I suspect that this is the direct result of AI generated content just overwhelming any real content.

I tried ddg, google, bing, quant, and none of them really help me find information I want these days.

Perplexity seems to work but I don’t like the idea of AI giving me “facts” since they are mostly based on other AI posts

ETA: someone suggested SearXNG and after using it a bit it seems to be much better compared to ddg and the rest.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.ukEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Infinitely worse. I barely use search engines for issues these days and no longer recommend that people “Google” things.

      • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.ukEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        Besides be sad and hit my head against a wall? Depending on the query, I’ll sometimes use ChatGPT or find an associated Discord, subreddit or somewhere and hope for the best.

        I’m disappointed a lot.

        • EatATaco@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          I bang my head against search engines. Normally I can find something decent after multiple searches, but it never used to be this way.

    • Fizz@lemmy.nzEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Yeah DDG is great. The only thing I find is its not good at local results but a quick !g on the end gets me the local results im looking for.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        oh, good tip. I didn’t know about that.

        you tack !g to the end of whatever the resulting search URL is?

        • reev@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          Can be anywhere in the search.

          “cute dogs !g” “!g cute dogs” “cute !g dogs”

          Those all work the same, though clearly one is more cursed than the others. They have those for a bunch of other sites as well, for example if you want to search YouTube specifically/directly you can use !yt but I can’t kick the habit of just going to those sites first and then searching directly on there.

        • zante@lemmy.wtfEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          If you’re using ddg without !bangs - you’re only having half the fun.

        • Lvxferre@mander.xyzEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          Redirects your search to Google. You can put it anywhere in the search; for example !g how to shoot web, how to shoot web !g and how to !g shoot web will all land you into Google.

          There are other 13k (yup) bangs like this. Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Yahoo, Quora, most gaming wikis, etc. A few sites (like Google and Bing) have multiple bangs, that land you directly into a specific page (e.g. !bv searches Bing videos). More info here.

      • MTK@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        That’s how I felt until about a month ago, now ddg is really useless

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        is it? that kind of makes sense, because I still use Bing occasionally while Google is completely out of rotation, although I don’t find Bing as good as duckduckgo.

        edit: it is not! looks like the DuckDuckGo search engine is an aggregate of hundreds of search engines, including their own duck duck bot, excluding Google but including Bing results.

        • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          Their FAQ hems and haws about that, but (in the past) I’ve done side-by-side tests and found identical results. Maybe something’s changed, maybe it hasn’t.

          • Varyk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            0·
            2 months ago

            it must have done by now, then, I get different results from identical prompts in DuckDuckGo and Bing although both are usually relevant.

            “DuckDuckGo’s results are a compilation of “over 400” sources according to itself, including Bing, Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wolfram Alpha, Yandex, and its own web crawler (the DuckDuckBot); but none from Google.”

            are you having trouble finding something specifically or you just don’t like the quality of the search results you’re finding in general?

            definitely if you’re still on Google, stop using it.

            It’s completely useless at this point.

    • pHr34kY@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I prefer DDG, but I hate the news search. 90% of the results are paywalled.

      Oh, and sometimes the image search will return a pile of porn for a seemingly clean search request. I once searched for “R34 Skyline” expecting Nissans, and got VERY different results without safe search.

      • ProstheticBrain@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        R34 is also short for rule 34 - “if it exists, there’s porn of it on the internet”

        So if you search R34 and anything, you’ll get porn.

        • zante@lemmy.wtfEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          Agree. It’s an important part of media literacy these days.

          For political news, I’m only interested in what was actually said, not what is reported to be said .

        • pHr34kY@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          It’s just that Bing/DDG seem to promote news from these sites as if they’re sponsored links… but without the disclosure.

          • Varyk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            0·
            2 months ago

            bummer.

            I see all the labeled sponsored links on Bing, but I generally get high quality results outside of those.

      • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        Every search engine I’ve encountered is weird about porn. At first it decides whether or not you’re looking for porn or not looking for porn. If it assumes you are then all the actual porn hits are promoted to the top, where non-porn hits are down-ranked. Vice versa, if it decides you’re not looking for porn.

        Once of the fun search engine games is to find out what sets of ambiguous words trigger the porn flag. Pure tended to be one due to a brand name, even when I was looking for pure minerals at the time. Siri created some conflicts, since there’s both a well known LLM digital assistant, rule 34 for the same and a popular porn star.

        I’d really like a search engine that let porn sites fall in the hit list without deciding first whether I was trying to look for porn, since I sometimes do metasearching.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      DDG often gives me results for individual words of the search but not results for all of the words in that order for which to have contextually relevant results.

      I often find myself forced to brave the shitshow that is google search.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        have you tried the duck assist thing yet?

        If you’re trying to talk to the search engine more like a chat assistant, that sort of response might be what you’re looking for.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          Fuck Duck Assist all my homies hate Duck Assist and I keep having to turn it back off again.

          Whoever made it should get cancer and not have their children show up or call them back.

          • Varyk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            0·
            1 month ago

            haha, whaaat why?

            I just saw it for the first time today, it seems to mostly quote incredible sources rather than amalgamating responses.

            you got some issues huh, poor fella?

            • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              1 month ago

              I’m sorry I hurt your feelings and made you want to defend an LLM that approves copy pasted wikipedia snippets, but maybe you should go eat some ass?

              • Varyk@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                0·
                1 month ago

                “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings”

                I feel only pity for you.

                reading your comments is like watching a crippled rodent roll around in its waste.

                “an LLM that approves copy pasted wikipedia snippets”

                duckduckgo’s llm tool offers relevant information from credible sources.

                that is good.

                Good luck unbunching those panties.

      • pyre@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        that’s weird. the search results should still prioritize your search as is over variations, but not limit it. do you try searching in quotations to force the specific search exactly?

  • Hannes@feddit.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’m very happy with kagi at the moment. Just crossed one year using it as my main search engine last week and don’t see why I would go back.

    • MTK@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Having to signup and login to a search engines sounds like an annoying hassle

      • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        You pay instead of seeing ads, so they need the account. Remembers you, though, so you just login once. Plus they have a solution for incognito/private windows too.

        I really like it, has some cool features.

      • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@lemmy.todayEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Signing up and logging in isn’t a problem imo. I wouldn’t even mind if I had to pay for searches, but I’m not going to make it a subscription service. Unless they add an option to do something like buy 1000 searches that never expire, its not something I’d considered. I do think they beat out competitors like google with their results pretty consistently though based on the trial.

        • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          I’m not gonna subscription my heated car seats but search is a service that costs an ongoing amount to provide. The subscription isn’t significant, it’s $5 a month for 300 searches (or $10 for unlimited).

          I know we’ve been conditioned to expect search for free, but if we want to get away from the “the user is the product” model then I think it’s a good thing to have a subscription to a service that has ongoing costs to provide.

      • aMockTie@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        It’s a very minor annoyance and well worth it in my opinion.

        I was searching for a book quote for over a year. I tried every search engine, tried changing the terms, checking back several times every few weeks or so, but couldn’t find anything even close. I tried kagi and it was literally the very first result on my very first search.

        I haven’t looked back and have never had an issue finding what I’m searching for since.

      • Hannes@feddit.orgEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        You can create a search-link that includes your token so you can also use it in incognito or if you are logged out for some reason.

    • illi@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I don’t remember any specifics, but I think I heard there were some privacy concerns?

      Then again, there seem to be privacy concerns about pretty much anything so might not be that bad…

      • gpopides@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        The concerns are about the credit card you use to pay.

        The argument is that they can associate the card with your searches.

        As far as I know they don’t keep search data. I’m personally happy with them

        • illi@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          I think this might be it. There were also some statements by the CEO I think which didn’t exactly inspire confidencenin their company - but again, I don’t remember the details unfortunately

        • Zeoic@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          If i remember right, it wasn’t just using brave, but including a referral id in brave searches. It wasn’t intended, and they fixed it, so all good with me.

        • illi@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          It was not even the emails. I tried to duckgo it and only found this controversy (which was new to me). What I saw was a specific qute, possibly on topic of privacy or something adjecent which just made me go “nope!”

    • tk1ll3r@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Same. Using Kagi feels like surfing the old web. The first thing I did was block all Pinterest results. That alone made every search golden. 😂

      • ownsauce@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        I hate Pinterest lol, best thing about Kagi is being able to block whole sites and it remembers your preferences. I may come back to Kagi but I didn’t feel like funding their AI features development. Now Im using Searx and 4get cause they’re free.

      • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        You’re not the only one. They have a leaderboard and the top 7 results are various Pinterest domains.

    • kill_dash_nine@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      Is it really $108/year good though for a single person (based on the tier that makes sense for me)? Just curious what other search engines you’ve used or tried and what features set it apart to make it worth spending the money on.

      • Hannes@feddit.orgEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        It’s the first one I’ve paid for. And it is that much better than the free ones I used before imho.

      • aMockTie@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        That really depends on your use case and how valuable web search is for your daily life.

        I’ve personally tried Google, Bing, DDG, Brave search, and ChatGPT. Kagi is consistently able to find what I’m searching for more quickly and accurately than anything else, which has been very valuable for me in my personal and professional life.

        It’s easily worth the cost in result quality and time saving for me personally, but that doesn’t mean the same will apply to you or anyone else.

        As far as stand out features, there aren’t really any that I can think of. It just gives me the results I’m looking for without any bullshit to wade through.

  • stealth_cookies@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’ve been trying to use ddg and I just find it infuriating that it never finds what I need, especially if I’m looking for local information about something. Google seems to always prioritize those types of results when I need them (probably because it makes it easier to sell me something).

  • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    The whole internet is in the process of being filled with garbage content. Search engines are bad but also there’s not much good content left to find (in % of the total)

    • Hasherm0n@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      Lately I google for someone that should give me a direct, exact result. First five links are fucking paid ads.

  • vxx@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    You only tested Google and Bing.

    Qwant and DDG both use the Bing architecture.

    I agree though, search engines have become noticeably worse the last 2 years.

    • moseschrute@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      I’m pretty sure they discovered in the google monopoly case that google realized a couple years ago that a worse search experience would not negatively impact their bottom line. So makes sense

  • zante@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Not just you.

    DDG has deteriorated to absolute nonsense, I’ve used it for years and years.

    Recently gave startpage another go - maybe marginally better but still really poor

    • Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I switched to DDG right after Google added the ai answers to search and in baffled by how fast DDG seemed to go down hill. Just a few months ago it was still giving me on point results on the first try, now it almost feels like I’m using one of those malware search bars from back in the day.

    • toddestan@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      DDG has also really gone downhill for me. It’s still noticeably better than Google, but DDG nows does a lot of the same shit that originally made me give up on Google years ago. I’m assuming a big part of this is because DDG heavily sources their results from Bing, and while Bing does manage to be better than Google, it’s not much better.

      I really need to put some effort into trying out a few more search engines and seeing if they are any better. Last time I looked, many of them were also pulling results from Bing so they all had similar issues.

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    There’s an extension that filters out websites from every engine. So like when you see Quora or other other digital garbage in your result, block it once and you’ll never see another Quora article again.

    Idr the name of the extension - I’ll check when I get home and follow up.

      • wanderingmagus@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        It’s probably uBlacklist, available on both Chromium-based and Firefox-based browsers. Filters websites and results for search.

      • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        Sorry, that was a LONG fuckin day. On call, and we had a couple addon surgeries go late.

        Anyway, this one:

        https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hohser/

        I need to be more diligent about actually using it, if your search gives garbage in even like the first 5 hits, add those to your filter and it’ll start to add up fast. This extension has only been on my radar for a few months, and it’s already made a big difference - I’m in nursing school right now, and trying to look up info on the shit our profs are lecturing on invariably yields like 10 websites that are just cheaty test question databases that don’t actually help you learn jack shit; and there’s so much of that garbage that it makes finding actual info a challenge. Screening that bullshit out alone has been great!

        10/10

  • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I don’t honestly even remember the last time I’ve googled something. Nowdays I’ll just ask chatGPT

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      The problem with getting answers from AI is that if they don’t know something, they’ll just make it up.

      • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        LLMs have their flaws but for my use it’s usually good enough. It’s rarely mission critical information that I’m looking for. It satisfies my thirst for an answer and even if it’s wrong I’m probably going to forget it in a few hours anyway. If it’s something important I’ll start with chatGPT and then fact check it by looking up the information myself.

        • zarkanian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          2 months ago

          So, let me get this straight…you “thirst for an answer”, but you don’t care whether or not the answer is correct?

          • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            2 months ago

            Of course I care whether the answer is correct. My point was that even when it’s not, it doesn’t really matter much because if it were critical, I wouldn’t be asking ChatGPT in the first place. More often than not, the answer it gives me is correct. The occasional hallucination is a price I’m willing to pay for the huge convenience of having something like ChatGPT to quickly bounce ideas off of and ask about stuff.

            • zarkanian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              0·
              2 months ago

              I agree that AI can be helpful for bouncing ideas off of. It’s been a great aid in learning, too. However, when I’m using it to help me learn programming, for example, I can run the code and see whether or not it works.

              I’m automatically skeptical of anything they tell me, because I know they could just be making something up. I always have to verify.

      • OlinOfTheHillPeople@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

        • VanceGPT
  • JoeKrogan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I use brave search. I can generally find most things. They even have an answer with ai thing that gives some useful stuff when you want a specific quick answer.

    I also use ddg.