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Using Google whilst Duck Duck Go is down. How long has Google been this bad? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 5 months ago by makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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?

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[–] 30p87@feddit.de 6 points 5 months ago (3 children)

If you have spare hardware lying around and a public IP (or a server anyway), you can selfhost SearXNG.
If you're fine with paying 12$/month (with tax) for a customizable search engine, very accurate and transparently sourced/quoted LLM, and just a better index than any other search engine I know, use Kagi. I heard some rumors and bad things, but nothing to do with privacy, only the aforementioned tax.
And for a free search engine which claims privacy and is an alternative to DDG, with its own index afaik, Brave.

[–] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 42 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Kagi is anything but private friendly. Their CEO claims only criminals actually want anonymity.

They also think they don't need pay taxes or to abide by GDPR if they invent their own definitions of the laws.

https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html

[–] 30p87@feddit.de 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is an article often quoted, which makes it seem like it's a kind of consensus. Yet one of the main points, taxes, can just be disproven by reading the Kagi FAQ about it. Find it by searching "Kagi inc tax" on any search engine, like Kagi itself. Or just https://help.kagi.com/kagi/faq/sales-tax-vat.html.

We weren't initially required to collect sales tax/VAT until reaching certain thresholds, typically defined by the number of customers in a jurisdiction or sales volume.

And sooo many other things in this article are purely based on assumptions, incorrect data and misquotes. This personal blog is exactly none better than your average hustle-finance-nazi-bro podcast, in almost all terms (except political views).

[–] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 4 points 5 months ago

Misquotes? There are literally screenshots in the article showing full quotes, I don't know who are you trying to lie to...

And just because Kagi put some text on their website doesn't make it true.
Taxes don't work like that (at least not VAT) and you're a fool for trusting a company which tried to commit a fraud.

Some EU countries do have tax exemptions for small businesses, which Kagi isn't by any definition.

Anyway, that sure didn't take long for you to prove Godwin's law, huh?

[–] Dumbkid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 months ago

Sick never heard or searxng, hosting my own instance now

[–] frezik@midwest.social 2 points 5 months ago

How are SearXNG results? I tried a self hosted yacy instance, but its results are pre-AltaVista bad.