Time to ditch #duckduckgo

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.

electric_nan,

I get the same shit at work where I can’t use a VPN: like 7-8 relevant results then basically just ads for local businesses after that.

Gooey0210,

I have searx, and i’m feeling like a god of search, better than google, better that bingbinggo, and anything else Although I had a lot of problems with it when I was hosting it on a RPI and docker, now i’m not, and it’s just so much better

glasgitarrewelt,

What was the problem with Docker? I want to host it myself, the docker option seems to be the easiest one.

maynarkh,

I’d guess the RPI part would be the bigger issue.

Gooey0210,

Docker by itself is not a good thing, bad with security, not entirely open source, buggy networking, not very reproducible

The problem with docker was timeout for requests, not sure whose falt it was, but the reverse proxy container was unresponsive pretty often

Also, yeah, RPI was not really fast too, it had 8gb ram, boot from ssd Just right now I have i9 with 64gb ram, and this is stupid fast, and actually for most of the apps the performance bump is like 50%

About docker, really, try to look into nixos, it has a really steep learning curve, but it will worth it, and you will be able to do magic

andruid,

Containers are really awesome, but take a bit more to troubleshoot sometimes. Docker is not the only method to run them either. I prefer podman actually, but K3s is the next logical step for running services in a more powerful setup.

All true FOSS too

Gooey0210, (edited )

Podman is better, but believe my words, try nixos. It’s like a docker-compose file, but for a system, this is really something groundbreaking

You specify all the system and services passwords, usernames, all the stuff, your wallpapers, directories, keys, everything

And all basic configurations are already unified, so to enable some service you just need to add a line in your main config like services.nginx.enable = true; and it just works with all the bells and whistles (kind off, you can add much more. Even more than in containers)

The services are usually not sandboxes, but you can sandbox them, can even run the same containers

Sorry if you’re really not into it, it just nixos feels like a whole new lvl after podman

edit: even like that, I manage all my machines as a fleet with nixos, all from one configuration So I can basically press a button and change all the usernames on all machines and everything will continue working

Instead of adding each machine separately to a vpn, I just press a button and it deploys all the machines with wireguard and connects them all

andruid,

No nix is super cool! I really like the idea that guix and nix in having that system as code from build to deployment. I am not sure yet on how I feel about it for fleet/cluster deployments, k8s schedulers, network patterns like service meshes, ETCD, and operating on labels and cluster state are all super powerful.

I have looked too into using nix to make OCI containers and OCI containers to make flatpaks as well. All where they make sense of course.

mojo,

Nah it’s still the best

Gazumi,

What would we suggest as a realistic alternative? Sears? Startpage? Brave? (I am no expert by the way, just looking for tips)

coughrelief, (edited )
@coughrelief@lemmy.world avatar

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

Gooey0210,

How does searx suck for images exactly? 🫠

melooone,

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?

Gooey0210,

Maybe their point was that you cannot filter the images, like by color, size, license, etc

But anyway, if I want to show somebody a picture of something it works perfectly As for the results, they are pretty comparable between searx, ddg, and googlag.

I would even say searx wins on this one because 1. It’s easier to navigate and open images 2. The nojs version of the search looks so much better than any other search engine

thebardingreen,
@thebardingreen@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz avatar

Brave’s search engine is… fine. I only use it by accident sometimes.

currycourier,

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.

Vexz,

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.

TheDarkKnight,

Are, are you telling me that I can block Fandom’s wiki results? Because I dream of such a future!

Vexz,

Yes, you can. You can block any domain you want to appear in your search results. Here's the documentation for this feature.

metacolon,
@metacolon@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I’ve been using metager for some while and really like it. They’re also part of an initiative pushing for a free as in freedom search index, so that’s nice

kglitch, (edited )

The only time I use ddg is to find conspiracy sites to add to the blocklist I maintain. All the trash rises to the top in that search engine. It's rubbish.

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

No shit in my experience its also filled with random ad stuff and mainly companies selling you shit

lemmyingly,

Tell me more…

Do you maintain the block list to avoid conspiracies or because these types of websites are riddled with nasties?

kglitch,

Mostly to avoid conspiracies. The intended users are people who want to protect vulnerable family members.

Another purpose is to demonstrate that the big social networks could get rid of disinformation if they wanted to - "look what 1 person can achieve, in their spare time", kinda thing.

ShortN0te,

I have still the same good results in ddg, no matter what device or browser. I have noticed that they have some location bias when ddg (and any other search engine i have tried) has non good results globaly but good resulta locally.

Still better then anything i have tested. Just because there are minor anomalies i will stick with them.

ksyko, (edited )

deleted_by_author

    •
    DetectiveSanity,

    This was first page. Around 10-15 mark.

    ForestOrca,
    @ForestOrca@kbin.social avatar

    I use DDG, tho' it's with a VPN. And it seems to work just fine. shrug

    Jaysyn,
    @Jaysyn@kbin.social avatar

    My browser (Firefox) is configured the same way.

    No issues with your search term here. I think you have gremlins.

    kat,

    That is Google, not DuckDuckGo?

    Saizaku,

    I’m on ddg and get no such issues with the same query: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/233f5d14-ddbc-49b3-b627-97159ba200af.pnghttps://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/21230449-57ac-41a3-b664-09f8ab504b5e.png

    sar1n,

    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

    akilou,

    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.”

    TwilightKiddy,

    Ducks are learning to gaslight people. Fascinating.

    mindbleach,

    I’d bet that’s more bug than feature. Like they’re trying to avoid SEO providing any consistent ordering to be gamed.

    Still a pain in the ass either way. Vindication for being a complete tab whore.

    69420,

    This is the new quantum search feature: you changed the results by observing them.

    alansuspect,

    Yeah I hate that. Now all results have to be opened in new tabs just in case.

    MigratingtoLemmy,

    I turned JS off other than for specific websites. This includes DDG. It gives me accurate results, although the other commenters don’t seem be facing your problem either

    somedude,

    If you’re looking for a new search engine, I’ve been using paid search provider, Kagi.com, for the last few months. They’ve been great.

    DetectiveSanity,

    Slowly but surely I am coming to the realisation that free services sooner or later will drift away from their privacy claims

    somedude,

    Precisely. Ad and user data supported products will always balance making their users happy, with making their paying customers happy.

    Benjameee,
    @Benjameee@snowstorm.online avatar

    Same! Switched over to kagi a couple months ago and I’ve been loving it!

    Cyberjin,

    Pricing seems a bit odd to me What happens if you don’t spend all your searches? Does it carry over to next month?

    Wouldn’t it be better to pay as you go? Without the monthly requirements if they gonna have a limit anyway.

    Vexz,

    Kagi is awesome! I recently fell in love with it.

    TheHolyChecksum,

    Yes, I have the same issue with DDG for something like a year now. I can’t use it anymore for basic searches, I feel like the bing api they are using is getting worse and worse.

    I_Miss_Daniel,

    It might be blindly searching for websites that contain any of the words scan, mark 2, pro.

    It seems to do that when it can’t find a page with all of the words, and the only way I know to fix it is put the whole thing in quotation marks.

    LWD, (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Liome,
    @Liome@pawb.social avatar

    It does though? Right under the search bar there should be a switch bar to turn on localized search, and a dropdown to pick different location.
    Or is it itself location locked?

    https://pawb.social/pictrs/image/55f269a9-475d-4068-adf9-83739fe38121.png

    thanksforallthefish,

    Nope not locked. I have always on vpn (random countries) anti fingerprinting and DDG happily allows the search localisation to my actual or a different country

    LWD, (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Cheradenine,

    It is not accidental, they localize searches

    Cheradenine,

    Yes like many other search providers you can set to all, or whatever, but ddg will always localize your searches.

    Honytawk,

    I have the opposite problem.

    It is always unlocalized, and even if I set it to Belgium, it still is giving me French and German Sites.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • uselessserver093
  • Food
  • aaaaaaacccccccce
  • [email protected]
  • test
  • CafeMeta
  • testmag
  • MUD
  • RhythmGameZone
  • RSS
  • dabs
  • Socialism
  • KbinCafe
  • TheResearchGuardian
  • oklahoma
  • feritale
  • SuperSentai
  • KamenRider
  • All magazines
    •