Data on search engine market share is available, but I wonder what that looks like for Lemmy users in particular, who I would assume lean more technical than the average user, so probably use DuckDuckGo and alternates more than Google.
I use a mix of DuckDuckGo and Kagi. I’ll also use ChatGPT, which can be good if you’re careful to verify the answers it gives you as a check against hallucinations. It’s useful for short, direct answers without ads or SEO bullshit.
This article on Ars (and if you’re not a subscriber, you absolutely should be, as they are the best tech journalists out there) inspired the question: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/google-admits-reddit-protests-make-it-harder-to-find-helpful-search-results
Fucking Reddit. Enshittification ruins everything.
Mostly duck duck go.
Same here. I know a lot of folks don’t like the results, but to be honest, I don’t find Google any better these days.
I’ve been using DuckDuckGo as my main search engine for the past couple of years. I occasionally fall back to Google.
I was in this camp but find that the results I’ve gotten from DDG have been notably worse for the last year or so, to the point that I don’t expect useful results to come out of it any more at this point. Even if I searched “site name” because I couldn’t remember the URL was spelled “site-name.com” I’ve had no results coming from DDG, while Google had it as the first hit.
Have you experienced something similar? Are there techniques or workarounds I’m not aware of?
Sadly, yes, and instances like this have me falling back to Google. I’d happily try something else, but I’m a bit at a loss right now. What would you suggest as another search engine to try?
I’ve been using DuckDuckGo since, at least 2010, maybe earlier. If its results aren’t up to snuff, I’m not aware of that because they’re what I’m used to. I fall through to Google ( !g) if I think there might be more out there. The bang commands are so good. I use DDG as my main search in my search bar and then I can use the bang commands to get to whatever specialized search I want from there. It’s a meta-search-engine.
I use mostly either ddg or brave search. I miss the google of pre 2010, when the majority of its results were good.
I also use Yandex whenever I’m looking for pirate stuff, the only engine that doesn’t block those kinds of results.
I’m still looking for a search engine that doesn’t use data from my IP address to provide targeted results. In the meantime, I’ve gone back and forth between using SearXNG instances and using Startpage, but there’s really not a decent search engine in existence, from what I can tell.
Duck Duck Go is the only search engine I use. Switched away from Google for privacy reasons and haven’t missed it a bit.
deleted by creator
Thanks for making me aware of Kagi, I’ve been trialing it and getting decent results is a breath of fresh air in a world of blogspam and LLM garbage.
I use DuckDuckGo. Including using their browser on iOS and windows.
I use my selfhosted Whoogle instance for search
DDG for everyday usage. Sometimes I try searching the same things on google just to compare results. I’ve tried searxng instances on and off in the past but its rarely been reliable for me and self hosting isn’t really an option for me.
DuckDuckGo. Google if DDG isn’t cutting it.
deleted by creator
As often as I hear others with the opposite opinion, my experience is very similar to yours. If I want to find the answer to a question fast, I just use Google. If I’m just browsing a new topic, I try DDG first and much of the time end up using Google anyway.
Duck Duck Go too
Using DDG. However, I am finding fewer and fewer results for my searches, that I want to click on. I dont think this is due to DDG sucking, I think this is due to the web itself just being full of useless bloat… sites that just scrape information from other sites that scrape information from other sites. Looking for actual reviews of items? Good luck.
