this post was submitted on 23 May 2024

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Using Google whilst Duck Duck Go is down. How long has Google been this bad? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

167 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So ddg is down, so I visit Google. It's been some years.

I just can't believe how poor it's results are, and how it's trying to suggest things it think I might also want (and failing miserably).

I just assumed ddg would be the lesser, but I use it for privacy. Turns out I'm wrong.

How long has Google been this bad?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The last few months have especially been bad.

I love when I search for a movie: New Life (2024) it'll give me IMDB results. I hate IMDB so I change my search to: New Life (2024) TMDB Google will give me the TMDB result as the first result and IMDB as the second result but it also has the did you mean "New Life (2024) IMDB" as an alternative search option. Makes me wonder if Amazon (which owns IMDB) is paying Google to push IMDB. Makes me feel like Google is trying to gaslight me.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

It might be my localization, but it doesn't seem that bad to me, and I generally use duckduckgo. But forced localization is enough.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

I‘m using searx.be most of the time. Safari wont allow it so I got confronted with ddg being down today. Still only use google if something is unfindable (mostly niche computer stuff).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

A couple years ago I began getting frustrated. Last year I started to first go to Bing, google as failsafe. Now I gave up on everything so might as well go with Ecosia. When I NEED something, I'll go with bing/bing's chatGPT.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Can confirm. I struggled to remember the name of the ancient website vampirefreaks after the concept came up in conversation and out of the big search engines only Bing's flavor of chatGPT could tell me what I was looking for.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

I use 4get.ca

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

I don't see much AI stuff on Google yet but most searches there now give me only video results for some reason, with no way to opt out of them and get text results. It DDG fails me I just give up now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I use !g if I'm searching for local stores around me but that's pretty much all google search can do well. Oh and images but ddg images are good in most cases.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Always.

I think SearXNG is best.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Startpage (has Google search results) or Google with private browsing haven't given me the new AI suggestions so far

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

It's only been about a year really, but the Enshittification was logarithmic and got twice as bad every day

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I went to StartPage personally.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

That's just a proxy for google. Same terrible results.

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