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Using Google whilst Duck Duck Go is down. How long has Google been this bad?

So ddg is down, so I visit Google. It’s been some years.

I just can’t believe how poor it’s results are, and how it’s trying to suggest things it think I might also want (and failing miserably).

I just assumed ddg would be the lesser, but I use it for privacy. Turns out I’m wrong.

How long has Google been this bad?

BaldManGoomba ,

Use brave search so much better than google

Player2 ,

I think Brave is one of the few somewhat common browser/search companies that is worse than Google

BaldManGoomba ,

Prefer Firefox browser. But what is bad about their search it seems to be the most accurate to what I want. I always found ddg to give me stuff outside of exactly what I want. Google just started going out of right field. Then the summary ai thing recently added to brave search has been decent. I like the sources

unreasonabro ,

Google has been this bad since their initial IPO, when they signalled their intent to do this, and should have been stopped to protect the most useful public utility ever invented. Since that day they’ve been a pimp; the decision to become a pimp led to this.

occhionaut ,

“Do no evil”

veniasilente ,

“Don O’Evil”

Alsjemenou ,

Google is great if you want to buy things. It’s absolutely shit for information gathering.

xmunk ,

I’d argue the noise is to a point where it’s even shit for buying things.

multifariace ,

It used to be great for information if you included reddit in the search terms. Instead of google learning from reddit, reddit is now full of ads and bots. I guess google apps will be complete garbage soon too.

SmoothIsFast ,

I remember a time when you didn’t even have to include Reddit to get good Google search results.

multifariace ,

I remember a time when yahoo search was by categories.

gmalette ,

Id argue it’s also shit for buying things because it will only give you products with paid ads. It’s useless to discover adjacent products or finding different sources.

smackjack ,

I don’t think Google can be beat when it comes to searching local businesses, but otherwise you might as well go straight to Wikipedia.

gmalette ,

Yeah I’ll concede that, Google is still good for local business and maps.

Microw ,

And in web search when searching for a product it gives you dozens of “product tests” pages that are actually paid SEO articles. No, that page that shares a name with a newspaper has not actually tested what the best dishwasher in 2024 is.

1984 ,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

I don’t know, been on Kagi for a year so forgot Google.

xilliah ,

Looks nice, do you recommend it? Why not use ddg?

Mkengine ,

Not OP, but I copy my reply from the last time someone asked an opinion on kagi:

I use it, but to be honest I did not do a comprehensive comparison. I like it mostly for the fine grained website control. For work and some personal stuff I often look for code and can push websites like GitHub to appear more often. Or I can block Pinterest in my search results. I tried to do this in SearXNG, but this was too much of a hassle so in a way I pay kagi for convenience. I recently got a new job and will evaluate in the coming months if it is still worth the money, but right now I am satisfied. Nobody else I know would pay for a search engine, so I can understand the stance, but I am really fed up with all the advertising and enshitification so I thought why not give it a try. And yes, because it was recommended here.

Dave ,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I use it, and like it. They dropped prices a while back so now you can get unlimited searches for $10 a month (they also have a $5 limited tier and a free trial).

First thing is I’d like to live in a world where search engines (and the internet in general) don’t have to be ad supported. This is a different model so I want to support it.

But also Kagi has some nice features. My favourite is how I can block Pinterest, and boost the ranking of other sites like Wikipedia. Basically you can have some control over search results.

If you’re familiar with SearxNG, that’s basically how Kagi works. They run the searches on a bunch of search engines and then present one cohesive search results page. But SearxNG for me takes several seconds to get the results, and Kagi is almost instant.

I don’t know if it’s significantly better than the free options, but I like using it and it’s pretty cheap really.

1984 ,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

Kagi is just excellent so I guess that’s why. It’s so good I completely forgot about Google when I tried it.

I used ddg a few years back too but I always had to use Google for certain queries and never felt fully satisfied with the search results. It felt like a worse search engine that I was using because I didnt want to use Google.

With Kagi it’s the opposite. It’s a better search engine than Google. It’s Google results without the dark patterns and hostile behavior from google.

florge ,

How do you use it on mobile? I’ve seen there’s no mobile app

1984 ,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

Just set Kagi as default search in your browser. There is a plugin you can install that does it, easiest way.

help.kagi.com/kagi/…/setting-default.html

jaspersgroove ,

It’s been bad for a few years at least but it has gotten even worse recently, I assume due to incorporating AI/LLM’s into the mix.

smackjack ,

It doesn’t help that the AI answer it gives takes up like half the screen and takes 30 seconds to load. LLMs are great for asking complex questions, but that’s not what I want to use a search engine for.

Manalith ,

I went to StartPage personally.

dessalines ,

That’s just a proxy for google. Same terrible results.

Owl ,
@Owl@hexbear.net avatar

Google search peaked in 2014 - that’s when it’d let you do “that movie where [horribly vague summary of an incidental scene]” and get you the answer.

But the complete dropoff started in 2019, when they started letting the ad team remove anti-spam features to game their numbers.

degen ,

I still find myself trying to search like that every once in a while :(

Bongles ,

Personal experience, I can also attest to noticing the issue about 2019-2020.

SSJ2Marx ,
@SSJ2Marx@hexbear.net avatar

Funny fact: google’s newest feature is also its best, but it’s kinda hidden and might not be available everywhere - it’s “web search”, which cuts out all the awful bullshit

Aquila ,

Explain!

vodka ,

tedium.co/2024/…/google-web-search-make-default/

This was all I had on hand, goes into setting it as default but does also decently show why it is good

Fleppensteijn ,
@Fleppensteijn@feddit.nl avatar

I noticed it getting worse over the years. I switched to SearXNG last year when I felt Google was getting really ridiculous.

They started censoring a lot at some point, maybe because they had to, but that’s not the only reason.

AlecSadler ,

Are you self hosting?

Fleppensteijn ,
@Fleppensteijn@feddit.nl avatar

Yes. That way you can create a blocklist, which is what makes it so good for me.

Sir_Kevin ,
@Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I didn’t realize it had a block list. That’s an amazing feature that should be pointed out more! I’m going to have to give this a try now.

CapnAssHolo ,

I’ve been hopping searxng instances for a year now and always noticed a couple seconds delay everytime I do a search. Does self hosting help with the delay?

Fleppensteijn ,
@Fleppensteijn@feddit.nl avatar

I’ve tried some instances and I don’t see a delay. My hosted version is a bit slower than public ones but that depends on your system, I guess.

roux ,
@roux@hexbear.net avatar

DDG being down was the push for me to finally try SearXNG. Used it all day while working on code and it’s been pleasant. The search results are actually meaningful and it’s fast.

radiofreeval ,
@radiofreeval@hexbear.net avatar

I can’t get it to save my preferences. That’s the only hurdle to me not using it.

roux ,
@roux@hexbear.net avatar

I’m not having this issue. I’m using one of the Firefox extensions but don’t get to choose an instance. I just went with the second most popular extensions because I liked the UI better.

selokichtli ,

I think it’s been years now. At least a couple of years, I was baffled too back in the day.

huf ,

it’s been slowly getting worse since the 2010s. i remember talking about it back then.

selokichtli ,

I stopped using Google when they dropped their “don’t be evil” principle. Not just because of that, but because their prior decisions were going against the principle. Sure it was ~10 years ago. A couple of years ago I tried Google search hoping it was still decent, but Jesus Lord, it sucked.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

dropped their “don’t be evil” principle.

It’s still there. See the final paragraph: abc.xyz/investor/google-code-of-conduct/

selokichtli , (edited )

It’s still not the same. The current writing resembles an afterthought. In the past the moto was the first thing you would read in the Code of Conduct.

And there is also the complete lack of sense between the moto and their decisions.

wargreymon2023 ,

since it becomes a monopoly

Hugh_Jeggs ,

It’s only been about a year really, but the Enshittification was logarithmic and got twice as bad every day

shish_mish ,
@shish_mish@lemmy.world avatar

I use Swiss Cow and it works fine swisscows.com

Phen ,

I don’t see much AI stuff on Google yet but most searches there now give me only video results for some reason, with no way to opt out of them and get text results. It DDG fails me I just give up now.

haui_lemmy ,

I‘m using searx.be most of the time. Safari wont allow it so I got confronted with ddg being down today. Still only use google if something is unfindable (mostly niche computer stuff).

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