This is unrealistic because it has the thing you want in the current results
I used to really hate how Google is now, so I switched to DDG. But now since DDG can’t find shit I’m looking for and completely disregards what I enter into the search box, I all of a sudden find Google magical again. It’s like “wow, some of these results are actually relevant!”
I’ve found Kagi to be pretty good. Yes, it’s a subscription service but if you can afford a few bucks a month it’s probably worth it.
The reason why it’s a subscription service is that that way they don’t have to rely on ad views for income, meaning they don’t have an incentive to show you bullshit results just to squeeze money out of you
A free (donation supported maybe I should say) Google proxy like SearXNG (.site instance here may meet some folks’ needs. Was not dissatisfied with a free Kagi trial.
Disclaimer
I’ve posted here before that I suspect Kagi of astroturfing; I cannot prove it. Reflecting on this, even assuming they did “growth hack“ their way to prominence on Lemmy and Hacker News, I’d rather see them win than Alphabet. So, sharing their brand name in my post somewhat tentatively here, cuz fediverse ain’t for ads even when a product itself is aight.
There is an addon that adds The &udm=14 tag to every search to improve your experience.
Duck Duck Go.
Results might not be as good as peak Google, but they’re definitely serviceable and infinitely better than current Google.
Plus all the bang shortcuts are just the cherry on top.
The ad-supported web is the cause of the enshittification.
Yes I’m a paying - and very happy - kagi.com user. Getting good search results is worth paying for.
I wish you could pay an houly fee to your ISP and your ISP would pay websites proportinally to the amount of time you spend on them.
I fell victim by clicking on the first result from google search which was a sponsored ad that was a phishing fake website that caused me to lose all my money at the time. I still wish I could sue them for it to this day. I have all evidence for it too.
To this day btw, google still sponsors and shows scam and phishing websites as first link.
And “the thing I want” is some AI generated garbage.
