In the last couple of months I have noticed an increasing trend of supplying me search results that are completely unrelated to the current query and tie back to my location or previous searches. I can say this with a high degree of certainty this is without a doubt beyond the 100th instance this has happened.
My browser is configured against tracking and fingerprinting (in fact all my devices are) which would make it fairly difficult to retain any data unless they are profiling me.
I’ve also noticed that if you do a search, click a result, then hit back to go back to the results they manipulate the results in some weird way so they’re not the exact same results you got the first time. Infuriating
This is the new quantum search feature: you changed the results by observing them.
Yes! I thought I was losing my mind. I was like “I swear this was the third result but now it’s the 5th? Eh, maybe it was the 5th.”
Odd. I wonder what is going on here because when I search that exact same query I get accurate results.
I’ve had iffy search results before but never anything that bad.
I also returned totally accurate results using the exact same query. I would really like to know what is going on here. This is a common complaint with some people using DDG, that the results are poor, but I consistently have as good if not better results than using Google.
great. i finally get off google and now duckduckgo is bad. i hate the internet.
Try this one: https://searxng.no-logs.com/
So like… all Searx instances are independent, but I can save my preferences in a reproducible query string? Or like… how’s this a long-term, easy, good move for me? (I know ≈nothing).
You can do it that way if you grab that URL from the “cookies” section. Otherwise, it can save your preferences in a cookie.
Kagi was my favorite but their pricing model is a little too high still. If it was $5 for 500 searches I would do that but the unlimited for $10 is just a bit too high for me.
I get that not everyone has extra cash to spend. I’m very fortunate to be able to throw $10 at a problem. I don’t begrudge you if you need to save cash (I have no kids to raise, for example). But I think $10 is fair if you search a bunch. Maybe I’m overvaluing it; I have heard great things about Kagi, but I’m still fucking around on Google cause it’s “good enough,” even though it’s in great decline. Fuck it, I’m a hypocrite.
It has been doing this shit for a while. Returning results based on just one key word out of many keywords from my query.
Lately they have been even ignoring the restrictive +“keyword” syntax and returning whatever shit just so they won’t admit their (or Microsoft’s indexer) is shit
It’s not the fact that there are filler results that bothers me, after all there might not be results for everything we may possibly search.
It’s the fact that these are links to services which have a tie to my unique identifiers which I deliberately declined access to in all available ways!
What would we suggest as a realistic alternative? Sears? Startpage? Brave? (I am no expert by the way, just looking for tips)
Searx sucks for images in my experience, startpage was bought by an advertising company, brave is weird for a multitude of reasons but I don’t know how good their search engine is as I’ve never tried it
However I do think that finding a searx instance that works for you and then using another engine like ddg for images is the way to go… You could add a shortcut like “.ddg garbage truck” for easily searching with for example ddg on firefox
Also a bit confused by this. I thought the point of searxng is to combine your preferred search engines. So couldn’t I just configure ddg for the image results?
I just switched to using Kagi recently and I like it a lot so far! Theres a free tier for 100/searches a month you can use to figure out if you like it.
Me too. I was so reluctant to pay for a search engine at first since there are good alternatives out there I don’t have to pay for. But I just at least wanted to try the first 100 free searches and was blown away by how great it is. It has some unique features like prioritizing or blocking specific domains, lenses and custom bangs. I payed the $10 the same day for Pro tier and 5 days later (yesterday) I even upgraded to Ultimate tier with ChatGPT-4 (called Kagi Assistant). I really, really enjoy Kagi so far. Most probably it’s gonna be my one and only search engine for the next years to come.
Are, are you telling me that I can block Fandom’s wiki results? Because I dream of such a future!
