I do agree that the content farms are frustrating, and I’d like to see more done to combat them. I also agree that discussions happening on locked platforms is net loss for the sharing of information. I think search engines can do more about the former, but not as much about the latter. I think folks like us having discussions on the open can help.

I went ahead and searched “best Linux distro” and the top three results for me was

• https://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs/comments/16l9ufr/what_linux_distro_should_i_pick/

• https://www.techradar.com/best/best-linux-distros

• https://distrowatch.com/dwres-mobile.php?resource=major

I then turned on my phones VPN, opened edge (normally use Firefox), went to Google, and repeated the search with the same top three results. I tried to bypass personalization, but might need to use a clean VM with VPN to succeed.

I actually thought all of those results were pretty good from a quick skim.

I will say I have custom DNS filters and plugins that block ads and untrustworthy domains and I can’t guarantee that didn’t influence my results.

I tried other searches like “best Linux distro” plus “programming” or “gaming” and received similarly helpful results. But I can’t tell if I’m in a personalization bubble.