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.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.devEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    I use mostly either ddg or brave search. I miss the google of pre 2010, when the majority of its results were good.

    I also use Yandex whenever I’m looking for pirate stuff, the only engine that doesn’t block those kinds of results.

  • Silejonu@kbin.social
    0·
    2 years ago

    DuckDuckGo, but mostly because of the !bangs. I do 90% of my searches through StartPage (!s), and the rest directly on a few websites (Wikipedia, YouTube, Arch wiki…).

    • 🇺🇦 Max UL@lemmy.pro
      0·
      2 years ago

      +1 for Kagi, seems a great value to me, well worth the price to not have any ads, no tracking (leap of faith here) and great search results.

    • Nankeru@kbin.social
      0·
      2 years ago

      Kagi, hands down, is by far the best search engine I’ve ever used (next to Neeva, which got bought and shut down) without looking for Reddit results all the time.

      Just simple searches like “Best gaming headphones” or “Realtek Driver Download” and comparing them with Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave, Startpage, etc. shows how the quality of the results are far superior.

      And you can directly define, which sites you’d like to see higher / more results of or less - or even completely block or pin them to the top.

      Also, it also shows you directly, before visiting a site, in colors if a site has a very high number of ads and/or trackers.

      And they support for power users custom CSS to adjust everything, URL rewrites (e.g. change all Reddit URLs to old.reddit or to automatically open libreddit or archive.org versions), DDG and custom bangs, and much more.

      Lastly, I created a so-called “Lens”, which allows me to search Lemmy / Kbin content only (also still have one for Reddit).
      Meaning with one click, it shows me results from only sites or keywords I’ve defined - see image.

      Very satisfied with it, can only recommend.

      (copied from another thread I replied to)

      • aksdb@feddit.de
        0·
        2 years ago

        What plan are you on? Did you adjust your usage behavior to not waste search queries?

        • Nankeru@kbin.social
          0·
          2 years ago

          Didn’t adjust my usage at all. I used the plan with 1000 searches, but since I work as an IT administrator and literally make searches everyday throughout the day multiple times, I changed to the ultimate plan.

          For normal (home / mobile) usage, 1000 searches are more than enough for 2 people.

    • SpacemanSpiff@kbin.social
      0·
      2 years ago

      I use Kagi too, it’s surprisingly snappy! Like seriously impressive for a small org. They talk about speed optimisation being critical for them as well. I find the result to be excellent as well. A true Google replacement/feels like Google in its prime.

      I believe they have their own index and bot as well?

  • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Self-hosted Searxng. It’s shared to multiple people which kills a lot of the usefulness in Google or others trying to track my instance.

    • copylefty@lemmy.fosshost.comEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I tried this, but it kept saying ‘Engine failed’ or something on every other search. I never could figure out why. I might try again

      Edit: Actually it was Searx I used. I’ll spin up Searxng and see if it’s improved

      • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        I had some issues with searx… Things are a bit better in my experience with searxng. Sometimes I still run into the error messages. But usually it’s my fault more than anything (server bogged down, too many requests/searches across all my users, or internet blips)… I just rerun the search a few seconds later and it’s usually good again.

  • Link.wav [he/him]@beehaw.org
    0·
    2 years ago

    I’m still looking for a search engine that doesn’t use data from my IP address to provide targeted results. In the meantime, I’ve gone back and forth between using SearXNG instances and using Startpage, but there’s really not a decent search engine in existence, from what I can tell.

  • LoafyLemon@kbin.social
    0·
    2 years ago

    DuckDuckGo. Its results are much better than Google’s in my experience. Whenever I Google something, all I get is a list of online stores I’ve never heard of, and they have nothing to do with my search input.

    • sab@kbin.social
      0·
      2 years ago

      For me the main thing that makes me stick to DDG is the bangs - adding for example !wiki in the beginning of a search term to search directly in Wikipedia. It is a game changer, especially as I often need to search in specific sources for work. For example, !scholar for direct access to Google Scholar is great.

      Whenever I think Google will provide better results it’s as easy as !g - but I am also experiencing that the results are increasingly unhelpful (often geared towards shopping rather than information).

  • Kir@feddit.it
    0·
    2 years ago

    I don’t understand why lots of you answer with chatGPT. It’s not a search engine! And you shouldn’t use it like a search engine.

    • 雨 月@feddit.de
      0·
      2 years ago

      Maybe people mainly search for answers to simple daily life questions or something.

      • Kir@feddit.it
        0·
        2 years ago

        I guess, but it’s still not a search engine and I think it’s a bit problematic if that’s the usecase.

    • NeonWoofGenesis@kek.henlo.fi
      0·
      2 years ago

      I can see a usecase for where you don’t know where to start or search with, and then verify with actual searches.

      I recently used it to explain for a friend what is the difference between wheat and ale beer, and it gave a very good summary. With DDG I might not get a direct explanation and would need to read a few articles and then word them in a comprehensive way.

    • tenet@kbin.social
      0·
      2 years ago

      Except it IS a search engine and that’s basically all it’s good for. By its very nature all it can do is collate information. It’s the only thing AI is good at.

      • Kir@feddit.it
        0·
        2 years ago

        No it’s not. To search is a specific task, and generative AI can’t do that. It can fulfill some need that we are used to fulfill by searching the web, but this doesn’t mean it’s a search engine.

        If you lost the key of your car and have access to an AI that can (sometimes) start your can without a key, you can be happy about it, but you still can’t say the AI searched the key for you. It can’t do it.

        Edit: btw, we are talking about generative AI here. I’m not saying there isn’t and could not be a search engine that use AI to better its result.

          • Kir@feddit.it
            0·
            2 years ago

            Why do you have to answer like that?

            You are linking a search engine based on generative AI, which is a different things than using chatgpt per sè and, as I was saying to another user, I did not know existed.

            If you don’t like my answer you can simply not comment on that. I don’t care if you agree with me or not, be polite

            • newde@beehaw.org
              0·
              2 years ago

              Don’t worry, you are in the right: a LLM is not a search engine. You might integrate it into a search engine, but that doesn’t make it a search engine.

              I mean it’s so glaringly obvious it is not a search engine: every time you ask ChatGPT for information it will give you a disclaimer it’s database is from 2021 and prior…