Search engines: Time to take a stand

OlgaA

Today, it’s more important than ever to be aware of our choices online. The tools and services we use and support shape the future of the Internet.

Click here to see the full blog post

ozoratsubasa

Many and interesting options

LonM

I really like the idea of keeping to an EU-first search engine, but (perhaps as a consequence of that very requirement) I find that the results from qwant are less useful than those from DDG.

mossman

@lonm said in Search engines: Time to take a stand:

I really like the idea of keeping to an EU-first search engine, but (perhaps as a consequence of that very requirement) I find that the results from qwant are less useful than those from DDG.

I found a similar experience, plus I really don't like the look of the Qwant interface compared with dark-themed DuckDuckGo. (I hate the recent too-much-white trend in software and web pages!)

But this article reminds me again that I should try to use Qwant more often, just to keep an open mind and help keep their profile alive

LonM

@mossman I agree. Its one of those paradoxes you see in business. You want to help the underdog thrive by supporting them, but if the service they offer isn't up to scratch, you can't. And they only way they can improve the service if by getting more users.

Rainspa

I've been using Oscobo on and off. Like DuckDuckGo search results are taken from Bing which was my main search engine anyway. It focuses on the UK I think ( I really should refresh my memory) whereas DDG focuses on the US, and besides I feel I should try and support something from the UK anyway.
I should add it's another privacy focused search provider.

mossman

@rainspa said in Search engines: Time to take a stand:

I've been using Oscobo on and off. Like DuckDuckGo search results are taken from Bing which was my main search engine anyway. It focuses on the UK I think ( I really should refresh my memory) whereas DDG focuses on the US, and besides I feel I should try and support something from the UK anyway.
I should add it's another privacy focused search provider.

Ecosia uses Bing (which is why I don't use Ecosia). DuckDuckGo is a search engine of its own.

Rainspa

@mossman
I wondered why I would of thought that, just took a look to find where I got that idea, possibly from here ghacks, anyway I'll take your word for it, that article is over two years old.

Para-Noid

Wonderful and informative article. I have DuckDuckGo as my default search engine. It was both easy and tough to give up Google. My issue with Google is they thrive on user metadata and are not Vivaldi partners. The easy part was ticking a couple of boxes in the settings. DuckDuckGo is a V partner and using DDG helps support the Vivaldi Team. Last time I checked they like to eat once in a while. Anytime I can show my support and loyalty to Vivaldi I will do so.

Catweazle

For default I use Startpage, but sometimes I switch to Search Encrypt and Gibiru
Swisscows also a nice private search enine, with AI and semantic search

JoelYoung

Now I have a battle within myself to figure out what to do. I've been using Ecosia for a long time, so I can do my part in planting trees. But a previous post says Ecosia uses the Bing engine. Not a fan of that, so I guess I'll leave the tree planting up to someone else.

Qwant seems like a good idea, except apparently its results aren't quite as good.

DuckDuckGo... with its privacy and non-biased philosophy; plus they're a V partner, which helps the V team keep things alive... I like that idea. A lot. So typing all this out has helped me see the answer. I'm glad I could help myself. LOL

Pesala

@joelyoung

See Ecosia Privacy

greybeard

I tend to use most of the provided search engines at various times.
For important work/research I use Bing. It provides me with the most relevant results.
I use Ecosia somewhat but living in Canada not all results are relevant to my search topic.
My favourite is Startpage as it uses the google search syntax with which I have become familiar. Yes, I have found the same syntax in other engines give zero or odd results.
I also much like DDG, Qwant, and even Startpage's partner Ixquick although that one does not use google and I may have to rephrase my search.
Priority is the ability to do my searches using POST. Not all engines support it.
Next is the ability to customize the results by geographic location and to have some control over where my searches go through (as Ixquick/Startpage do: closest / fastest, EU servers or US servers)
There are others too many to mention so I stick to those though I am not opposed to suggestions of new engines and am always happy to to find good alternatives to the mainstream search engines.
Never do I use google anymore. Too many results and many/most irrelevant as it sucks up my personal info.

luetage

@greybeard I used to use startpage a lot, but duckduckgo won me over a few years back. Nowadays I only go back to startpage when I want to restrict the search to one year. Both engines let you restrict by day/week/month but by year can be very useful for rather uncommon searches, which would show no relevant results for month. I wished duckduckgo would introduce this too.

izk666

Looking at the title, I thought you had enabled the POST search option like in old Opera (an extra text box to include the POST data).

But as I can see there is no news
Will it soon be available?

Pesala

@izk666 Take a look in Settings, Search. The POST option is already available.

QuHno

@pesala There are two problems:

Not all engines support POST (trivial, if they don't support it you are out of luck)
Vivaldi does not show "Add as search engine" when right clicking into the search field of most exclusively POST capable engines.

The latter can be overcome with a bookmarklet:
https://quhno.vivaldi.net/2017/10/20/how-to-add-search-engines-that-use-post-to-vivaldi/

JoelYoung

I've just spent a few minutes searching (in DDG), but can't find out what searching with POST means. Can someone explain it? What is the advantage?

Ornorm

@joelyoung I think you can get the answer by reading what's in the link provided in Pesala's answer.

Some search engines allow users to use the POST method for search. This method ensures that websites won’t know the search terms you use to find their site and the search isn’t logged on web servers or stored in History. If you have enabled “Use POST method”, but search doesn’t come up with any results, this means that the search engine of your choice doesn’t support the POST method. If you still want to use this search engine, you should disable “Use POST method”.

Vladimyr

if it is so important, why don't show the icon of selected searh engine in the search field? it would make the choice more evident.
this feature was requested almost a year ago, and has not added yet. is it so difficult to implement?
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/25249/show-selected-search-engine-icon-in-the-search-field