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theyoyomaster , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

How does Microsoft’s compare to M*crosoft’s?

bhamlin ,

Not sure, but I am a fan of Mpcrosoft’s search

binom , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

tbf it seems to be a common issue with search engines atm. brave also has the stupid ai response topmost, and startpage without adblock pushes in so many sponsored results that you need to scroll to get to anything else

fine_sandy_bottom ,

I feel like most commenters here would think “no one wants the stupid ai response”, but obviously some people like it or they wouldn’t do it. I think if your searches are more general kind of “can I catch chicken pox from chickens” type questions it might be helpful ?

chiliedogg ,

Except AI is famously unreliable with the accuracy of its answers.

actually ,

AI: to catch chicken pox from chickens rub live chicken on face

fine_sandy_bottom ,

That’s true, but I think people still appreciate it… like it’s accurate enough, enough of the time, for people to find it helpful.

chiliedogg ,

That’s why it’s dangerous. If it were wrong 99% of the time people wouldn’t trust it. But being right most of the time risks people depending on it and acting on bad information which can have severe consequences.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

My point is, it seems like moat people disagree with you given that search providers put this stuff in their results.

chiliedogg ,

Most states charge a regressive sales tax. By your logic, the fact that people don’t refuse to pay sales tax at the register proves that people enjoy it!

fine_sandy_bottom ,

Nonsense. Your metaphor is not analogous.

Sophisticated tech firms do extensive analysis with reference groups, A/B testing, et cetera.

Guaranteed, they’ve found that they get better engagement with their product through these AI results.

This might shock you but a group of 14 year olds complaining on Lemmy is not an indicative sample of opinions.

JackbyDev ,

group of 14 year olds complaining on Lemmy

I can’t roll my eyes harder, dude. Just drop it and move on. It’s okay to disagree with people and not try to fucking debate them about it.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

… and yet here we are ?

capital ,
heavy , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

Can someone ELI5 how searx works and if it’s worth the hassle of hosting? I’m privacy conscious but not paranoid.

renzev OP ,

Can someone ELI5 how searx works

It sends your search query to a bunch of different existing search engines, and shows you all of the results in one combined page

if it’s worth the hassle of hosting

Personally idk, maybe someone else can provide their opinion about this

barnaclebutt ,

It scraps other search engines either locally or remotely from someone else’s server. I used it for a while, then switched back to duckduckgo. Duckduckgo is what I recommend if you are lazy.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

I like kagi more than ddg. It’s not free but meh.

PraiseTheSoup ,

It’s not free but meh

That is definitely not a “but meh” statement. Who the fuck pays for a search engine? Especially these days when every other aspect of life already requires a subscription?

fine_sandy_bottom ,

Obviously I pay for a search engine. The advertising funded web is shit.

fishbone ,

Searx (as others have said) is an aggregate of multiple search engines all bundled into one, with very finetuned customization (ie: you can toggle every search option you want or not within each category).

You also don’t need to host your own, though I’m not sure what the significance of being self hosted in this case is.

As far as usefulness over other search sites, it’s generally better with some caveats. Search engines as a whole are in a pretty awful state, so combining them is better, but still not that good. It does offer some very niche search engines that can be extremely useful when pooled together though, which is nice.

Searx also has some captcha issues that I haven’t quite figured out. My understanding is that essentially, search engines don’t like when you use their engine without being on their site, and it’ll stop working via searx (until you go to the site in question and do the captcha maybe?).

There’s also a few different domains for searx with varying degrees of availability as far as what engines they reliably connect to.

All in all, searx is great by comparison to mainstream trash, but it can be a headache to setup, and a headache to maintain. There’s a masterlist of searx hosts somewhere, I’ll try and see about finding it if someone else doesn’t link it.

chM5tZ8zMp ,

There’s a masterlist of searx hosts somewhere, I’ll try and see about finding it if someone else doesn’t link it.

It’s here: searx.space

sirico , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable
@sirico@feddit.uk avatar

If only they could make a functioning store. Laterally the only os now where you still have to go to a third party website for software.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

Ugh. Do you really want that though? They do have a store don’t they? Just no one wants to use it.

Debian has had a browseable catalog since forever but it’s still waaay better to just go to a third party’s website and see how they say to install whatever thing.

renzev OP , (edited )

Yeah, but that’s just because Debian’s software catalog is deliberately full of outdated and/or broken packages. It’s like that on purpose. On most other distros native packages trump third-party install scripts any day of the week. On Debian you can just use Nix or Flatpak to get good packages.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

Hyperbole & subjective. Flatpaks aren’t all that.

bonegolem , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

Softonic has to have made a deal with the SEO devil.

Non idea how their disgusting malware is always on top.

Cris16228 , (edited )

.

bhamlin ,

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

SapphironZA , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

At least what you are looking for, is on the first page. With Google you get half a page of ads not relevant to your search, and two pages of SEO garbage, before you get to a relevant search.

devilish666 , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

Softonic be like every app you want we have it, even the non exist ones. But once you installed our apps you already have made a pact with the devil

possiblylinux127 ,

Does anyone know exactly what malware they are serving? I’m tempted to run it though virustotal.

dandu3 ,

It’s not malware it’s more adware. At least it used to be

Linkerbaan , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

How is Softonic still allowed to advertise it’s literally Malware

NikkiDimes ,

Google: 🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑💰💰💰💰💰

dependencyinjection ,

Just so I understand. I should not be downloading anything from there?

I clicked a link just yesterday, but something felt off so I backed out and went to the MSI page to download afterburner.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

No never. Softonic repackages existing programs with a malware bundle.

dependencyinjection , (edited )

Why is that even allowed and why are search engines not held accountable.

Like piracy bad, but this is cool I guess.

Ledivin , (edited )

It’s all free software, so nobody cares because they don’t stand to gain any money from fixing it.

repungnant_canary , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

SearXNG is also amazing. The only reason I don’t use it more is because it doesn’t have an integration into the URL bar in Firefox.

galanthus ,

Can’t you add it manually?

JackbyDev , (edited )

Yes, but you may need to mess with about:config. I just added Jira as a search engine so I can type ticket numbers.

SpeechToTextCloud ,
@SpeechToTextCloud@discuss.tchncs.de avatar
fine_sandy_bottom ,

Dude. When you’re looking at whatever search just right click in the url bar and there will be an option to add that search engine. Then in settings you can make it your default if you wish.

The reason I don’t use SearXNG is because the public instances always seem to be slow and or broken.

Mwa ,

we got woogle which is a frontend for google

101 ,
@101@feddit.org avatar

Whoogle is dead.

Mwa ,

oh

filcuk ,

It does, look it up in the addon marketplace- been working great for me

Smokeydope , (edited )
@Smokeydope@lemmy.world avatar

So, did it never occur to you that you can manually add custom search engine into Firefox?

Settings>search>manage alternate search engines>add search engine

pyre , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

still looks better than the average Google search

sunbunman , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

Isn’t this the same as Google?

tacosanonymous , in Black mold growing on the dispensers at my local McDonald's

What is it dispensing?

not_woody_shaw ,

Black mould.

youngalfred ,

McDonald’s USA has free soft drink refills.

webghost0101 , (edited )

“Free” tm

henfredemars ,

I’m always torn on this. God bless America, but it also feels irresponsible.

cobysev ,

I worked at an Arby’s back in high school (over 20 years ago). They told me free refills were a thing because most customers don’t refill more than once, if at all. Also, the soda water costs pennies and the bags of concentrated soda syrup were only like $10 (at the time). A single bag of syrup, mixed with soda water, could fill customer’s soda cups for maybe 2-3 days before it needed to be replaced. Fast food restaurants make insane profits on soda, so they don’t care if customers refilled multiple times during their visit.

thejml ,

Currently. Iirc, this is being removed company wide. I know the ones near me recently renovated and no long have customer accessible drink machines.

CanadaPlus ,

In Canada we don’t, but you still fill your own cup. Is that not typical?

youngalfred ,

Here in Australia they fill it and give it to you, no refills.

DannyBoy ,

Uhhh… we don’t? If so I’m probably going to jail.

CanadaPlus , (edited )

Lol, we can’t both be right, unless it’s regional. Someone here is in the lucky 10,000. If it’s me at least that means no crimes have been committed.

MonkderVierte , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

I don’t get malware and AI on firefox, but uBlock count’s continually up. I know this behavior only from trash dump sites.

iAmTheTot , in Black mold growing on the dispensers at my local McDonald's

I genuinely cannot process what I’m looking at here.

Ghoelian ,

I think we’re looking up at a drinks dispenser, one where you push your cup against the metal thing to start filling.

baggins ,

The black piece in front is the nozzle where your drink comes out of the metal bit at the back is the thing you push your cup onto to dispense the drink

Periodicchair ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7bb279d0-38db-43d1-b7aa-04c47fe6247f.jpeg

Red is the camera, blue is what you see in the picture

clay_pidgin ,

Excellent diagram.

the_crotch ,

Blue looks like a dude wearing shades

friend_of_satan ,

I stared at it for like 3 minutes and suddenly it flipped and all made sense, like a proper optical illusion.

The metal comes down and to the right, then bends back to the left. The shadow is the reflection off the metal. The metal is coming down and out of a hole. The white area is a completely flat surface.

ms_lane , in Black mold growing on the dispensers at my local McDonald's

20 year old dispenser there too. (date code says 08/05)

iknowitwheniseeit ,

Is that a problem? Is there a special reason these should be replaced?

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