Google is making its Search more centred around AI, turning it into a conversation.
Besides being a worse experience, the websites from which it sources its information are losing all traffic and recognition.
Recommend a list of alternatives:
- Kagi - Paid but better experience than Google
- Ecosia - Similar experience while supporting a good cause
- Qwant - Increasingly unique results and building a EU-first index
- DuckDuckGo - Privacy-focused search, but quality of results may vary
This LLM tech must be amazing, given companies have to shove it down people’s throats to even get users for it.
Haven’t used google search for almost a decade.
I pay for kagi, I am happy enough with their search experience to keep paying.
Having a computer hit on me while I’m trying to find a bus schedule sounds super convenient.
I like being able to modify the rankings of websites (Wikipedia shows up first, scammy website never shows up) and report AI slop pages.
The cool thing about Kagi is, that, while it also offers a ton of really good LLM features, those are all optional, and the user can configure them for their account.
If one just wants web search, one can set all LLM features to disabled by default - such that they are hidden behind buttons. If one wants to have certain LLM features enabled by default, that’s possible too.
In other words, you get exactly the experience you want.
Seconded for Kagi, was really hesitant about paying for search at first, but its been very refreshing
DuckDuckGo is clearly controlled opposition whether they realize it or not, kind of like Mozilla but.
How’s that?
Last time I checked, Ecosia and DuckDuckGo both use the Microsoft Bing index, just one of them promises to plant trees if only if you click on ads
Last I heard like 6 months ago microsoft stopped selling Bing api access to other compaines, so I think Ecosia is just google now
You may be right. From their privacy policy:
This means that when you search through Ecosia, we work with either Microsoft Bing or Google to provide you with search results and ads.
They also have their own index.
since using Brave i noticed its default search is rather good, including the AI part. it includes references in all its AI responses
another W for Brave i guess. shucks
I am have been using Qwant for a while but recently it has started to pull off some request blocking nonsense because of ublock (Waterfox, Pop-OS). When I disable ublock it works again, even after turning it on again but eventually it blocks again. Frustratinc and an issue I have not seen at any other search engine.
Qwant results were full of AI scam pages when I used it a few months ago. I don’t trust it.
I thought that would be a general problem that I also get with Google at work. But maybe I am mistaken. I’d give that more attention if it is specifically a Qwant problem.
Google introduces their “New Coke”.
