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Have you tried Yandex and evaluated the quality of its results, or do you just feel obligated to continuously put it down because it's russian?

by mitxela 2mo ago

Lio 2mo ago
I turn it down straight away for being Russian and I'm suspicious of anyone that mentions it positively. Russia is in a cold war with democracies in general and a hot war with Ukraine. It has an autocratic dictator as leader and state control of media. It has a well documented propaganda campaign with the goal of destabilising other countries through agitation. We even know the address of the building in Saint Petersburg it's run from. Why would anyone try to assess Yandex's results? They could be like a slot machine serving good results 78% of the time and slipping propaganda in when least expected. Why bother with that when there are good, free alternatives?
- swiftcoder 2mo ago
  Couldn't we say the exact same thing about any US service in this day and age? Trade war with half the planet, hot war with Iran. Autocratic dictator as leader and complicit media. Well documented propaganda campaign and history of destabilising countries around the world. Known to compel tech companies to spy on foreign citizens...
  - Lio 2mo ago
    [flagged]
    - RobotToaster 2mo ago
      It's not whataboutism, it's calling out a "proving too much" fallacy https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/G5eMM3Wp3hbCuKKPE/proving-too-much https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/G5eMM3Wp3hbCuKKPE/proving-to...
- mitxela 2mo ago
  Maybe so they can bring actual data to the discussion instead of bias.
rauli_ 2mo ago
As long as there are non-russian alternatives out there I'm never going to even try.
purpleflashing 2mo ago
I have, and it has never been good for my purposes. In English, I just can't find things I need, in Russian, I find things I wish to never see again, tbh. What is your experience with it? Edit: The best search for my purposes historically has been on Pinterest. Unfortunately, not anymore. I normally search for visual artifacts (photos, art, schematics, etc), out of all search engines Google is still the only one that is somewhat functional for me in this regard. I tried DDG, Kagi, Yandex. None of them worked for me.
- charcircuit 2mo ago
  Have you tried its image search? It's pretty good compared to its competitors. Google's image search fell off as they severely nerfed it.
  - purpleflashing 2mo ago
    Google is terrible these days, I agree.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
egorfine 2mo ago
I did. https://meduza.io/image/attachments/images/007/699/276/large/0FkizTYqq7SGCdZBNIeoyg.jpg https://meduza.io/image/attachments/images/007/699/276/large...
- mitxela 2mo ago
  How about topics the Russian government doesn't care about? How about topics that USA censors? Of course you should not search Ukraine info on yandex. But you are only showing the worst case scenario. What's the average and best case?

Have you tried Yandex and evaluated the quality of its results, or do you just feel obligated to continuously put it down because it's russian?

by mitxela 2mo ago

Have you tried Yandex and evaluated the quality of its results, or do you just feel obligated to continuously put it down because it's russian?

Lio 2mo ago

I turn it down straight away for being Russian and I'm suspicious of anyone that mentions it positively. Russia is in a cold war with democracies in general and a hot war with Ukraine. It has an autocratic dictator as leader and state control of media. It has a well documented propaganda campaign with the goal of destabilising other countries through agitation. We even know the address of the building in Saint Petersburg it's run from. Why would anyone try to assess Yandex's results? They could be like a slot machine serving good results 78% of the time and slipping propaganda in when least expected. Why bother with that when there are good, free alternatives?

swiftcoder 2mo ago
Couldn't we say the exact same thing about any US service in this day and age? Trade war with half the planet, hot war with Iran. Autocratic dictator as leader and complicit media. Well documented propaganda campaign and history of destabilising countries around the world. Known to compel tech companies to spy on foreign citizens...
- Lio 2mo ago
  [flagged]
  - RobotToaster 2mo ago
    It's not whataboutism, it's calling out a "proving too much" fallacy https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/G5eMM3Wp3hbCuKKPE/proving-too-much https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/G5eMM3Wp3hbCuKKPE/proving-to...
mitxela 2mo ago
Maybe so they can bring actual data to the discussion instead of bias.

rauli_ 2mo ago

As long as there are non-russian alternatives out there I'm never going to even try.

purpleflashing 2mo ago

I have, and it has never been good for my purposes. In English, I just can't find things I need, in Russian, I find things I wish to never see again, tbh. What is your experience with it? Edit: The best search for my purposes historically has been on Pinterest. Unfortunately, not anymore. I normally search for visual artifacts (photos, art, schematics, etc), out of all search engines Google is still the only one that is somewhat functional for me in this regard. I tried DDG, Kagi, Yandex. None of them worked for me.

charcircuit 2mo ago
Have you tried its image search? It's pretty good compared to its competitors. Google's image search fell off as they severely nerfed it.
- purpleflashing 2mo ago
  Google is terrible these days, I agree.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

egorfine 2mo ago

I did. https://meduza.io/image/attachments/images/007/699/276/large/0FkizTYqq7SGCdZBNIeoyg.jpg https://meduza.io/image/attachments/images/007/699/276/large...

mitxela 2mo ago
How about topics the Russian government doesn't care about? How about topics that USA censors? Of course you should not search Ukraine info on yandex. But you are only showing the worst case scenario. What's the average and best case?