Search engines are pretty much redundant because they don’t return what we are looking for.
They cooked themselves.
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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But what if what your are looking for is AI generated articles that don't provide any trustworthy answers or top 10 lists of products that their manufacturers paid the site to figure on the list? Google is still the best for that.
Well when you put it that way…..
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I use DDG and SearXNG several times per day. It's better at finding information in StackOverflow and Reddit threads than directly searching in those sites and it's the only way I know how to actively seek out websites I haven't been referred to by anyone.
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If you have a technical problem and enter "reddit" in you search often you find help. But this is so stupid.
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Yup,i use perplexity as my first port of call for most searches. Not because it’s good - it’s not, I’d estimate it’s wrong around 80%of the time - but because it’s still better than the alternatives
Funny how Google couldn't defeat seo spammers and yet claim they can keep AI safe. We are so fucked
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Most of the time i use search engines to get to wikipedia. Now i have to add "wiki" to most of my queries because wikipedia wont even show up on the first page.
Just add Wikipedia to your search bar
Use the DDG bang :
- Go to https://duchduckgo.com/
- Enter
!w <your-search-here> - It searches Wikipedia specifically for
There are bangs for "image search" (!im), "github search" (!gh), "search PubMed" (!pm)
You cannot live without this
Why would I need any of that if I can bang the search bar of my browser instead, and it takes me straight to search on Wikipedia or any other site I want without waiting for DDG to add that site?
Relieved to find this response below the others. Why TF would you search for a site i) whose URL you know? ii) waste space on your browser by adding the website as a search bar on your browser's menu bar? How much time do people anticipate they'll save by avoiding typing Wikipedia.org into the address field?
That's not what I mean. I have a keyword like ‘wik’ set to take me to Wikipedia's search, and if I type ‘wik black pus’, i get the page for that term.
I also have an extension that shows a popup with buttons for different search engines whenever I select text on a page, and I have a similar thing on the phone for text shared from any app. Each of these methods has about twenty-seven sites configured in it. Considering that I look up things on these sites easily a dozen times a day, it's ridiculous to say that this doesn't save me time over opening each site.
(P.S.: And this workflow also allows using the keyboard for keyword-triggered search, while the search interface on some sites is getting less accommodating and assumes me mousing around.)
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You can completely skip DDG's systems by just using your search bar though.
I know I speak for everyone on Lemmy that they prefer entering their question into Grok.
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...why don’t you just go to Wikipedia to begin with? I’m honestly asking. URLs still exist.
Wikipedias search kinda sucked 15 years ago. So i never bothered to try it again since then tbh
It seems significantly better now. A lot of topics, I just go straight to Wikipedia now.
If you add '!w' to the end of your word in the address bar it takes you directly to wikipedia.
For example: buffalo buffalo buffalo !w
Only if you are a good netizen and using DDG ;)
Also, it works at the start too: "!w buffalo buffalo"
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at least some of this has to be because people use other search engines
Google search doesn't actually return useful material anymore
I tried kagi a while back and liked it so much I subscribe now. Google messed up the one thing they ever did right.
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So what the new business model is?
- Steal content from creators
- Train AI model using that content
- Sell this content to users as original
When creators go out of business and there's nothing to steal, how will this business continue?
Yes. Also combined with:
- replace all entry level jobs with AI
- run out of experienced people because nobody new can learn the skills required
- ???
- profit
But you see, for a brief moment, we made the shareholders very rich, and that was a beautiful moment totally worth everything.
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They can't see past their next set of financial statements. And the government wants those content creators to fail so they can control all information.
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I thought this was wild, that no way it could have dropped THAT much: hell, I still search for things and didn't rely on LLMs.
Then I remembered I switched my default engines to Duck Duck Go, and Startpage,
A LOT of people out there just read whatever tho google AI tells them on their search. They've been trained that the answer is always the 1st non-ad link on Google. And now the thing at the top of a Google search is their LLM answer.
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Who uses Google in this day and age? They haven't had good results for a decade or so.
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The first thing I do when searching google is to scroll past that AI shit they put at the top and look for a valid link to a valid website.
DDG lets you just turn off the AI crap.
The only thing I miss moving everything to DDG is that it doesn't have reviews for local businesses.
For local specific search that DDG just misses like those reviews and open hours you can throw the ol shebang in your search, !g, and it will search in Google for you
Unfortunately, most of the first page of results is often AI slop at this point...
Do yourself a favor and don't use Google at all
Here are alternatives
- Brave Search or DuckDuckGo They do have similar AI features but you can disable them.
- Or, Just use StartPage, It's basically shows you Google results but without any if Google's bloat nor their tracking.
edit; stupif typ0
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I'm preaching to the choir here, but for those who don't know
https://www.qwant.com/ (France)
https://www.ecosia.org/ (German)
Both of the above are currently in partnership as well.
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Steal it. Wrap it up. Give it away. The perfect crime by google.
I switched to Bing since Google blocked my VPN provider. I guess I'm part of the reason. Also, their search results suck balls with sponsored links all over the main page
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No amount of bad reports or low profitability will convince these people AI is not the end-all-be-all they think it is.
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