this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 69 points 11 months ago

Oh thank God. I've been having too much fun with generative technology and feeling way too safe. I need someone like Google to remind me that you have to pay for freedom. For a moment there, I almost had a happy thought! Terrifying...

[–] [email protected] 46 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Some of my friends just switched to DDG just because Google isn’t reliable anymore since the results became only ads

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (4 children)

DDG isn't all that great anymore either because they get their results from Bing - which has also gone to shit. Any alternative search providers that gets their results from Google or Bing (which is most of them) are all nearly worthless now, IMHO. The ones that operate their own engines and crawlers, such as Kagi, are the ones that give results like we used to get before enshittification.

But then again, with the death of web forums and everything being consolidated into a small handful of sites, site:reddit.com is required for almost every search query I do these days. If I want to read something written by an actual human being then I need to look up via Reddit or else results are just 98% AI-generated SEO garbage. Like I wish I was making that up but the majority of search results now are actual throwaway trash; pages upon pages of completely nonsensical generated rubbish.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (3 children)

what a surprise, yet another search engine related post where there's someone making promotion for Kagi in the comments.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If you want some good search results give me $5 and I can get you good search results. They are way better than Google. Just give me $5 I swear I'm good for it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

haha, its really a great service. I always feel semi-obligated to mention it because I, selfishly, don't want them to go away. The more people use it the less likely that will happen. I dont want to have to go back to google.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

DDG uses more than just Bing, and they filter out many results from Bing.

Bing is their primary source of results for the traditional search entries, but if they’re able to determine the category of your search, they directly leverage specialized search engines instead.

I’ve been using a combo of

myself lately, and they can all use DDG. Being able to get specialized searches sent to the appropriate engine automatically or being able to choose the engine(s) manually is really nice. But they don’t have their own web crawler.

I’m starting to look into Yacy - which is supported by Searx - as a means to add a p2p web crawler and index under my control to the mix.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

The only reason I use Bing is to play around with its chat AI.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

DuckDuckGo and Kagi are both hybrid search engines, they both have their own crawlers and combine their results with results from other sources.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Friends don't let friends use a web browser without uBlock origin

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ublock Origin does nothing to stop Google's sponsored results, or SEO optimised articles which are barely disguised ads :(

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

If you’re seeing sponsored results in Google and you’re running uBlock Origin in Firefox then there’s something wrong. You might have an adware extension installed or some other issue on your machine, you might have disabled the filters that block those results in uBlock or might have a conflicting extension, or you might just need to update your filter lists.

Of course that doesn’t help the actually quality of results. You can use Let's Block It! - Search Engine Results to build a filter that can be added to uBlock Origin. This lets you customize the list for your search engine(s) of choice, and it has checkboxes to automatically block a lot of sites that just mirror content.

However, uBlacklist might be a better option, and Awesome uBlacklist includes a link to a list dedicated to blocking content farm links (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wdmpa/content-farm-list/main/uBlacklist.txt is the list itself that you would add as a uBlacklist subscription).

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 11 months ago

Boycott Google

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'm over the era of ads dominating our lives. I know not everyone can do so, but I'm willing to pay a fair rate for a fair search and AI service. If we have to continue to live in this system then I think we should better enable competition in the tech space and stop some of these mafia business monopoly tactics.

Some companies are just disgustingly greedy. I pay for a new TV, for example, and that thing is trying to download ads and report my usage non-stop and I paid fairly to own the device. I'd support any political party that actually wants to protect consumers from the nonsense business pull.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (4 children)

If you'd be happy paying for ad-free search and AI experience, consider Kagi.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (7 children)

yet another Kagi shiller.

they are still pulling results from Bing. they are partially powered by their own engine, but it has a minor database of sites when compared to Bing.

And needing to have an account is just horrible for privacy.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Even more reason to continue not using their search.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago (11 children)

Does Google even give results that aren't AI generated? I can only get results I want if I use my native language or add site:reddit.com in the end.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago

Our planet has been through a lot this year, but we have not forgotten what is truly important... the great taste of Charleston Chew!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

---- "Don't waste time!! In that situation you should immediately call an emergency, but you could also enjoy a cold Coke and Hamburger from Five-Guys, for just $7,99!" ---

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

where is that price relevant??? 10+ for meals at crappier places by me.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thank you duckduckgo and Firefox

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

Of course they are, Google is an ad company.

The early adopters of LLM AI pay OpenAI $20/month with pleasure to use an adfree ChatGPT, but they represent a microscopic fraction of total internet users.

Google might be able to create a search product that looks like ChatGPT and partially answers the question with a relavent ad spot in return for that user NOT paying $20/month.

If Google has this would you use it and cancel your OpenAI subscription?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

To the surprise of no one but the disgust of everyone.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Well, now I have another reason never to use your service, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Kind of a surprise that they took this long to include ads

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Good the fuck on it.

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