this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
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Privacy

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Reavers wouldn't touch DuckDuckGo, it's half dead. Which SearXNG instance do you use? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Two horizontally stitched screenshots comparing a search for “Reavers GIF” on DuckDuckGo and Google in Safari iOS (private tabs). DDG presented zero Firefly/Serenity relevant results while Google found them exclusively.

Hopefully a privacy-focused yet fast instance for US West Coast cheapskates who probably should pony up for Kagi, buttttttttttt

SearXNG Instances list on SearX.space

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I think this could use some elaboration on what you mean by half dead.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

OP wanted gifs with reavers from firefly, but got a bunch of "reverse" gifs instead, so to OP DDG is half dead and worth nothing.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not the first time I’ve seen DDG whiff an easy query

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I mean, it's not unreasonable for the search engine to assume OP just didn't know how to spell "reverse" or mistyped it...statistically that's probably way more likely.

Annoying, yes...but being specific in search queries is always a good idea, most people just tend to be super vague in their search queries.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Elaboration: shit aint work

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Works for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Did you find the reavers gif?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I found multiple gifs, including ones from Firefly and Soul Reaver as the top results. Further down the page, there's "reverse" gifs, too.

Anyway, this is just lazy searching. Adding the word "Firefly" brings up all the relevant Firefly results you could want.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh so you want me to spend an extra fraction of a second to avoid an absolute privacy nightmare that could follow me around for the rest of my life?! (including potential price discrimination stealing e.g. a better retirement from me)

😉 thanks for testing!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I dunno why yours was weird. Maybe Apple is doing something odd behind the scenes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You’re right :) Dumb little joke about the show I shoehorned in.

For context, DuckDuckGo is my default search engine. I do at least a dozen searches every day. Approximately 90% of the time, I use a bang (!g) to punch out to Google and receive results I perceive to be of higher quality 99% of the time. I am absolutely elated when I hit the back button because DDG had a better result in the top 3.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ddg is my main search, it is complete garbage, but I'm someone who used altavista for almost a decade.

You don't rely on the engine and just get good at crafting your queries (firefly reaver gif).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Getting good at queries, I'm down for that, thanks 🙂

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

what do you mean? I got tons of reavers, and not just Firefly but also Serenity and Warhammer

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It decided not to do a hidden autocorrect to reverse this time:

(Same everything (new private tab), just zoomed out.)

Hmm!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's learning!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I just did it on DDG, Firefox Mobile, moderate safe search level.

I got tons of Soul Reaver gifs, so it's just you. Google probably got relevant results, because it likely has a sprawling profile of your interests. No idea why your DDG is so fucked up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And it’s different now! Reminded of how DDG rearranges search results when opening a result link, then hitting back, but much more extreme.

sprawling profile

Using a fresh [cookie-isolated] private tab for every search and going through iCloud Private Relay… I still have no doubt they still manage it. Sigh. Those “am I unique?” browser fingerprinting tests still show I’m unique, perhaps due to having an extension or two installed on Safari? Creepy.

OK, I feel better now. On searxng.site, I disabled all engines except for Google and I’m getting results similar to in my OP.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I think Google uses certain fingerprints, like location data, IPs you tend to connect from, etc. In my experience, they're good at figuring out who and where you are.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Pretty sure DDG just uses bing results. Try in bing OP see what you get.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Oh Bing

Search is hard

Good call though, I’ve done comparisons and it’s very Bingy though not 1:1 - search operators behave differently IIRC (quotation marks)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And what's SearX? Isn't it also bing?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

48 engines available on a SearXNG instance I just checked:

Amazing project!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

why is it that when I search for images, it's heavily anime?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Does putting "Reavers" in quotes help?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Good question, something I wondered about after I posted.

Nope - OK, you know what helps?

Searching via the DDG site and then tapping images. Apparently I typed “reavers gif !ddgi” to save the tap and it does a hidden spelling correction to “reverse”?!

One mystery solved!

Edit: annotation in a dark font due to iOS 18 Markup bug, sorry it’s hard to see there in the upper right

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Try safe search off instead of the default moderate.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

https://baresearch.org/

https://searx.garudalinux.org/

https://search.garudalinux.org/

is

be

instances will get rate limited so you will have to hop around

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Great recommendations, and you got a Whoogle in there as well!

Looking into some of those instance maintainers.

Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

None, I self host Whoogle.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Nice. Are you the only one on your instance? I seem to recall reading there's a privacy consideration there. Like, maybe the ideal is knowing the maintainer and having some number of people all using it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, just me. Not available externally without VPN access.