i think the bigger problem is that all filter updates need to be declared which means google essentially knows what you’re blocking which means they can respond quicker to fixing exploits to block ads
I switched to Firefox not too long ago, the only place I can’t replace chrome is my Chromebook. I can’t find a good Firefox copy, tried using both android and Linux versions but it loses alot of controls functionality (eg grestures on the trackpad)
You can use Startpage to get Google search results. It’s a meta search engine for Google, but it doesn’t expose any of your data. You can use it with DuckDuckGo’s Bangs feature. That way, DuckDuckGo can be your default search engine and you can make all of your normal search queries with DDG, but if you want to search on Google through Startpage, you just type !sp followed by your search query into DuckDuckGo and it will forward your search to Startpage. This also works with many many other sites, type !bangs into DDG to get the full list of supported websites.
If you’re already using duckduckgo, you can just add !g in front of your search term if you aren’t happy with the results.
It sends your search to google but without connecting your search with your ip.
And if you use an ad blocker, google doesn’t even get anything out of it, other than server costs.
SearXNG is my go to. It’s a search aggregator so you have to configure it to select your preferred search engines, but once everything is up and running, I’ve found it’s results to be even higher quality than Google’s
(I also use Google when I need a word definition - I like the layout and ability to see synonyms quickly.)
yeah that’s one thing I really miss from when I had google as default search engine, typing word/phrase + define and actually getting a useful result. DDGs version is barely even helpful at all
Google Search is way worse than it used to but still beats DDG by a mile.
I’ve tried SearX and it was meh, maybe there’s some better instance than the one I tried though.
Yandex is good for reverse image search and when the American government makes western search engines block certain search results, but not that useful in general. Also for a period Yandex just kept bombarding me with endless captchas and was completely unusuable
Bing search is just DDG, or well DDG is just Bing.
Baidu search, tbh haven’t tried it much, but even for chinese I had better search results on google search so yeah
DDG is still really good, and DDG isn’t Bing just because it includes it’s results as well. I mainly use DDG and then try Google if I can’t find my result, but 90% of the time DDG finds it just fine.
I mean I use DDG as default search engine in Firefox and Google Search isn’t much better now, but google search isn’t even a 10th as good as it used to be 10 years ago.
I use searx.be with both Google and DDG results enabled. Otherwise if you want something like Google results you would have to use Start page, although they pay Google for access to their search so you would be indirectly supporting Google.
I tried using DuckDuckGo but just could not stick with it. The search terms are just not as good and sometimes when I’m looking up definitions for words I’d prefer not clicking on a link and just having it display on the display results.
It’s just small issues like that made me switch back to google search. Won’t ever switch back to chrome though.
They are dominant in search, ads, browser, mobile hardware, mobile os, mapping, and email. They’re using their dominance to corece users, and are just getting away with it. The influence they have over the Internet is second to none, and it shows they’ve dropped the whole “don’t be evil” thing.
They probably don't want all those people realizing they can install extensions manually, because then they'd need to actively scan for and block extension installations.
That will stop working way sooner than you’d like. Freezing a browser isn’t tenable at all, not just for features websites are expecting but also security issues. There’s a reason every browser except Safari has a 6 weeks release cycle.
Web tech doesn’t evolve that fast. You can use a 1 year old version today without worrying about missing any website functionality.
What you’re missing is features that the browser itself introduces, but in this case those would be anti-features so arguably Chrome will be getting worse.
Then there’s of course the security vulnerabilities.
Of course the whole discussion is moot since there’s a much simpler alternative, switching to another browser.
Meanwhile I just got TamperMonkey on my phone through Firefox, so I can now auto-clip digital Safeway coupons on my phone when I forget to do so before leaving the house.
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