Data on search engine market share is available, but I wonder what that looks like for Lemmy users in particular, who I would assume lean more technical than the average user, so probably use DuckDuckGo and alternates more than Google.

I use a mix of DuckDuckGo and Kagi. I’ll also use ChatGPT, which can be good if you’re careful to verify the answers it gives you as a check against hallucinations. It’s useful for short, direct answers without ads or SEO bullshit.

This article on Ars (and if you’re not a subscriber, you absolutely should be, as they are the best tech journalists out there) inspired the question: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/google-admits-reddit-protests-make-it-harder-to-find-helpful-search-results

Fucking Reddit. Enshittification ruins everything.

  • kuchai@beehaw.org
    1·
    1 year ago

    DDG for everyday usage. Sometimes I try searching the same things on google just to compare results. I’ve tried searxng instances on and off in the past but its rarely been reliable for me and self hosting isn’t really an option for me.

  • Silejonu@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    DuckDuckGo, but mostly because of the !bangs. I do 90% of my searches through StartPage (!s), and the rest directly on a few websites (Wikipedia, YouTube, Arch wiki…).

  • I Cast Fist@programming.devEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    I use mostly either ddg or brave search. I miss the google of pre 2010, when the majority of its results were good.

    I also use Yandex whenever I’m looking for pirate stuff, the only engine that doesn’t block those kinds of results.

  • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    Self-hosted Searxng. It’s shared to multiple people which kills a lot of the usefulness in Google or others trying to track my instance.

  • Link.wav [he/him]@beehaw.org
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’m still looking for a search engine that doesn’t use data from my IP address to provide targeted results. In the meantime, I’ve gone back and forth between using SearXNG instances and using Startpage, but there’s really not a decent search engine in existence, from what I can tell.

  • LoafyLemon@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    DuckDuckGo. Its results are much better than Google’s in my experience. Whenever I Google something, all I get is a list of online stores I’ve never heard of, and they have nothing to do with my search input.

    • sab@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      For me the main thing that makes me stick to DDG is the bangs - adding for example !wiki in the beginning of a search term to search directly in Wikipedia. It really is a game changer, especially as I often need to search in specific sources for work. `!scholar" for access to Google Scholar is great.

      Whenever I think Google will provide better results it’s as easy as !g - but I am also experiencing that the results are increasingly unhelpful (often geared towards shopping rather than information).

    • Ix9@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Same here. I know a lot of folks don’t like the results, but to be honest, I don’t find Google any better these days.

  • xusontha@l.buckodr.ink
    1·
    1 year ago

    I use Ecosia. It works quite well, and if I ever need to search something on Google instead (like a coin flip/stock ticker) you can just do #g or #yt for Youtube They also plant trees and are carbon negative

  • Kir@feddit.it
    7·
    1 year ago

    I don’t understand why lots of you answer with chatGPT. It’s not a search engine! And you shouldn’t use it like a search engine.

    • 雨 月@feddit.de
      0·
      1 year ago

      Maybe people mainly search for answers to simple daily life questions or something.

      • Kir@feddit.it
        1·
        1 year ago

        I guess, but it’s still not a search engine and I think it’s a bit problematic if that’s the usecase.

    • tenet@kbin.social
      0·
      1 year ago

      Except it IS a search engine and that’s basically all it’s good for. By its very nature all it can do is collate information. It’s the only thing AI is good at.

      • Kir@feddit.it
        0·
        1 year ago

        No it’s not. To search is a specific task, and generative AI can’t do that. It can fulfill some need that we are used to fulfill by searching the web, but this doesn’t mean it’s a search engine.

        If you lost the key of your car and have access to an AI that can (sometimes) start your can without a key, you can be happy about it, but you still can’t say the AI searched the key for you. It can’t do it.

        Edit: btw, we are talking about generative AI here. I’m not saying there isn’t and could not be a search engine that use AI to better its result.

  • Midou@kbin.projectsegfau.lt
    1·
    1 year ago

    SearXNG, searches every search engine and regroups them in a single list, alongside the very powerful “bang” variant they use (“!!” is like “!” for ddg, and “!” is to only search with this search engine, “:en” is to choose a specific shortcode language.)