#Internet search engines

[thoughtportal]

search engines and abortion

https://jessica.substack.com/

[in-sufficientdata]

ok but how am i supposed to stop using google when the alternatives suck so bad

i switched to qwant but if i do a search and then click on the news tab it tells me there's no news items (this is usually when i'm 100% certain there is bc i just searched a news story i heard on the radio). i can't search by date there (i use that feature of google's search constantly). there is a drop-down where you can choose freshness but it's not very exact

i had a similar experience trying to use duck duck go

i basically end up re-running all my searches on google anyway and that's really not helpful for what i'm trying to do here

[lokislonelylady]

Tumblr has gotten way less enjoyable. Way more algorithm suggested content popping up in my feed and 80% of that not anything I am or have ever been into interacting with. I am overdue for updating the app even for fesr of new changes yet change it has and for the worst. I liked when people I followed or who followed me or things I definitely was into were what popped up in my feed. Now it is like Tumblr doesn't know me anymore? Little setting tweaks I try to make to change the experience just don't help either. Follow more new people? Don't follow new people? Or just don't expect much. I remember when Google and other search engines weren't sanitized, weaponized to just sell you things, and back when the internet was fun, free, democratizing, and informative.

[busylazy]

When Googling is not enough...

I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.

[i-dont-watch-movies-or-tv]

I feel like the age of having a "burner email" is gone. Out of curiosity,

[queen-street-news]

Directories USA

Directories “Your Online Directory score is based on the number of places in which your listings are present and contain consistent information such as business name, and phone number.” There are a number of sites that will auto update or sync your info to theses directories. Here’s a list Synced as of AUG 2023 America’s Best…

[incognitopolls]

Answer based on what you typically use, even if you sometimes have to use something else.

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[prokopetz]

The funniest possible outcome of all these Google antitrust disclosures re: deceptively re-writing people's search queries in order to maximise Google's ad revenue would be if the corporations that paid for those ads decide that Google has been defrauding them the whole time. The ultimate "bite each other's dicks off" scenario.

[warakami-vaporwave]

Windows 94!

[destielmemenews]

DOJ is considering Breaking up Google for violating antitrust law, especially for its monopoly on online search

Other options would include forcing Google to share data with its rivals or paying large fines.

source 1

source 2

source 3

[dailypokemoncrochet]

What if there's a Japanese me out there crocheting all the Pokemon and they're farther along than me and I would never know or find them because idk how to search that or where they'd even post or if they're even posting.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Google search really has been taken over by low-quality SEO spam, according to a new, year-long study by German researchers. The researchers, from Leipzig University, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, set out to answer the question "Is Google Getting Worse?" by studying search results for 7,392 product-review terms across Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo over the course of a year.  They found that, overall, "higher-ranked pages are on average more optimized, more monetized with affiliate marketing, and they show signs of lower text quality ...  we find that only a small portion of product reviews on the web uses affiliate marketing, but the majority of all search results do."  They also found that spam sites are in a constant war with Google over the rankings, and that spam sites will regularly find ways to game the system, rise to the top of Google's rankings, and then will be knocked down. "SEO is a constant battle and we see repeated patterns of review spam entering and leaving the results as search engines and SEO engineers take turns adjusting their parameters," they wrote.

[...]

The researchers warn that this rankings war is likely to get much worse with the advent of AI-generated spam, and that it genuinely threatens the future utility of search engines: "the line between benign content and spam in the form of content and link farms becomes increasingly blurry—a situation that will surely worsen in the wake of generative AI. We conclude that dynamic adversarial spam in the form of low-quality, mass-produced commercial content deserves more attention."

[para-dweller]

Privacy is in a terrible situation right now.

Especially on the internet. You know, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter(X), Apple, and even Tumblr all collect information about you to show you scarily accurate advertisements among other things.

Why does this matter?

This isn't about hiding information, it's about protecting information. You wouldn't let me know your entire life, your diary, all your photos and text messages, so why do you let random companies do the same?

Privacy Guides - Why Privacy Matters

So how do you stop this?

You can't. But you can lessen this. So I'm going to show you a non-exhaustive list of what I've used and what I know of that may help your privacy. I would recommend you go to privacyguides.org after if you want a better explanation. I'm just here to show you cool things.

Disclaimer

I am not a library on this sort of information and this is what I choose to use. I may be incorrect and you may have differing opinions. Also, this may be too extreme for everybody. Use what works for you. Again, I would recommend you go to privacyguides.org after you read this for a more in-depth and better explanation.

VPNs

You know what a VPN is. You've seen the sponsorships. VPNs are one of the most popular privacy tools, but know that they are not the only tool that you'd need. This list is evidence of that.

I would recommend Proton VPN, Mullvad, and IVPN for most users, as they provide a far better amount of privacy and features than VPNs such as Nord VPN, Surfshark, and Express VPN. If you really want unlimited devices go with Windscribe.

I personally use Proton VPN due to the fact that I use their other services.

Browsers

You should probably know that Google Chrome is basically spyware at this point. The issue here is, almost all Chromium-based browsers are. These include, Edge, Opera, and Vivaldi. The only real exception would be Brave, but they've got leadership issues, which may not be a deal breaker for you.

So what do you use? A Firefox-based browser. This obviously includes Firefox, but most Firefox-based browsers are privacy-focused. The browsers that I recommend are Firefox, Librewolf, the Mullvad Browser, Waterfox, and Brave.

There is also the Tor Browser, but that is a whole 'nother can of worms that I will not go into. All I will say is that if you are in a high-risk environment(such as an oppressive regime) or you need absolutely no one to know that you searched that one thing, you may want to use the browser for anonymity.

I use Firefox as my main browser, with Brave as the browser that I use if something doesn't work on Firefox. I also use Tor if it is a high-risk situation.

Search Engines

Google, Bing, and Yahoo! all log your searches, you need alternatives. This is relatively straight-forward.

I recommend, Qwant, DuckDuckGo, SearXNG, Brave Search, and Startpage. Both Qwant and DuckDuckGo are fairly similar as they both use Bing search results and say that they don't track you. SearXNG is more complex, and I will not go into detail here. If you really want Google search results, use Startpage. And if you don't want your search to rely on Bing or Google, use Brave Search.

I use Qwant, mainly just cause its European.

Passwords

Passwords are the keys to your digital life. And most of the time they're not that great. You know the drill here, make passwords like this- XmaE7PEj2hq9ed$w - but you can't really remember them. For that you need a password manager.

I recommend Bitwarden, Proton Pass, and KeepassXC. Bitwarden and Proton Pass are more convenient, but you are trusting a single entity, reputable ones, but still. KeepassXC isn't as convienent, but you have near full control over what happens to it.

I use Proton Pass, as I use other Proton services.

Email

Email is identity, you almost always use your email in order to register for sites like Tumblr, and sites that aren't anything like Tumblr. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! all use your email inbox in order to gain more information about you for their companies. There are quite a few email providers, but I've only used and recommend two.

I recommend Proton Mail and Tuta Mail. Both are good email providers, although Proton would be better if you use other Proton services, like I do.

I use both Proton Mail and Tuta Mail for separate email addresses.

Aliases

Email Aliases are also very important for private email. Your email is your name, if you want to private, you'd go under pseudonyms. That's what email aliases are.

I recommend and have used Simplelogin and Firefox Relay. Email providers like Proton and Tuta also give you aliases when you pay. I don't know how well these work, but I assume that they work the Same as Simplelogin and Firefox Relay.

I use Simplelogin.

Devices/OSes

Phones

Now let's turn up the extremity to 11 as we look at your devices. Phone-wise, avoid Apple, they say that they care about your privacy, but they don't. Apple is better than Google, but I'd only recommend using an iPhone if you already have one, and it still has support left. If that's the case, then follow privacy guides like this one by Techlore(His channel is also really great for privacy guides). You should probably use a Google Pixel. Sounds weird as it's owned by GOOGLE, one of the companies that we don't want to be tracked by, but if we go with the Pixels we can use custom ROMs.

Most ROMs exist for your privacy, they are based on the Android Open Source Project(AOSP) which means they can run most of your favourite Android apps without messing them up with Google. In order to run most of your apps however, you're going to need some way of running Google Play Services. This is a backbone black-box that Google forces most of your apps to use in order to function. CalyxOS and LineageOS with MicroG both have MicroG, an open source implementation of Google Play Services. GrapheneOS just straight up uses Google Play Services but sandboxes it so that it can't get its tentacles all up in your phone.

I recommend going like this:

You have a modern-ish Google Pixel phone, go with GrapheneOS.

You don't have a Google Pixel, but your phone is still supported by CalyxOS, go with CalyxOS.

Your phone isn't supported by either of these but still is supported by LineageOS with MicroG, go with LineageOS.

Your phone isn't supported by any of these, you can do as much degoogling as you can.

Techlore also has a fantastic guide on Android Privacy.

Desktops/Laptops

Apple isn't actually that bad here, its better than Windows at least. But Linux is KING when it comes to privacy and security. There is definitely a learning curve here. Pin the terminal, you're going to use it a LOT. Also be aware that on Linux you won't have every single app that you're used to. If you don't really want that hassle, just go with Mac.

Linux distros that I recommend(for beginners) are: Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, and Elementary OS.

I use Ubuntu as it's the only one that I could get working on my computer.

Other Pieces of Advice

Use an Ad-blocker! Ads are terrible for privacy as companies can get their trackers in completely unrelated sites via their ads. I use and recommend uBlock Origin.

Don't use any personally identifying information online. Don't use your real name, a picture of you, your voice. The less you give to the internet, the more private you are.

Mix and Match! Explore what works for you. You might be okay with changing OSes but you might be a bit too reliant on GMail. That's fine! Just use what works.

Again, please go to privacyguides.org after this. This did not even scratch the surface but I hope this was useful to you in some way.

[richdadpoor]

Timer, Dice, Pac-Man—11 Tricks You Can Do With Google Search

Getting Google to search the web for you is all well and good, but there’s a ton of functionality available through the simple-looking box on the world’s most-visited website. You could call these bonus features, or Easter eggs, or hidden tricks—but they’re all useful in your own way, and can be launched by heading to google.com. Google’s Antitrust Case Is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to…

[copperbadge]

Sam, what search engine do you use? Recently I have decided to stop using Google, due to privacy concerns and the honestly terrible forced answers to regular search terms… for 99% of my searches, I want a catalog of results that allows me to become informed.

Any suggestions on search engines for doing proper long tail keyword searching these days?

Honestly, when I use one at all, I still use Google. I've given up on expecting privacy or the idea that it's effective to try and ensure it on a personal level -- it needs legislation at this point. People say it's gotten measurably shittier but I haven't really noticed a drop in quality, which is not to Google's credit since it's never actually been great. It is, however, convenient and generally gives me what I want. Perhaps part of it is I grew up without it so when search engines started to be a thing I was like, already prepared with critical thinking skills to weed out the trash. Just because I haven't noticed a drop in quality because I've always ignored the increasingly numerous sponsored/garbage results doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

I don't actually use search engines at all that often -- in my work, I'm using databases or specific sites, and in my personal life I usually know a specific site I'd consult first (ie, Serious Eats for recipes, Wiktionary for language research, Jstor or NIH for scholarship, etc). So I mostly use Google these days as an index -- finding a specific page on a site other than Google that I'm already aware of.

I believe a lot of people recommend duckduckgo, mainly because the privacy function is so much stronger, but I can't speak to its robustness in terms of giving you what you're looking for.

Readership, feel free to chime in with whatever you're using and why! Remember to comment or reblog, as I don't post asks sent in response to other asks.

[xerserise]

Google without AI or ads? Yes!

Google added a new search filter that strips out the ads, the AI, and everything except the basic search results.

The filter is: &udm=14

You can type in the new filter into the google search bar, or you can use the website someone made that basically does that part for you (turn it into your default search engine perhaps).

The website is udm14.com (use .org instead, if you want to filter out NSFW results) .

A search filter is text you add to a search to customize the results, such as using -site:twitter.com to remove all search results with a twitter URL or filetype:pdf if you only want links to PDF files.