this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/47107360

Google is making its Search more centred around AI, turning it into a conversation.

Besides being a worse experience, the websites from which it sources its information are losing all traffic and recognition.

Recommend a list of alternatives:

  • Kagi - Paid but better experience than Google
  • Ecosia - Similar experience while supporting a good cause
  • Qwant - Increasingly unique results and building a EU-first index
  • DuckDuckGo - Privacy-focused search, but quality of results may vary

More options: https://purchasewithpurpose.io/category/search-engine/

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[–] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 100 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

Google Search has long since diminished from it's peak. 15 years ago we used to play a "game" by describing something as vaguely or strangely as possible and would be entertained to find it still on the first page of search results.

SEO and paid ranking caused a steady decline in Google search performance, and LLMs are the kill shot.

Indexing and ranking were already a solved problem, and conventional algorithms accomplished it much better than LLMs do. Unfortunately, LLMs need to find uses to justify investment, so now they must be used for any task that they can be used for, even if its worse than the solutions that we already had.

[–] _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 41 points 1 week ago

even if its worse than the solutions that we already had.

Like Gemini replacing Assistant. Holy shit, what a dumpster fire.

[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The other factor is companies, interests, paying the Google and their ilk to not include things in search results. And only include what they choose as an alternative.

Then you might have different interests gaming the search results to bury something they don't like.

[–] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is only amplified by LLMs

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[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

To be clear, Google's declining performance was caused by Google's endorsement of (bad) SEO, paid ranking, and building a monopoly. It intentionally destroyed itself.

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[–] db2@lemmy.world 42 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Google search as I know it shit the bed over a decade ago.

[–] WaxRhetorical@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Yeah, it's so tiring. Search for something, entire first page is useless aggregator sites, containing nothing about the actual topic other than keywords. Waste of time

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[–] melfie@lemmy.zip 35 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I wouldn’t know because I mainly use DuckDuckGo and haven’t had a reason to use Google in a long time.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 week ago (3 children)

DuckDuckGo is just Microslop Bing with a different front-end.

[–] melfie@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 week ago

Yeah, whatever bias and censorship Micro$lop’s search index has, except supposedly without the tracking. It’s a step up from Google and Bing, but not the perfect solution.

[–] QueenFern@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago (15 children)
[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 8 points 1 week ago

If you live in Europe, the French search engine Qwant is great.

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[–] Infernal_pizza@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Isn't every alternative search engine just bing or google in the background?

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[–] mrnngglry@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 week ago (2 children)

SearXNG. I will never understand why it doesn’t get used more. It is so easy to set up.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 week ago (5 children)

are you aware of any instances that have lasted longer than a few months?

[–] mrnngglry@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I have it set up on my own home server. Before that, I had it set up on individual PCs. It's super easy. I guess you mean public instances. I've never used one because it is so easy to set up for yourself.

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[–] JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca 28 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Ugh, damn post title. I went through the whole article looking for the alternatives before realizing the title of the article says nothing about alternatives.

[–] GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Didnt bother with the article but

https://noai.duckduckgo.com/ Is an option

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 15 points 2 weeks ago

It's gone to shit since Bing jacked up the price of API calls

[–] FallenWalnut@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Sorry, it was in the post body. Will update post to make this clearer.

[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

google being useful for search has been over for at least a decade

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[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Ecosia

Startpage

DDG

Qwant

Brave Search

Even Yandex actually doesnt suck, if you're cool to use it.

Anyone still using Google needs to be in a home.

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[–] M33@piefed.world 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)
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[–] snooggums@piefed.world 13 points 1 week ago

If I wanted a conversation I wouldn't be using a search engine to get answers.

[–] sturmblast@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] osanna@lemmy.vg 6 points 1 week ago

Just when you thought it couldn’t get even worse…. Google disappoints yet again. Maybe this will be the push people need to start using alts

[–] TheLastOfHisName@piefed.social 11 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Kagi and Startpage are my go-to search engines these days.
I have a paid Kagi account and feel it is very much worth the investment.

[–] Photonic@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What makes it worth it to you over something like Ecosia?

Also, I’m on the fence about startpage. They were Dutch but were bought by an American advertising company.

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 4 points 1 week ago

Qwant is French and they've been partnering with Ecosia to build a European index.

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[–] tb_@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

I do not like the vibes of Startpage's owner, System1.

If you're using Startpage because it uses google on the back-end, Ecosia does much the same nowadays (you can toggle between that and bing).

[–] ObsidianZed@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Too much AI with Kagi.

[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I degoogled as a Covid project. Mostly it just made me feel a little bit better... and then GenAI hit. Hopefully I'll go my whole life without ever having used Gemini. And hopefully, if they ingested any of my pre-pandemic emails, photos, docs, etc to train with, pulling it out of cold storage will at least have cost them extra time and money.

[–] hot_mocha_decaf@lemmy.cafe 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I haven't used Google search since 2008, when I starting using Linux and Duckduckgo was the default search engine for Firefox.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh, how Firefox changed...

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Firefox always used Google as their default search engine, since Google pays a lot of money for that privilege.

Edit: some Linux distros used to change that default while they were shipping a non-branded fork of Firefox.

[–] underThunder@thelemmy.club 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Big business is the enemy.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Capitalism sucks:

  • Private property fetishism (erodes the commons)
  • Free market fundamentalism (prioritizes the freedoms of the biggest asset holders over the rest)
  • Accumulationism (incentivizes hoarding far beyond where most people would have liked to stop hoarding if the system didn't demand it)
  • Consolidationism leading into economic royalism (mergers leading to monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, a two-tiered "justice" system, rules for thee but not for me)
  • Transactionalism (no sense of society or priciples, but instead a system of backscratching where things only get done for their exchange value and for no other reason)
[–] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago

Eu-first index, you say? I might wanna check that out!

[–] jenings@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Been a kagi subscriber for about a year now. Right when they wer implementing ai overview. It’s been a very refreshing way to internet

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

is that as profitable as search?

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It's a bubble, so yes, until it bursts, it's more profitable. And the CEOs want to bonus themselves; they don't care about the medium run.

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