Which search engine do you use normally?

I had a strange result in my Duck duck go search today and I've realised that my search has been censored. Of course the search engines are all slightly different but I wondered whether Permies have a favourite, so I made my first apple poll!



Please tell me what you particularly like about your search engine choice! If you use one not listed please let us know which one you use and why.

I normally use duck duck go. I use it because it normally gives useful results within a few pages and I believe it doesn't track me.

However today I searched for "escharotic herbs" and got no results. Strangely that seems to be working for me now, so maybe it was just a glitch...or maybe it was because I then tried google (only wikipedia) and Brave, which gave lots and it's now in my browser history.

I use Swisscows.

Google, Firefox, Edge...

But mostly Google.

Startpage and DuckDuckGo.  Dropped Google a decade ago since I value privacy and didn't want to be tracked and given biased results.

I use Duck Duck Go as my default and switch to Google on the rare occasion that I'm unsatisfied with the results.

My first I’d Duck. Yahoo is secondary.

Up until recently I've used one called MetaGer. Now I'm trying out something called Mojeek. I have used one called Qwant in the past.

Personally, I wipe out and/or don't store cookies, search assist, and all other sorts of web browser data as much as I know how, simply on principle. So finding a search engine that doesn't track or record my search data is also a priority. I've hopped around a lot, and have left Yahoo behind several years ago. I completely avoid all Google products as much as I can.

Duckduck as first, then dogpile, cause I like dogs!!

Peace

Ecosia for me.
I also used Qwant and Startpage for a while.
Have a nice day,

In reality I mostly use Google. But I also use Mojeek. I've heard good things about Yandex but I have barely used it.

I use Google because that is how my computer is set up.

I know there are other search engines, though Google works for me so why bother with the others?

Anne Miller wrote:Google works for me so why bother with the others?

I respect anyone who doesn't care about these factors, but if you're actually asking 'why?' then: https://spreadprivacy.com/is-duckduckgo-a-good-search-engine/ (I'm not personally a privacy freak, I just actively dislike Google.)

I use DuckDuckGo on both phone (in Brave browser) and laptop (in Firefox).

Duck - but some things don't work correctly, in duck, so I'll occasionally use chrome, for those, because it's what was preloaded.

Wow! Lots of search engines there I've never heard of - I'll have to give them a try.
I know there's at least one that gives a charity donation for each search - I think it was everyclick - which seems to have now changed names to give as you live. There are some others on this page that I may have a look at too.

I got sick of not finding what I know is there.    I switched to metager.org     ( NOTE do not use metager.com ) that is a malware site.     With this site I find more of what they have been hiding.

But I also jump onto reddit and do a search on their engine as for what ever reason google does not pull info from there.

On backup I use Yelp or Qwant.

Found this on another site....

Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them.
Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information.
Keep a list of sites you never heard of.
http://www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
http://www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
http://www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
http://www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
http://www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free
https://annas-archive.org/ - Anna's Archive preserves books, papers, comics, magazines, and more, by bringing these materials from various shadow libraries, official libraries, and other collections together in one place. All this data is preserved forever by making it easy to duplicate it in bulk — using torrents — resulting in many copies around the world. Some shadow libraries already do this themselves (e.g. Sci-Hub, Library Genesis), while Anna’s Archive “liberates” other libraries that don’t offer bulk distribution (e.g. Z-Library) or aren’t shadow libraries at all (e.g. Internet Archive, DuXiu).

https://z-library.se/ - Access to millions of books

https://openlibrary.org/ - Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive

https://sci-hub.se/ - Sci-Hub started as a tool for providing quick access to articles from scientific journals - such articles are the main medium of communication of scientific knowledge today. Now Sci-Hub has grown a database of 88,343,822 research articles and books - freely accessible for anyone to read and download

I used to use DuckDuck, but over time I came to suspect that it was profiling me.  This might be a great big 'Duh!' for a lot of people, but I had hope that it was genuinely private.  I use Ecosia instead now, since I don't expect privacy any more, and Ecosia somehow uses searches to fund tree planting.  I avoid Google, Yandex, and other big engines as much as possible.

Last vote in apple poll was on August 29, 2024