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I would love to switch search engines, but no matter what when I switch my browser to bing or duckduckgo, I always find myself back at google. Especially recen

I would love to switch search engines, but no matter what when I switch my browser to bing or duckduckgo, I always find myself back at google. Especially recently as with their anti-privacy policies, I would really prefer to use a different service, but they really are the best.

dustingetz 3y ago
kagi.com
pdlozano 3y ago
The nice thing about DDG is that you can always use !g to go to Google. But even after using them for years, I still find myself using !g 30-40% of the time.
- desi_ninja 3y ago
  Typing !g is added inconvenience on mobile
- daft_pink 3y ago
  Wow thanks, that is useful!
lolinder 3y ago
I can second Kagi. Paid search is the only model that isn't going to end up awful in the end, and Kagi is far better than Google already. Recently discussed on HN is the feature to block and boost domains, which is the feature I find makes the biggest difference in their results: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37006082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37006082
- Spivak 3y ago
  I don't think free/paid is the thing that will stop the decline because the downfall is adversarial input. If Kagi got huge people would start trying to SEO against them and they would end up like Google. Because I really don't think Google is bad because of the ads, it's bad because people desperately want their shitty site to be the first organic result rather than pay for the ad spot. Having a huge behemoth that competitors like Kagi can fly under the radar with might be the only way for any search engine to maintain quality.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    It's mostly an academic exercise since paid search will always be small, but I think both ads and SEO are at fault here. Google profits from ad impressions and ad clicks. That is what they're incentivized to maximize, which means that for Google the ideal mix of search results is a few high quality ads on top of a lot of pages that are loaded with Google advertising. Far from having an adversarial relationship with SEO content farms, Google is symbiotic with them: the more time people spend on the content farms, the more ad impressions Google gets to sell. If the content farm doesn't actually answer the user's query and they return to Google for another round of first party ads, all the better. They only need to provide relevant enough searches to keep people from trying a different search engine, which as we've seen isn't difficult.
  - freediver 3y ago
    What would be an adverserial tactic against Kagi and its business model? What would be the motive?
    - CSMastermind 3y ago
      Presumably the same as it is for Google? SEO spam doesn't exist because Google sells ads. SEO spam exists because there's money in getting people to visit your site and Google is the largest search engine. SEO spam is also something Google themselves are already generally incentivized to eliminate. It's not like their ad model does better if users lose faith in their results.
      - lolinder 3y ago
        Google generally sells the ads on the SEO spam sites, so it actually does profit when it serves those results.
      - alex7734 3y ago
        > It's not like their ad model does better if users lose faith in their results. Yes but not really: if the results are so bad that they're useless, yes, the users leave, but Google profits maximally when the results are only barely good enough that you don't leave but still filled with a ton of ad-bloated crap.
- vGPU 3y ago
  I tried Kagi. It’s missing a lot of stuff still. I find yandex is the best for looking for stuff that Google hides like ebook downloads
  - daft_pink 3y ago
    Thanks what a great idea! Using Yandex for to see the things that are hidden by goooooogle!
    - vGPU 3y ago
      I’m not a fan of it either because yandex always thinks I’m a bot and makes me do a captcha every 2-3 pages. But it’s significantly better than Google or bing at finding stuff. I find that if I can’t find it through there, it most likely just doesn’t exist.
- daft_pink 3y ago
  I will try it! Thanks for the recommendation!
pcurve 3y ago
me too. Google search result is low quality, but the overall quality of searchable text content has declined. I do most of my information search on Reddit or Youtube. However. Lately, I'm enjoying the integration of the generative AI at the top of the search result.

dustingetz 3y ago

kagi.com

pdlozano 3y ago

The nice thing about DDG is that you can always use !g to go to Google. But even after using them for years, I still find myself using !g 30-40% of the time.

desi_ninja 3y ago
Typing !g is added inconvenience on mobile
daft_pink 3y ago
Wow thanks, that is useful!

lolinder 3y ago

I can second Kagi. Paid search is the only model that isn't going to end up awful in the end, and Kagi is far better than Google already. Recently discussed on HN is the feature to block and boost domains, which is the feature I find makes the biggest difference in their results: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37006082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37006082

Spivak 3y ago
I don't think free/paid is the thing that will stop the decline because the downfall is adversarial input. If Kagi got huge people would start trying to SEO against them and they would end up like Google. Because I really don't think Google is bad because of the ads, it's bad because people desperately want their shitty site to be the first organic result rather than pay for the ad spot. Having a huge behemoth that competitors like Kagi can fly under the radar with might be the only way for any search engine to maintain quality.
- lolinder 3y ago
  It's mostly an academic exercise since paid search will always be small, but I think both ads and SEO are at fault here. Google profits from ad impressions and ad clicks. That is what they're incentivized to maximize, which means that for Google the ideal mix of search results is a few high quality ads on top of a lot of pages that are loaded with Google advertising. Far from having an adversarial relationship with SEO content farms, Google is symbiotic with them: the more time people spend on the content farms, the more ad impressions Google gets to sell. If the content farm doesn't actually answer the user's query and they return to Google for another round of first party ads, all the better. They only need to provide relevant enough searches to keep people from trying a different search engine, which as we've seen isn't difficult.
- freediver 3y ago
  What would be an adverserial tactic against Kagi and its business model? What would be the motive?
  - CSMastermind 3y ago
    Presumably the same as it is for Google? SEO spam doesn't exist because Google sells ads. SEO spam exists because there's money in getting people to visit your site and Google is the largest search engine. SEO spam is also something Google themselves are already generally incentivized to eliminate. It's not like their ad model does better if users lose faith in their results.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      Google generally sells the ads on the SEO spam sites, so it actually does profit when it serves those results.
    - alex7734 3y ago
      > It's not like their ad model does better if users lose faith in their results. Yes but not really: if the results are so bad that they're useless, yes, the users leave, but Google profits maximally when the results are only barely good enough that you don't leave but still filled with a ton of ad-bloated crap.
vGPU 3y ago
I tried Kagi. It’s missing a lot of stuff still. I find yandex is the best for looking for stuff that Google hides like ebook downloads
- daft_pink 3y ago
  Thanks what a great idea! Using Yandex for to see the things that are hidden by goooooogle!
  - vGPU 3y ago
    I’m not a fan of it either because yandex always thinks I’m a bot and makes me do a captcha every 2-3 pages. But it’s significantly better than Google or bing at finding stuff. I find that if I can’t find it through there, it most likely just doesn’t exist.
daft_pink 3y ago
I will try it! Thanks for the recommendation!

pcurve 3y ago

me too. Google search result is low quality, but the overall quality of searchable text content has declined. I do most of my information search on Reddit or Youtube. However. Lately, I'm enjoying the integration of the generative AI at the top of the search result.