What search engine do you use? What terms might you use to filter out junk?

Over the past few years I’ve gotten into the habit of using Google and reddit for general information. When searching I append “reddit” to the terms and tend to get good results. Without appendjng I often don’t get back anything relevant. It sort of works if I’m searching for a particular product or company by name but doesn’t show me relevant reviews or guides. For something not by name it is just a ton of blog spam and useless articles.

Sometimes YouTube can have reviews but with the way content creation works I have reason to take positive reviews with a grain of salt most of the time. For review sites or reviews on stores I just assume 95% are not/paid.

I have had some success appending something for particular sites. Way more specific to a topic though like board game geek or stack overflow. I’ve tried “forum” but that doesn’t seem to do much.

Edit:

People seem to mostly be suggesting things like DuckDuckGo. There is also a paid option that seems like it could be effective, Kagi.

Also this exists.

https://programmer2514.github.io/FediSearch/

  • Nankeru@kbin.social
    10·
    2 years ago

    Kagi, hands down, is by far the best search engine I’ve ever used (next to Neeva, which got bought and shut down).

    Just simple searches like “Best gaming headphones” or “Realtek Driver Download” and comparing them with Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave, Startpage, etc. shows how the quality of the results are far superior.

    And you can directly define, which sites you’d like to see higher / more results of or less - or even completely block or pin them to the top.

    Also, it also shows you directly, before visiting a site, in colors if a site has a very high number of ads and/or trackers.

    And they support for power users custom CSS to adjust everything, URL rewrites (e.g. change all Reddit URLs to old.reddit), DDG and custom bangs, and much more.

    Lastly, I created a so-called “Lens”, which allows me to search Lemmy / Kbin content only (also still have one for Reddit).
    Meaning with one click, it shows me results from only sites or keywords I’ve defined - see image.

    Very satisfied with it, can only recommend.

      • Nankeru@kbin.social
        8·
        2 years ago

        Yeah, I totally get that. Made me feel a little unwell at the beginning as well, but considering that search is one of the main, key features I use daily, multiple times, it is totally worth it.

        I pay for a search engine, because:

        • High-quality search results
        • No ads
        • High customizability
        • No weird SEO optimized Website results which help me not at all, and I lose hours in a year clicking them, going back and looking for another result
        • Did I mention no ads or sponsored content?
    • Badabinski@kbin.social
      3·
      2 years ago

      I’ll have to check this out. I’m done being sold to advertisers, I want to be a customer. I do 30-50 internet searches a day, so I’ll probably try out the professional tier. I wish it was FLOSS, but I’m willing to compromise on that.

    • Jaluvshuskies@kbin.social
      1·
      2 years ago

      This has me really, really interested.

      For someone like me who used reddit exclusively for finding information, would this be a replacement that is the same or better? I never like random clickbait articles or sources that are sketchy, and I never know which are legitimate good sources of information, so I just stuck with reddit

      I loved reddit because I would be able to find dozens of threads about my question, with dozens of comments and discussions around the subject. I could read through real enthusiasts answers and actual genuine experiences, which I consider extremely valuable. I take each comment with a grain of salt since obviously one random internet person might not be right, so I read many comments and put them together in my head, to decide on a best solution

      Another reason is because I could almost always find an answer to my specific question. Super specific niche computer problems with answers that won’t break your PC, custom rom for OnePlus 8t, yubikey configuration, bitwarden, financing, best money management software, cooking, intermittent fasting, I could go on

      But, I didn’t just use it for information, I also used it to get help about something (like asking questions or following up on a discussion) - but that’s probably more going to be replaced by kbin