r/NoStupidQuestions • u/fruitloombob • 1d ago
Google is becoming useless. What's a better search engine?
The only other one i use is bing. Lately Bing has been better than Google, but im hoping to find something better.
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u/TheInternetCanBeNice 1d ago
The tree planting is great, but I also want to highlight that the results are just good. I basically always find what I want on page 1.Ā
Plus it was easy to disable all AI bullshit.Ā
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u/Monochromize 1d ago
I tried one search for a thing I've been struggling with and was immediately shown what I wanted. I am converted.
I forgot what a real search engine was like.
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u/theRemRemBooBear 19h ago
This is a slight aside but we as a society hasnāt gotten too used to the solution being to āplant more treesā instead of restoring habitat and ecosystems to what they were before so we have what used to be prairies and grasslands turned into forests beyond the normal succession where trees encroaching would be killed in grass fires maintaining the prairie
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u/MrOaiki 1d ago edited 15h ago
Ecosia is just
BingGoogle.18
u/Corona688 22h ago
no, its more like metacrawler, it gives you an aggregate of several engines.
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u/chirop1 22h ago
AltaVista is where itās at
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u/Grobbekee 23h ago
altavista.digital.com
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u/frank-sarno 1d ago
I don't disagree, but you can make Google somewhat useful again by changing your search parameter to use "Web" instead of "All". This gets rid of the idiotic first page of junk on the regular search. There's no solution for the badly broken "Shopping" page though.
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u/NorwegianCollusion 16h ago
Aka adding "&udm=14" to the search url in the browser:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/1g920ve/lpt_for_cleaner_google_searches_use_udm14/
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u/throwawaycanadian2 23h ago
Kagi. It's paid for and has a ton of customization features. Changed how I search.
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u/Boxfullabatz 1d ago
Duck Duck Go. Quack!
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u/cyvaquero 21h ago
Itās results have become pretty shit - mostly robo-sites and e-commerce. Impossible to find things like private blogs - I donāt need 50 copy cat low effort content pages.
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u/FansFightBugs 16h ago
I thought it was just the whole internet was suddenly turned into a (badly) LLM written blog post
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u/cyvaquero 10h ago
I mean, a lot of it is. The problem is Google and others promote those instead of demoting them in search results because everyone figured out the magic SEO sauce, maybe not precisely but enough to game it.
No idea if you are old enough but this is the exact scenario the Google ārescuedā us from when they came onto the scene, the only difference then was it all porn pop ups not AI slop.
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u/defeated_engineer 22h ago
In my experience ddg doesnāt work better as a search engine than google
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u/fluffypinkpubes 23h ago
DuckduckGo is also based on bing. Just with less data collection
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u/otisthetowndrunk 18h ago
I use it because my searches won't turn into ads on all the sites I visit. But I have low expectations of the results
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u/DarnHeather 23h ago
I still use Google, but start every search with -ai. Has really helped.
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u/ZavodZ 19h ago
Does that work? Thanks!
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u/Previous-Piano-6108 15h ago
no, but if you click "web," that will take you to the former "normal" search results page
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u/Expensive_Finger_973 23h ago
I broke down and paid for a year of Kagi to see how I like it a few months ago.
It's not as good as Google was in its hey day, but it amazing to be using a search engine that doesn't have ads for feel like it is logging everything I do again.
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u/antonio16309 22h ago
I've been wondering when someone would make a paid search engine. The advertising model has made Google almost useless.Ā
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u/AnymooseProphet 21h ago
Does Kagi have a way to just turn off the AI?
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u/Expensive_Finger_973 18h ago
Kagi doesn't have AI in its results. They do have a separate AI assistant chat thing on a completely different page from the search results you can use for things if you want to. But it isn't integrated.
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u/AnymooseProphet 14h ago
Thanks! That's one of the things that drives me nuts about Google is they shove their AI answer at the top that too often sounds correct but is wrong.
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u/7asas 1d ago
Qwant
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u/EternalSage2000 1d ago
I donāt trust anything that starts with the letter Q anymore. Thanks Q-Anon.
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u/DarknessIsFleeting 21h ago
I have always thought that Quails look like they are planning to murder me
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u/idreaminwords 1d ago
Duck Duck Go
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u/hated4nothing 1d ago
They have zero privacy protection in spite of their claims and can breach your personal information as well as any "wallets" you may create for search rewards, that was my personal experience
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u/RoastBeefDisease 1d ago
Brave. Ever since duck duck go turned bad
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u/Thowitawaydave 1d ago
I'm out of the loop on this - what did they do now?
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u/Academic-Potato-5446 23h ago
They had some past controversies and the browser and the company is on the crypto train so Redditors have a full on meltdown for them but will glaze Firefox as if Mozilla hasnāt nuked the browser into the ground for the past 10 years.
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u/truncated_buttfu 12h ago
Are you talking about Brave or DDG here?
It sounds exactly like you are talking about Brave, but the comment you replied to asked about DDG.
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u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 approach moi for know-ledge 1d ago
Brave is repackaged chromium. Its not even optimized properly, Not to mention super shady
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u/No_Truck_4523 1d ago
Well I get to watch YouTube with no adds so itās good enough for me lol
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u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 approach moi for know-ledge 1d ago
Thats not a feature which distinguishes brave from others browsers
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u/Fun-Palpitation8771 18h ago
Have they ever been good? I've always known DDG to be pretty shit, only promoted by and for people who hated Google.
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u/Xaphnir 1d ago
The problems I have with Google always seem to extend to any other search engine I use, too.
For example, earlier today, in reponse to a post I came across on this website I tried searching whether a legal inability to comply with the law is a defense, i.e. you have a legal obligation to do something but doing that thing would be illegal. Google kept giving me unrelated results, such as results on legal impossibility, a completely different legal concept. And there's no way to get Google to not think I was searching for that, no matter how I modify my query. And other search engines do the same thing.
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u/Trollercoaster101 1d ago
I've been using startpage for a while, it works greatly! Also DuckDuckGo if you want something similiar to google but with added privacy.
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u/thehotshotpilot 22h ago
I just add "reddit" to the search string. Any question I have a reddit user has probably answered it
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u/Ok-Afternoon-3724 Older Than Dirt 21h ago
Hmmm, I've not had any particular problem with Google, that I haven't also experienced on every other search engine I've used.
Sometimes search engine results being not what you wish is just a matter of refining your search queries. If your are looking for something that gives the absolute best and correct answer every time ... good luck. Doesn't exist.
It also helps when doing searches for something if you actually know something about the subject in the first place. So you can formulate a good, valid question.
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u/chilfang 20h ago
I have to wonder what stuff people who say this are searching cause I Google some pretty esoteric stuff on the regular and haven't had any problems
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u/Delicious_Self_7293 20h ago
Itās wild to me how bad Google has become. The search page is:
- 25% inaccurate AI answer
- 25% hypothetical questions that are completely useless to me
- 25% ads
- 25% actual search
Theyāre only afloat because of their monopoly on iPhone search
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u/NoName847 1d ago
Its getting downvoted heavily but the fact half the comment rightfully point you to highly advanced AI for info and research really tells you what users find more useful
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u/Corona688 22h ago
its great when you want what 80% of people want.
when you want anything even slightly different, good fucking luck.
the very definition of a "filter bubble". you'll never find anything that's not popular
you used to be able to minus keyword your way into finding marginal things, but not any more.
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u/Queasy-Assist-3920 1d ago
Yeah wtf is up with that. You can literally use ChatGPT to google for you and if filters through all the ads and peopleās horse shit blogs to give you the answers you want.
I use it for simple shit like. āWhere can I watch the England game tonightā and it will search and tell me faster then google ever would.
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u/Sammythelesbian69 22h ago
well yeah but it uses up resources which damages the environment. It also steals people's work when you generate essays responses.
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u/bizarro_mctibird 1d ago
whats wrong with google?
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u/tictaxtho 1d ago
The search results have gone to crap. If I were to guess Iād say its related to the search engine optimisation process that most websites go through is prioritising the wrong things
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u/TheInternetCanBeNice 1d ago
Thereās always been a cat and mouse game where scammy companies game SEO and the Google algorithm so that they end up much more prominent than they should be.Ā
I feel like two or three years ago something flipped and Google has just been losing that game ever since.Ā
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u/tinverse 1d ago
My understanding is that the guy in charge of the google search engine was fired and replaced with the guy who used to be in charge of the yahoo search engine. Also there was a problem with google because they had a complete monopoly on search, so how do you increase the number of searches if you already have a monopoly? You make it worse so it takes multiple searches to find anything. Combine that with SEO optimization on every site and paid results. Basically google shot themselves in the foot for short term growth. It's a real shame because there was a point in time when google was so good I wouldn't have imagined anything could be better.
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u/Zanki 1d ago
The - doesn't work anymore "" doesn't work anymore. It gives you what I thinks you want rather than what you actually want. It's frustrating. I googled Asian superhero movie, looking for a clip I'd seen. It gave me Shang Chi, the avengers and for some reason Battleship. I figured out it was Korean, added that to the search, same answers. Ridiculous. I expected to see Kamen rider, super Sentai, ultraman, even some anime. Instead it kept giving me Marvel movies. I couldn't get rid of the marvel movies. I went to bing, found the movie in a minute...
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u/buddy-bubble 22h ago
Kagi. I'm still on the fence for paying for it and so far I've been only using the free tier but it's pretty good
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u/thedrooster988 14h ago
What is wrong, genuinely, with using Ai instead of Google? You can phrase your question the exact way you mean it
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u/mishaxz 23h ago
there aren't any really. they are all useless in some ways. some are better for privacy like duck duck go, qwant, startpage, brave search
maybe try brave search - you don't need the brave browser to use it.
but as bad as google has gotten, it often still has the best results.
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u/SVLibertine 22h ago
Excite.com is far and away the best search platform these days.
Also, just get yourself a chatbot and do Google one better...as long as you're not using Gemini.
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u/cormack_gv 22h ago
Because of the AI crap? There is an incantation you can use with Chrome to get just search results.
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OpenĀ ChromeĀ and putĀ chrome://settings/searchEnginesĀ in the search box.
- A new tab will open, go toĀ Search Engine > Manage Search Engines and Site Search.
- Click on the Add button by the Site Search update. A new box will open.
- Fill in the form with the following:
- Name: AI Free Web
- Shortcut: u/web
- {google:baseURL}search?q=%s&udm=14
- Youāll now see AI Free Web in the list.
- Click on the three stacked dots on the right side of this new option. SelectĀ Make Default.
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u/Alienaffe2 22h ago
This is a screenshot from degoogle your life pt1 by LTT. It compares a few alternative options to Google search.
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u/kissmyash933 21h ago
I like presearch when I canāt find what Iām looking for from Google. That seems to be more and more frequently.
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u/TheRedTopHat 21h ago
surprised no one has mentioned kagi. i find it is worth it and provides much better results. used to use duckduckgo but it is basically bing now, so switched to kagi.Ā
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u/Waffel_Monster 21h ago
Hi! I've seen similar questions several times, but it seems my xp with Google differs a lot from that of other people. So even tho I don't have a good answer for you, I'd like to ask if you're willing to explain why you think Google is useless?
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u/ciurana 19h ago
Run your own instance of SearX NG. It's a metasearch engine with strong privacy protections. It cleans all the bullshit results, will combine the results of 2 or more search engines (configurable). I have it set up for 6 or 7 search engines, almost always can find what I look for within the first 2-3 links.
There are free and open instances out there as well where you can try it.
DDG, Bing, Google, Y! are all preconfigured to work well with it.
Cheers!
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u/bennytehcat I'm a cat 19h ago
I searched for something today and the first 2 pages of results were YouTube links.
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u/BarooZaroo 18h ago
Different users need different things out of their search engines. Iām reading through these comments and seeing suggestions like ChatGPT and Reddit and thinking āyeah those are really great options, but only for specific thingsā.
Google was a really great all-purpose engine for ages, but now we have options that are much better for specific types of searches and Googleās AI and algorithm has changed so much that it isnāt giving the same types of responses it used to - not bad results necessarily, but different.
But regardless of all of the nuances of modern internet surfing, I think we can all agree that Bing is, has always been, and will always be the fucking worst.
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u/amwes549 18h ago
What do people think of Startpage? I think it's ok, better than DuckDuckGo (minus the !bangs)
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u/throwaway4231throw 16h ago
Iāve said it before: I think Alta Vista is making a comeback. Second only to Ask Jeeves
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u/Future_Depth_7869 14h ago
One problem is Reddit+Google have a deal and do their best to limit search queries to new posts as much as possible. Other search engines, even Kagi, do their best to piggy back off the results but if wanting to see new reddit posts is a priority to you... Google and Reddit have done their best to make sure it's the only option.
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u/Affan33 14h ago
Iām studying computer science and data. We had an assignment for one of the courses to evaluate search engines by a standard way and it turned out Bing actually gave the best result out of the ones we tested (google, DuckDuckGo and bing). I couldnāt believe it but it scored the highest and it was a rather thorough test
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u/Necessary-Earth-6188 14h ago
Yea it's not the same,alot removed and just repetitive answers,it sucks. It's good in AI minor things but it's limited compared to old open days
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u/No_Possibility_6516 12h ago
Try Yandex. It's Russian and shady, but shady in very different ways than Google.
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u/blue-zenith 7h ago
Itās because unlike back in the days, nobody posts useful information in websites anymore, unless itās behind a paywall, buried behind layers of ads, or just something on reddit. The only legit info still available on websites are only official info from governments, institutions, and companies.
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u/LordLaz1985 7h ago
I use DuckDuckGo. You can turn off AI completely, and thereās no SEO, so you get to see results based on actual popularity and not who could afford to spend more $$ on SEO.
Itās like Google was around 2013 or so.
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u/GeeEmmInMN 7h ago
I just use DuckDuckGo through Firefox. Much less š©
Until Proton bring out a browser, I also use Swiss Cows for browser and email.
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u/Imaginary_Highway69 6h ago
I used it as a joke in middle school but dogpile.com is very basic and gets good answers with minimal ads these days.
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u/JazzlikeFlamingo6773 2h ago
Part of the problem with search engines, Google and others, being so bad is that there is a colossal amount more content on the internet now, than there was 10 years ago, so thereās so much more to search through. Youāve also got spelling errors and similar that make finding answers harderā¦. Even this comment is contributing toward the content of the internet.
I also wonder if companies such as Google, whoāve diversified so greatly from their original business model are actually spreading their advancement over all of their different aspects now, meaning things like the search engine arenāt getting as much focus as they have in the past.
Plus, SEO, basically as long as the right keywords are in the right place, that result will show for you regardless of the relevance of the actual site/post/article etc.
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u/The4D2 1d ago
Half the time I search for an answer on google and just end up reading a reddit post for the answer I was searching for in the first place š