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Which search engine do you use for what? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 weeks ago by cm0002@toast.ooo to c/privacy@programming.dev

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Someone (average smartphone user) complained to me the other day that there isn't a clear solution to navigating the web because it's either ai slop or the results are poor.

And I kinda agree, nowadays you do have to put in some more effort to get what you're looking for.

And so I told them I'd compile a list of which search engines are best for what purpose.

So far I have:

Startpage: works, but does a poor job of finding product codes and whatnot.

Duckduckgo: gives more general results afaik

Ecosia: works great but relies on bing

I have tried things like qwant ect but haven't really settled on those.

Any other suggestions?

I'd tell em to use udm14 but it's still google so I'd rather keep that as a plan B.

OQB @FreddiesLantern@leminal.space

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[–] ambitiousslab@feddit.uk 4 points 3 weeks ago

I have a lot of search shortcuts configured in Firefox, and find vertical search is a good way of avoiding google.

Wikipedia, Wikidata: for factual things, finding links to homepages of brands or well-known venues, macros of ingredients.
Wiktionary: for definitions.
OpenStreetMap: for physical locations, to get opening hours or websites of physical shops.
OpenStreetMap Wiki, PostmarketOS Wiki, Debian Wiki, Guile Mailing List Archives: if you can find a wiki, forum or mailing list dedicated to your special interest, then searching these directly can be pretty good.
Lemmy: for recommendations, general opinions, looking for negative opinions about services before I try them.
Podcast Index: I used to use Apple Podcast's website to find the canonical RSS feed for a podcast, but someone on Lemmy pointed me to this website, which is more independent.
Marginalia: for recipes, especially with the no javascript filter enabled, just by typing in the names of some ingredients I want to use, I'll find all sorts of weird and wonderful webpages with nice recipes on.
Repology: to look for software packages.

And then, for general searches, I normally start off with Marginalia, followed by SearXNG, followed by DuckDuckGo if desperate.