In the last couple of months I have noticed an increasing trend of supplying me search results that are completely unrelated to the current query and tie back to my location or previous searches. I can say this with a high degree of certainty this is without a doubt beyond the 100th instance this has happened.

My browser is configured against tracking and fingerprinting (in fact all my devices are) which would make it fairly difficult to retain any data unless they are profiling me.

  • Gazumi
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    1410 months ago

    What would we suggest as a realistic alternative? Sears? Startpage? Brave? (I am no expert by the way, just looking for tips)

    • @coughrelief@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Searx sucks for images in my experience, startpage was bought by an advertising company, brave is weird for a multitude of reasons but I don’t know how good their search engine is as I’ve never tried it

      However I do think that finding a searx instance that works for you and then using another engine like ddg for images is the way to go… You could add a shortcut like “.ddg garbage truck” for easily searching with for example ddg on firefox

    • @currycourier@lemmy.world
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      1710 months ago

      I just switched to using Kagi recently and I like it a lot so far! Theres a free tier for 100/searches a month you can use to figure out if you like it.

    • Timber
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      310 months ago

      I’ve been using metager for some while and really like it. They’re also part of an initiative pushing for a free as in freedom search index, so that’s nice