Discussion Actually functional free search engine?

[weebossan]

I think some people already know it but google search result these days are just so shit. It could take hours to find a specific relevant information you want. There're even reports that google downright ignore quotation marks "". There are apparently some good, but paid, search engine like Kagi. But are there free alternatives?

Nowadays I rely more and more on Yandex. The rationale is, since Russia is economically being embargoed, they don't have the incentive to serve too much ads or fudged up the result too much. And so far, it seems that's somewhat the case. But are there other alternatives?

Other ideas would be using free vpn with Russia-Belarus endpoint then use google or other mainstream search engine, but haven't found such free vpn yet. So maybe anyone have tested this method? Would be nice if anyone know free vpn with Russia-Belarus endpoint.

 

[sen0]

Yandex is the best one I found. The others censor so hard just like Google.

 

[YakuInTheFlesh]

I've been using Startpage, they were honestly reallu good, but have been on a decline in the last few months when it comes to quality results (they also started to block VPNs & my proxy at work).

Something like SearXNG might be your best choice since it's self hosted and works as an aggregator instead of a standalone search engine.

 

[Rama]

I've been using DuckDuckGo and it does give different results compared to Google so.

 

[YakuInTheFlesh]

I've been using DuckDuckGo and it does give different results compared to Google so.

Thats probably because DDG is using Bing. Also at the start of the whole Ukrain thing they boasted about surpressing search results that where sites hoested in Russia. DDG might be almost more pozzed than Google.

 

[Narmy]

I wonder what changed with how search engine databases are made that makes them so much worse than in the early internet days. Also I hate it when they say "did you mean [something you didn't mean]?" and give you those results anyway.

 

[YakuInTheFlesh]

wonder what changed with how search engine databases care made that makes them so much worse than in the early internet days

One one hand you can say that corpos, politics, etc have a hand in it, but on the other more tech side it's about volume and quality.
Not even that long ago when I searched for a code question I would mostly get StackOverflow and some specific forums. These days I mostly get content farm websites that copy half the answer from Stack and fill the entire site with SEO.
This has become insane and is purely done for money (since they are filled with ads).
Early Internet used to be used by "skilled" and genuine users. The modern Internet is used by toddlers and people who want to make money.
Money isn't bad, but once it's the main driving force it ruins all.

did you mean [something you didn't mean]?

> Seqrching for "whats going on in the world"
> Did you mean "what's going on in the world"?
Once again. Modern users are Toddlers and this is just the extension of that.

 

[Narmy]

Yeah like most problems it can probably be traced back to the introduction of smartphones exploding the internet population.

 

[Rama]

Yeah like most problems it can probably be traced back to the introduction of smartphones exploding the internet population.

And social media as well. Old people in my country started using FB and other SM a couple years ago. It spreaded like wildfire among them. Smartphones are now a must have, not something for fancy pants youngsters anymore. If not for that they all would still be using Nokias/Flip phones.

 

[grapedApe]

Old people in my country started using FB and other SM a couple years ago. It spreaded like wildfire among them. Smartphones are now a must have, not something for fancy pants youngsters anymore.

My 70+ yr old father is on facebook every day. He's used FB far more in 1 month than I used it and myspace in 2 years. Not going to give him shit since he's finding his old work friends and shit but it angers me when he suddenly comes to me about privacy concerns and I internally scream "mofo you're on fucking facebook!"

 

[Narmy]

My 70+ yr old father is on facebook every day. He's used FB far more in 1 month than I used it and myspace in 2 years. Not going to give him shit since he's finding his old work friends and shit but it angers me when he suddenly comes to me about privacy concerns and I internally scream "mofo you're on fucking facebook!"

Yeah my mom and her friends have been using facebook since around its inception. I view it as more of a boomer site than a youngster site.

 

[weebossan]

Okay here it is for anyone watching. I think we should move to something like perplexity.ai. Because traditional search engine just simply way too prone to SEO bs or ad-listing bs. For example I'm trying to understand how much tax rate was in history for reference for my wish-fulfillment isekai story. I found relevant information in only 1-2 queries (it's not exactly about historical tax rate and more modern, but it serves my purpose).

The only problem is hallucination problem of AI. But I think there are various AI that emphasize on accuracy of data instead of creativity out there. Perplexity is one such example (it has the more information accurate academic mode, or the more creative writing mode, and other modes).

 

[YakuInTheFlesh]

Okay here it is for anyone watching. I think we should move to something like perplexity.ai. Because traditional search engine just simply way too prone to SEO bs or ad-listing bs. For example I'm trying to understand how much tax rate was in history for reference for my wish-fulfillment isekai story. I found relevant information in only 1-2 queries (it's not exactly about historical tax rate and more modern, but it serves my purpose).

The only problem is hallucination problem of AI. But I think there are various AI that emphasize on accuracy of data instead of creativity out there. Perplexity is one such example (it has the more information accurate academic mode, or the more creative writing mode, and other modes).

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I tried this out, but just like any "AI" it is highyl error prone. As an example I looked something up for PHP, where it funny enough referenced a correct solution, but it mentioned how an extension is on by default since 5.4, however in faild to parse one sentence ahead. If it did it would've realized that since 8.2 the extension is off again.

All this AI (ML tbh) stuff is nice and impressive, but when I search something I'm not necessarily looking for an answer as much as general information. And those AI often fail to descern what is correct and what isn't.