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Why are search engines so bad?

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Rhienfo:
I swear that search engines are weren't as bad as they are now. It's actually really annoying that I have to search reddit after anything that I search to actually get useful information. Not to mention how bad google in terms of data collection and just not being a good browser, but even using firefox I still feel like search engines are really bad (I understand that's probably unrelated though)

Anyone have any suggestions/recommendations on a good search engine that isn't straight garbage?

Leslieann:
DuckDuckGo (DDG)
It mixes Bing and Google for a more "sane" result and anonymizes the data so Google can't effectively track. Note that MS still can. Can't win them all.

As for why google is so bad, many in I.T. have also taken notice*. It's a combination of people gaming the system, Google manipulating results, trying to shove ads everywhere and simply trying to make it do too much. The only time I use it now is if DDG fails on something sup[er technical, in which case google can sometimes come to the rescue.

Give it 5, maybe 10 more years, Google will be the next Yahoo, which is what they're scared of and everything they're doing is just exacerbating that problem (actually Yahoo is is still huge).

This is why they're all in on A.I.
Microsoft is currently in the lead and could use Chat GPT to put the screws to Google/Android and Apple to gain a foothold in the cellular market which they've long dreamed of. Why sell phones when you can just be the search engine powering them. Google in particular must at the very least, catch up no matter the cost or lose everything.


 *All of Google has gone pretty downhill really. What's new or more importantly, what's new that won't be cancelled in 3 months? They've become so large they want everything to be an instant massive profit maker so building anything ground up is no longer possible for them. This is probably why so many large companies just buy up smaller ones, it's a way to fast track development. Investors want quarterly profits, not R&D for something 4 years down the line.

Findecanor:
Does DuckDuckGo actually use Google, and not just Bing?
These past few weeks, numerous times I've searched for something on DuckDuckGo and given up, only to go to
Google and find it there.

AI can **** off. I want my search results less fuzzy, not more.

tp4tissue:
It's so heavily polarized for advertisers / sellers now.

It's not for finding information anymore, it's almost entirely for finding businesses who sell something related to what you're looking for.

That's certainly true for the first several pages.

Darthbaggins:
Also you need to put in strict search parameters, so it can find answers within the cone of what you are looking for.   Really depends on what you are searching for, but DDG is a good route to start on.

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