I’m kind of tired of Google sending me to the same 3 sites whenever I search for something. If not the same 3 sites it’s 7 others that are so generic and boring I just feel they’re useless. It’s always makeuseof, androidauthority, or whatever other sites that have useful information but I rarely feel like they are saying anything new.
I want to see the results from those small blogs that are sometimes linked here. I can’t come up with one since… you know that’s why I’m asking how to find them, but you know them; they talk about nerdy stuff and are not afraid to get technical in whatever topic they discuss.
Also duckduckgo and qwant do the same thing. If there is a way to curate the results to better fit my needs then that’d be great too!
There was a time before google’s search engine, where all the previous attempts have not managed to become the dominant entry point for the web. During that time, we would find interesting web pages through people and/or specific interests. Then, google came, and for a time it was good (read like The Second Renaissance Part I story from animatrix). Ads and SEO were not everywhere yet, content mattered more than those two. So, while I came here to suggest @[email protected] commented, when I read you post text I thought that maybe, at least for what we tend to constantly look for news, articles and discussions, we shouldn’t constantly rely on search engines. For example, most technologies have news letters, weekly/monthly magazines, mailing lists, community boards or other forms of group communication through which you can gradually discover better content sources (individuals or groups) on what interests you. Without the the search engine service and its cost (direct or indirect).
During that time, we would find interesting web pages through people and/or specific interests.
I beg to differ, during that time I found most of my interesting content through AltaVista and its weird cousin HastaLaVista, and aggregators like Portal of Evil (though, bad example, I seem to recall PoE was pretty much the same time as google).
Well, I guess not everyone had the same experience. Maybe I should have spoken only for myself. It’s not that I didn’t use search engines before google appeared or that I don’t do it now. Just the fact, at least in my experience, that I would get to know way more and way better web locations, related to what interested me, through discussions with other people with similar interests, than I would through search engines. Even when discussions are not possible (like in magazines) or are too massive to follow, it is often, especially in technology-related subjects, preferable to have them archived (through subscriptions) and search directly those archives when I need something specific. It was true for me back when engines didn’t have as good indexes, it is true for me now that their role as businesses is becoming obvious. I guess it also depends on what someone considers interesting.
I did love how altavista translation service was called though, really liked the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy :-)
:) yeah it was cool.
Sorry if I sounded disagreeable, I didn’t mean to be. I was just taking a trip down memory lane.
I have to admit if it comes to anything in my field I mostly find good content through discussion groups too.
But for me, in terms of personal interests and some other stuff, the 90s internet was full of static lists of links, even webrings etc. It was great because most people I knew irl who were my age weren’t online. I could only add people from other countries on Friendster because my flatmates refused to use it and my friends didn’t know what it was!
Sorry if I sounded disagreeable, I didn’t mean to be. I was just taking a trip down memory lane.
No worries. Felt exactly like that. That’s why my mind went to how I felt when altavista’s babelfish appeared, I did the same thing for a few minutes before responding :-)
Babelfish was so impressive in its day. Felt like living in the future.
Hey have you ever been to https://www.neocities.org? It’s reminiscent of geocities and kind of cool.
Hey have you ever been to https://www.neocities.org? It’s reminiscent of geocities and kind of cool.
No, haven’t even realised that Sheldon Brown’s site was hosted there. I used to have a website up on geocities when I was a kid, browsing neocities brings back so many happy memories… Thanks!
I did Startpage, then self-hosted searx for a while, then switched back to Startpage, and recently subscribed to Kagi, which I very much enjoy. I do not mind paying a provider for search built with the user in mind rather than their advertisers.
I’m running searxng on docker locally, and set that as my search engine on Firefox. It’s been awesome! I will probably start a blog and post instructions… Adding the custom search engine into about:config was kinda difficult. Other web browsers should be easier… (e.g. Vivaldi)
Does Google constantly shit the bed on a local instance like it does on public instances? I tried using searXNG and it kept happening regardless of the instance I used.
That’s precisely what made me install it locally. So far, I had no issues. I guess the rate-limiting comes from the fact of being public. And you can aggregate results from many providers, add filters, etc. I only had one issue with duck, but solved it after updating the container.
I need to add one to my inside server. I’ll have to find a guide.
Are you able to access it remotely?
You can add search engines to Firefox in the address and search bar.
Go to the site you want to add, click the address bar for the drop down to show, then there will be an icon for that site with a green plus to add it.
If you use the search box it’s even easier. If you’re on the site the icon on the left will have the green plus symbol for it.
Yup. That smart recognition didn’t play for me on 127.0.0.1:8080
There’s a Firefox addon called “Add custom search engine” which will allow you to add a local instance of searx.
You’ll want to give it the full search query, with %s where the search string goes. for you, it’ll be something like:
http://127.0.0.1:8080/search?q=%s
I’ve been using qwant for a while now and I think it’s nice
If you’re a programmer, might I suggest the brave new world of ChatGPT enhanced search via Phind.com
Even if you’re not, it’s fantastic. It basically takes your input and processes it like ChatGPT but then is trained to run web searches to grab further information and uses that to progress its own internal monologue. The result is a natural language response with search engine like results down the side which are cited within the main response.
Is it better than Bing-GPT search?
It feels like for the most part, Bing just parses your query for keywords and performs a search with them. Then it parses the first page and spits out the result. On the surface it looks like a regular web search I would do myself.
Phind has its own approach with various automated prompts and UI functions. It’s free to use so you can compare the differences in function.
One of the problems I have with search engines when looking for tech solutions is that the results are incredibly out of date. I don’t bother any more and just go straight to the product’s own support forum. Where possible I add the forum’s own search entry to Firefox’s search box. At least I no longer get answers to a problem no one has had since 2018.
I like Andisearch.com
Marginalia Search perhabs.
Also these are worth mentioning:
- Mojeek have their own index. The results are occasionally a bit of a mess, but they are very open to input and have an account on Mastodon.
- Infotiger have their own index and the results are good.
- Alexandria which use the Common Crawl index.
Infotiger’s not working, did we kill it? XD
I’d give https://wiby.me a try, its a nice break from all the same 5 sites listed for every search. It priorities small more classic webpages over SEO ones
I find it works best when used in something like searxng along with other engines though to mix them in, since it tends to quite heavily avoid listing those sites, they’re useful sometimes but not when they dominate the results.
It only gives minimal and “classic” sites, you can also add it on searxng
I’ve been using Presearch for a while and often forget I’m not on a common one. But when I really need something more obscure or hard to find due to most engines’ algorhytms, I sometimes go for Yandex, which doesn’t filter out most stuff Google, Bing,… do, but it leaves you filtering through a bunch of Russian stuff… 😅
My search-engine test for this is quite simple, though. Look for something specific nobody wants to see (like known scam sites like bitcoin doublers), there’s plenty of those still around, but they usually are part of the great search-engine filters, so if I look for those specifically and find them first entry on a search engine, that usually means the engine results are not tweaked and I’ll have more chance finding what I need rather than what it thinks I should find/need…
I host my own and am happier with it vs Google. Results aren’t amazing, but they’re at least more well-rounded and I’m not letting google continue to build a profile on me.
Kagi is working for me as well. Took my Google history, calculated I’d need the top tier with my number of searches and grinded my teeth, thinking “okay, I’ll see for a month”. Yeah, it works just so well, so 25€ it is.
I did their one time trial and then moved to the lowest paid tier for a month. Other than not getting ads it didn’t feel much more effective than some selective search-fu with duckduckgo. Any hints or tips on making it more effective? I can see the value proposition, but couldn’t justify it with the actual results I was getting.
The map https://www.searchenginemap.com/
You’ll see a bunch of them are metasearch engines, and not crawlers
Mojeek, Kagi and variations of SearXNG are good bets. Kagi will allow curation. Mojeek lets you make “Focus” filters. Worth trying out.
been using kagi for some weeks and so far I am satisfied. It has a subscription cost after 300 searches though. But I guess getting rid of advertisements and tracking has a price
I save way more than I pay for Kagi because it doesn’t give me sponsored results and other garbage trying to make me waste money.
It’s been worth it for my spouse and me. Happy to pay for a product rather than being the product.
Yes, I tried that and have now got to the susbscribe or move on phase.
Went back to DDG and results really are not in the same league as Kagi so I may just cough up.
Yeah, I’ve read around their documentation and they have a pretty compelling reason why one should prefer search engines where you directly pay to the search provider instead of relying on third parties such as advertisers to pay for your search usage.
In the end, a subscription service ensures your incentives align, even if you need to pay for it.
Usually. Other times you end up with Netflix.
That actually looks really amazing! I really want more services to actually compel users to pay to support them, and make it a good decision to do so. I think this is the best suggestion so far. Thanks mate!
Google for work + kagi for personal use has been pretty cheap for me.
The search results are good but the limited searches make me anxious for running out. If it grows enough to the point where they can sustain themselves by offering the unlimited tier for $3-5 I might switch but not with the current pricing.
That’s an operating loss… I don’t see that ever happening. It depends on your financial situation, but 1.5 cents per search after your monthly allocation isn’t that bad to me.
My problem with Kagi is that they’re still running at a loss and they think AI will be their savior.
And their AI currently gives extremely wrong information but the devs think that’s fine because the point of their AI is to be fast not accurate.
I liked it as a search engine but at this point I can’t see it surviving. If they raised the prices to where they lost a lot of customers and still can’t get to positive numbers they aren’t going to fix it by having AI give you wrong answers.
Do you have any sources for this info. Didn’t get the vibe that they are leaning on AI that heavily. Never seen anything about it actually
There’s no such good search engine. I do all my using bangs (duckduckgo terminolgy) or whatever its called on brave and others but maily brave.The reason I use brave is that because they dont pull results from google and bing.
I use www.startpage.com It’s Google without the trackers. Probably not really what you’re looking for but is does the job really well.
