Im getting so sick and tired of Google rn. Reddit has become a better place to search for questions than Google has. I need a new search engine :(

No, I don’t want Kagi either, I dont wanna to pay a subscription for a search engine just to get what I want. I tried all the others, Ecosia, Duckduckgo, etc… But they usually fall flat cus they just don’t have some of the quirks that Google has that I like, specifically when it comes to image search.

I want a browser I can easily adjust to, which is why I want it to function/look like google. Yes, I did try searching for it, but I’m not getting anything reliable (how typical)

Also, if anyone can recommend me a browser better than Opera GX that’s JUST as customizable as GX is, that’d be great too.

*Please don’t bully me over using GX. Everyone keeps yapping about it being Chinese Spyware or something or other, but the level of customization I can do with it is a total godsend. I don’t know any other browsers that let me have interactive wallpapers or keyboard sounds, let alone the silly screen filters! I like having complete personalization over my stuff, its fun for me.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
    10·
    1 month ago

    DDG is like what Google used to be.

    I like the simplicity always find what I’m looking for, so I haven’t tried many other deep cuts.

    I’m curious about their new assist tool too.

    its answers are sourced by curated credible sources bouncing off of Wikipedia entries, so corroborative fact-finding, which I like.

    • Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      12 days ago

      ok, after using DDG for 3-4 weeks, its come to my attention that this search engine is kinda fucking annoying to use ;m;

      First thing, it doesn’t correct the misspellings for me like google does, I have to fix them myself. idrk if theres a fix for that

      second thing, it is now ALSO giving me heavily unrelated shit to what im trying to search. Im trynna look up things like “How to make Kava taste good” and its giving me articles on just what Kava is. or I’m looking up, “Why do all the good people die first and bad people live on” and its giving me articles on what personality traits live the longest. It’s some how WORSE than google, cus now I have to do even more tweaking in my searches just to get it to fucking stop, it wouldnt even tell me if the word “Am” is a Pronoun or not, I had to scroll through a bunch of unrelated shit before giving up and using google. What the fuck :(

      Thirdly, there is no third complaint really- im just getting really really sick and tired of DDG giving me random/unrelated shit. maybe im not doin something right, idk, but its frustrating as fuck.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        12 days ago

        do you mean it doesn’t correct your misspellings as you type or it doesn’t correct your search terms?

        mine corrects my search terms if i type colude instead of collude or something,

        " is am a pronoun" gives me “am is not a pronoun”.

        there are a few results under that mentioning that “am” should be used with pronouns, heavily implying that it isn’t a pronoun itself.

        that’s a tricky search because “am” is such a small and common word, I get more direct results (after the direct answer from duckassist) If I put quotes around am, like

        is “am” a pronoun?

        sorry it didn’t work out for you, are you trying other browsers or reverting to the googs?

    • Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.worldOP
      32·
      1 month ago

      Tbh… DDG in my opinion gives me way too much porn when it comes to image searching. And sure I could just turn on safe search, but I dont wanna do that and fear it may hide some images that aren’t porn that I’d maybe wanna see

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
        6·
        1 month ago

        that-how? duckduckgo gives you more porn than other search engines? what are you searching for?

        are you searching terms on the edge or something?

        I don’t have safe search on, use it. search function daily and I’ve never had an accidental porn return, or at least so rarely that I can’t remember it happening.

        this is a phenomenon worth looking into.

          • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            1 month ago

            huh, I’m surprised DDG can’t help you there, I find their image search pretty accurate.

            also, I just checked, there are lots of shirtless fictional men. are you searching for one in particular that nobody has made appropriate fan art for you yet?

            best of luck.

      • palordrolap@fedia.io
        3·
        1 month ago

        How often has that happened though? That is, how often have you toggled the safe search to see if you still see the results you want?

        You’d really be better off if you left safe search on and only turned it off when you haven’t seen what you’re expecting to see.

        That is, unless your subconscious is really hoping for something salacious, you haven’t caught onto that and you’re having to find other justifications why you don’t want to turn it on. You might want to look inward a bit there. (I’ll save you the counter-analysis and say that occasionally I’m curious enough to turn it off and see what’s there. Often to disappointment. Usually though, it stays on “moderate”.)

        • Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.worldOP
          24·
          1 month ago

          Read my name and quickly the idea that I wanna see it becomes invalid 😭

          The reason why I get porn is because im often searching up art and characters.

          I have a heavy interest in hunky characters and bara lookin dudes. I like searching for art of characters that fit that or just artists that draw em, shirtless dudes is one of the things I- might be looking for👉👈 but that doesnt mean I wanna see full blown genitals 🤢

          My reason for wanting to keep safe search off is cus I dont want it omitting whole images or links. I would very much like to just have the NSFW stuff blurred but still show up. Cus sometimes the bot just gets it wrong and the image deadass isnt porn nor is it that bad.

          The sad part about that is searching for stuff like this gets you porn, but it’s not that frequent it comes up so I stay relatively fine. on DDG it seems to pop up way more frequently than on google. And GOD FORBID I try searching for “Humanoid pokemon/anthro pokemon”

          :(

          In conclusion. I wanna see cute dudes and sometimes cute girls for reference on stuff, but I dont wanna see straighten up nsfw or only see nsfw. DDG Seems to prioritize the spicy stuff.

          • palordrolap@fedia.io
            3·
            1 month ago

            I saw the name, but I couldn’t tell whether it was meant to be ironic. And even so, there’s the implication that you might be interested in inspecting them, which could explain your reasoning.

            Nonetheless, I think you should turn safe search on, and only turn it off when you don’t see what you want. There’s even the halfway option of “moderate” as I mentioned. Give that a try.