[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Best search engine alternatives to Google?
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       Ask HN: Best search engine alternatives to Google?
        
       I find Google amazing for some kinds of queries, such as directly
       answering simple factual questions or finding content within a
       defined domain.  However, for a lot of things it's quite bad. If I
       want to find a good website for some use-case (as opposed to
       directly finding information inside a page), or if I want anything
       where there might be a commercial interest in ~~lying~~ advertising
       to me, Google is truly awful.  It's also, obviously, very bad for
       privacy.  Surely there are a bunch of interesting new search
       engines popping up given the recent deep learning explosion? What
       interesting alternatives have you discovered?
        
       Author : cowpig
       Score  : 15 points
       Date   : 2023-06-15 20:48 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
       | jacooper wrote:
       | IMO brave is the best alternative search engine but it definitely
       | show its limit with niche queries.
        
       | helph67 wrote:
       | There are plenty of search engines that don't spy on you, here's
       | a few... https://duckduckgo.com/ https://www.ecosia.org/
       | https://www.qwant.com/ https://www.startpage.com/
        
         | shortcake27 wrote:
         | I can only speak to DDG but the quality of results are worse
         | than Google. I still use it anyway as privacy outweighs
         | accuracy for most of my searches.
        
       | cowpig wrote:
       | I think this is kind of an interesting project, though I suspect
       | it's as bad or worse than google for privacy:
       | 
       | www.perplexity.ai
        
       | xarvatium wrote:
       | Been using Brave Search since it was public, it's improved a lot
       | since. I also really like Duckduckgo and I use it on mobile, but
       | Brave Search indexes their own sites rather than being a meta
       | search engine, like how ddg uses Bing results. Nothing wrong with
       | meta search engines though, I just personally prefer the way
       | Brave does it.
        
         | ChatGTP wrote:
         | I like DuckDuckGo but it seems so slow lately , maybe it's my
         | location but it's punishing.
        
       | Kop wrote:
       | Have you looked at Startpage?
       | 
       | https://www.startpage.com
        
       | sureglymop wrote:
       | SearxNG. Happy user of an instance someone is hosting near me
       | that is fast and reliable.
        
       | senko wrote:
       | Kagi user here, very happy with them so far. I honestly use maybe
       | a third of their features (lens and boost/block are great ones
       | that I'm too lazy/forgetful to use).
       | 
       | They also recently announced search AI (I think powered by
       | Anthropic over their index) and API, which, as a developer, I
       | also find useful.
       | 
       | Finally, the vision and priorities they communicate are something
       | I agree with.
       | 
       | All this makes it a nobrainer to pay for their service.
        
       | barbazoo wrote:
       | I switched over to https://kagi.com a while ago and never use
       | Google search anymore.
        
         | privacyking wrote:
         | Didn't they have some controversy recently where they screwed
         | over their initial users?
        
           | raybb wrote:
           | Yes the changed pricing but then grandfathered people in
           | later so didn't end up screwing people over.
        
           | barbazoo wrote:
           | I didn't care much about that, seemed reasonable what they
           | did.
        
       | mattnewport wrote:
       | I've been paying for kagi for a while now and am pretty happy
       | with it. Switched from DuckDuckGo.
        
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       (page generated 2023-06-15 23:02 UTC)