I am really starting to hate Google. I had been using Bing, and the whole MSN experience is incredibly annoying. So, I swithed back to Google. Now, when I put in a search, not only are the top 4 results ads, but so are the bottom 4 results on that page.
What are the search engines you use? Do you use different ones if you are searching for a product to buy instead of just looking for information?
Best Search Engines to use
- pacman000
- Posts: 1141
- Joined: December 30th, 2015, 9:04 am
Re: Best Search Engines to use
Restricted to decent search engines:
I used to use ScrubTheWeb a lot, but they closed last year and became a directory. If you're interested in directories, I'd suggest Curlie, a successor to DMOZ.
I use Gigablast fairly often, but usually the results are only OK. The engine has links to Google, Bing, and Yandex tho, so you can re-run the query on those engines. Gigablast does have fairly good support for advanced queries, which Google seems to have given up on.
Yandex is a Russian search engine with an English version. Popular in Russia; they're actually beating Google over there.
Qwant is a French search engine. There's an English version. It has a unique layout, but the results are kinda like Google 10-15 years ago; nice, but you'll see a ton of product listings.
Exalead's still online, but the results aren't as relevant as I'd like, and once you get past the 1st page you'll see a lot of dead links.
NorthernLight re-launched a public version of their engine, but it only searches through recent business news articles; it's meant as a tech demo.
Mojeek is a British search engine. Not great, but not bad. Returns a lot of list articles.
Entireweb is actually pretty good. Not sure if they're a metasearch engine now, but the results seem unique.
DuckDuckGo - Use them on my phone. Usually mirrors Bing or Google. They do have a crawler tho, so some results may be unique.
Thunderstone's Web Site Catalog is cool if you just want to find sites, but it has a lot of dead links and parked domains.
Apexoo is also cool, if you need sites instead of pages. Index is a bit small; usually only returns 50 sites.
Yippie seems to have their own index now. Has a conservative bias, but nice clustering.
iSeek mixes their results with Google's and provides clustering. I like their clustering a bit more that Yippie's.
I used to use ScrubTheWeb a lot, but they closed last year and became a directory. If you're interested in directories, I'd suggest Curlie, a successor to DMOZ.
I use Gigablast fairly often, but usually the results are only OK. The engine has links to Google, Bing, and Yandex tho, so you can re-run the query on those engines. Gigablast does have fairly good support for advanced queries, which Google seems to have given up on.
Yandex is a Russian search engine with an English version. Popular in Russia; they're actually beating Google over there.
Qwant is a French search engine. There's an English version. It has a unique layout, but the results are kinda like Google 10-15 years ago; nice, but you'll see a ton of product listings.
Exalead's still online, but the results aren't as relevant as I'd like, and once you get past the 1st page you'll see a lot of dead links.
NorthernLight re-launched a public version of their engine, but it only searches through recent business news articles; it's meant as a tech demo.
Mojeek is a British search engine. Not great, but not bad. Returns a lot of list articles.
Entireweb is actually pretty good. Not sure if they're a metasearch engine now, but the results seem unique.
DuckDuckGo - Use them on my phone. Usually mirrors Bing or Google. They do have a crawler tho, so some results may be unique.
Thunderstone's Web Site Catalog is cool if you just want to find sites, but it has a lot of dead links and parked domains.
Apexoo is also cool, if you need sites instead of pages. Index is a bit small; usually only returns 50 sites.
Yippie seems to have their own index now. Has a conservative bias, but nice clustering.
iSeek mixes their results with Google's and provides clustering. I like their clustering a bit more that Yippie's.
- scotland
- Posts: 2561
- Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm
Re: Best Search Engines to use
Thanks -
I think DuckDuckGo came up in the earlier discussion when Google removed the 'save image' button. I gave it a shot, and at least it didn't come up with sponsored ads in place of search results. I know Google has to make money, but that is over the top.
I think DuckDuckGo came up in the earlier discussion when Google removed the 'save image' button. I gave it a shot, and at least it didn't come up with sponsored ads in place of search results. I know Google has to make money, but that is over the top.
- pacman000
- Posts: 1141
- Joined: December 30th, 2015, 9:04 am
Re: Best Search Engines to use
Yeah, I sometimes wish that Goto was a failure, & that any search engine which tried ads wound up in the same boat as OpenText's engine.
Don't mind ads per se, but the bid for placement stuff seems wrong somehow. A yearly site check fee would be better, IMO, if checked sites & regular sites were separated.
Other engines:
Bubblehunt - Returns lists of sites added/checked by volunteers.
Goto - They're back, as a volunteer edited engine like Bubblehunt. First two or three results ate user-edited lists, followed by regular web results. Not sure if they buy the regular web results, or if they've set up an actual crawler-based search engine.
AllTheInternet - Seems to have decent, unique results. Portal-like layout. Gives you the option of searching their engine or a few other major sites/engines. Also operates SearchALot, not to be confused with Search.alot, which is a browser hijacker.
Yooip - Public demo of an open source search engine. 1st page looks good, but 2nd page repeats most of the 1st page's results, as does the 3rd & 4th page.
Don't mind ads per se, but the bid for placement stuff seems wrong somehow. A yearly site check fee would be better, IMO, if checked sites & regular sites were separated.
Other engines:
Bubblehunt - Returns lists of sites added/checked by volunteers.
Goto - They're back, as a volunteer edited engine like Bubblehunt. First two or three results ate user-edited lists, followed by regular web results. Not sure if they buy the regular web results, or if they've set up an actual crawler-based search engine.
AllTheInternet - Seems to have decent, unique results. Portal-like layout. Gives you the option of searching their engine or a few other major sites/engines. Also operates SearchALot, not to be confused with Search.alot, which is a browser hijacker.
Yooip - Public demo of an open source search engine. 1st page looks good, but 2nd page repeats most of the 1st page's results, as does the 3rd & 4th page.
- Stalvern
- Posts: 1952
- Joined: June 18th, 2016, 7:15 pm
Re: Best Search Engines to use
It's been years since I last saw a sponsored Google result. Just get Adblock Plus.
I just gave Entireweb a go, and it makes me sad. It's the first engine I've seen that actually rivals Google's results, but the interface is awful - it drags its feet fetching pointless (and illegible) thumbnails for each site returned, and the wait only gets me ten results at a time. It's like wading through mud. If the site just let me scroll through a hundred text-only results per page, they'd have something really impressive, but it goes out of its way to be barely usable.
Wouldn't touch Yandex with a ten-proxy pole.
I just gave Entireweb a go, and it makes me sad. It's the first engine I've seen that actually rivals Google's results, but the interface is awful - it drags its feet fetching pointless (and illegible) thumbnails for each site returned, and the wait only gets me ten results at a time. It's like wading through mud. If the site just let me scroll through a hundred text-only results per page, they'd have something really impressive, but it goes out of its way to be barely usable.
Wouldn't touch Yandex with a ten-proxy pole.
- Atarifever
- Posts: 461
- Joined: April 12th, 2015, 5:55 am
Re: Best Search Engines to use
I refuse to use google any more than I have to, as they have been pretty clearly making censorship and promotion choices based on a range of things (politics, money, etc.). I will not search on a site that is essentially knowingly keeping results back despite them likely being what I want to find. Not being political (well I am, but not here), just being a discerning consumer of information. It's like going to a library that removes and places items in their database based on anything other than what is actually available in the stacks. If you have a copy of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," I don't care if you don't like it, I want to know it's there if I'm looking for it.
I've been using DuckDuckgo mainly, but also sometimes Bing for images (watch out though; Bing's default images are more often than not NSFW no matter what you look up unless you use safesearch filter).
I've been using DuckDuckgo mainly, but also sometimes Bing for images (watch out though; Bing's default images are more often than not NSFW no matter what you look up unless you use safesearch filter).