posts
ETA: someone suggested SearXNG and after using it a bit it seems to be much better compared to ddg and the rest.
I tried that for a couple of weeks recently and while not dealing with all the bullshit google adds was refreshing, the actual results were often pretty bad.
My bad, I should’ve replied to your comment first!
Have you tried customizing your search settings in SearXNG? I’ve found that tweaking the instance’s default search settings improves the search experience quite a bit
I might look into that later. Thanks.