So ddg is down, so I visit Google. It's been some years.
I just can't believe how poor it's results are, and how it's trying to suggest things it think I might also want (and failing miserably).
I just assumed ddg would be the lesser, but I use it for privacy. Turns out I'm wrong.
How long has Google been this bad?
Google search peaked in 2014 - that's when it'd let you do "that movie where [horribly vague summary of an incidental scene]" and get you the answer.
But the complete dropoff started in 2019, when they started letting the ad team remove anti-spam features to game their numbers.
I still find myself trying to search like that every once in a while :(
For many years now, almost the only way to find tech-related answers was to add the word "reddit" to your search. Before the Rexodus ofc.
Nowadays a lot of people go straight to where they wanted to find info - Wikipedia, StackOverflow, IMDB, etc. - and search from there.
Google itself has admitted how bad it has gotten, and in response they decided to voluntarily reduce their profits and return everything back to when it all worked... - no I'm just kidding, they said wait a bit and AI will save us all, somehow (from ourselves?).
Funny fact: google's newest feature is also its best, but it's kinda hidden and might not be available everywhere - it's "web search", which cuts out all the awful bullshit
I noticed it getting worse over the years. I switched to SearXNG last year when I felt Google was getting really ridiculous.
They started censoring a lot at some point, maybe because they had to, but that's not the only reason.
DDG being down was the push for me to finally try SearXNG. Used it all day while working on code and it's been pleasant. The search results are actually meaningful and it's fast.
I can't get it to save my preferences. That's the only hurdle to me not using it.
I'm not having this issue. I'm using one of the Firefox extensions but don't get to choose an instance. I just went with the second most popular extensions because I liked the UI better.
Hahaha, I ~just came after a search using g**gle due to ddgo being down, I noticed the "web" search is no longer the default (as it was discussed some days ago here).
Google seems to have a huge grip on people and they don't seem to notice (or act against) the terrible services of google search..
Use this workaround https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/get-google-search-results-without-ai-ads-or-anything-but-links/
Just set Kagi as default search in your browser. There is a plugin you can install that does it, easiest way.
https://help.kagi.com/kagi/getting-started/setting-default.html
I've been trying to get used to DDG recently and while I've definitely noticed the decline of Google, that decline has been subtle for me, it hasn't become a disaster, it's just generally frustrating and just not as good as it used to be. But that said, I haven't exactly loved DDG in comparison. It's okay, definitely works, recent outage excepted, but I often found the results kind of needed more work to make use of, they were more kind of, on the topic of what I asked for rather than specifically what I asked within the domain of that topic. It's more like using a search engine as one would have done some 15 or so years ago. Often if trying to find something out I'd be disappointed by the non specific or irrelevant results and get suspicious and try changing back to google for the same thing and found that though they largely contained the same results, Google would have one or two that DDG didn't which were closer to the top of the results and were more specifically about my precise query than just the general topic. I think these tend to be things like forum posts where, if my query is a question, someone's asked basically that exact or very similar question.
I think DDG is mostly working ok enough for me that I'll persevere but I can't say it's been better.
I think it's been years now. At least a couple of years, I was baffled too back in the day.
it's been slowly getting worse since the 2010s. i remember talking about it back then.
I stopped using Google when they dropped their "don't be evil" principle. Not just because of that, but because their prior decisions were going against the principle. Sure it was ~10 years ago. A couple of years ago I tried Google search hoping it was still decent, but Jesus Lord, it sucked.
I keep seeing this and I tried it but I couldn’t get great results consistently. Maybe I need to spend some more time looking into it again
It may be the instance you used or something else I'm not aware of, but I always get great results.
The only thing is sometimes an instance dies and I need to find and start using another one, but it's not a big deal. You can find instances here.
Startpage (has Google search results) or Google with private browsing haven't given me the new AI suggestions so far
The last few months have especially been bad.
I love when I search for a movie: New Life (2024) it'll give me IMDB results. I hate IMDB so I change my search to: New Life (2024) TMDB Google will give me the TMDB result as the first result and IMDB as the second result but it also has the did you mean "New Life (2024) IMDB" as an alternative search option. Makes me wonder if Amazon (which owns IMDB) is paying Google to push IMDB. Makes me feel like Google is trying to gaslight me.
I think since around 2016? Google changed their algos to prioritize mainstream media. This is actually a way to censor since MSM is all controlled by the CIA. Jacobin and NY post have the exact same opinions about countries the CIA and state department don't like.
I don't see much AI stuff on Google yet but most searches there now give me only video results for some reason, with no way to opt out of them and get text results. It DDG fails me I just give up now.
