Author Topic: Search machines, what to use?  (Read 8895 times)

Joop

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Search machines, what to use?
« on: September 13, 2020, 04:21:04 pm »
In the past weeks Google has changed some things, if this is policy I don't know. But I get sick in setting up cookies each time I visit Google. Today you get a screen with that you have to choose for following, cookies and alike. Not to mention that advertisements cookies are that numerous that about every one  don't even think to set them all on off. So you agree in the end because you get sick of it. For the last years Google search results are just bull, first advertisements, then the same but with only some search words in total different content, then things which look a like and may be after hundreds of pages with bullshit you can see some things which corresponds to the actual search. So I was not that happy last years, but this does closes for me the door. Internet should be free, but it isn't.

But, now what? I ended with DuckDuckGO and Qwant. Are there other search machines which are privacy friendly?

I don't know what influence this will have on testing and translating Java programs, not to mention setting up my space in English (translation Dutch to English) or in Dutch (translation English to Dutch). Currently I'm busy with something in Spanish, a language I don't speak or read. Have to see. Did test Google translation today. It still present itself as usual, no cooky shit yet. I also picked up Bing Microsoft translator. But both are evil in terms of privacy when it comes to search engine.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2020, 05:17:51 pm by Joop »

Ben Hjelt

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Re: Search machines, what to use?
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2020, 08:10:32 pm »
Yes, YouTube has started to bug me daily to read this, accept that. http://www.tonvid.com is a more streamlined interface for the videos and https://startpage.com lets you do regular google searches via proxy, might be better...

Mathias

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Re: Search machines, what to use?
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2020, 09:33:29 pm »
I've switched to DuckDuckGo also, quite a while ago. I've tested numerous others, but DuckDuckGo appears to find "relevant" things almost as good as Google.
Usually "what you look for" is one of the two topmost search results at the duck.

In rare cases, I need to visit Google, but I usually only do that if the duck does not find what I am looking for.
In 99% DuckDuckGo shows exactly what I look for, and helps me find exactly what cures a problem.. also at work.

So.. why not use it? : )

Joop

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Re: Search machines, what to use?
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2020, 09:47:57 pm »
Thanks @Mathias, I have updated my links and kicked out Google and replaced it with DuckDuckGo. Also tried it with search strings. It does find a lot, but not my pages  :-\ and you don't have to cut through dozen advertisements or so. Also tried a search of which I know that there are only 5 to 10 pages which matches the search string. I got three in DDG and not the 500.000+ like with Google. Also tried the translators from Google and Microsoft, both still go direct to translate and don't give the page with cookies, for as long as it stays this way.

Sandra Asja Eickel

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Re: Search machines, what to use?
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2020, 12:14:51 am »
I tried DuckDuckGo, and as long as searching for english content, the results were not as goot as Google but still okay. Searching for german content usually did not give any useful results, so I returned to Google (about two and a half year ago).

Both StartPage.com and Ecosia might be good alternatives to enhance privacy, StartPage uses Google in an indirect way, Ecosia is the default search engine in FireFox on Linux Mint and tries to compensate for energy used by searching.

For translations, have a look at DeepL.com - while still not perfect, the result is usually superior compared to those of other machine translators.

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

Dave Yeo

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Re: Search machines, what to use?
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2020, 12:44:33 am »
Duckduckgo has improved a lot since I first started using it. It's the default for SeaMonkey and the SeaMonkey project gets a bit of money from them.
Thing with duckduckgo is the bangs, want to search Wikipedia, add !w to your search, !g for Google, !gtdutch to translate to Dutch, privately using Google. See https://duckduckgo.com/bang