without stupid adblockblock https://archive.is/whZuI
also i wouldn’t install their extension just for that, you can edit your default search engine to anu address you want in the settings
browser extensions are a huge privacy risk and i wouldn’t trust ddg with my data because of their Microsoft deal, not to block their trackers (they reverted that part after the backlash) in the ddg browser and to only show msn under their news tab in regular ddg
Brave Search is really good too and you can also turn off the AI search aspect.
It really sucks that to escape Google, the second in line that is “more private” is DDG and based in the US. So that means they have to abide to the american privacy invading “patriot” laws etc.
I wish we had a good European alternative that doesn’t have to comply to the NSA when they want direct access to logs while giving you a gag order…
And I know searx-ng but last time I tried it wasn’t good enough imo.
Qwant is French. Not a privacy search engine and looks like it features AI now. Kagi is really good, but US based and expensive. I think most of Europe does intelligence sharing with the US (“14 eyes” or something like that)?
Yeah I used Qwant for 2/3 years. It wasn’t really good either. I was constantly calling google through Qwant so it became pointless.
I think Switzerland would probably be a good place to host a search engine.
why are you thinking switzerland?
If I recall correctly they have strong privacy laws and the fact that they are not part of the EU can also help with some extra sovereignty I guess.
It’s also where protonmail is hosted.
There is ecosia, although they also use the US indexes
Qwant and Kagi are also pretty solid search engines if people are looking for more alternatives.
I find that “no AI” DDG still has way more AI-generated images than default Google, sadly. And there’s no
before:operator as an alternative to filter them out, either.I still go to Google for image search unfortunately.
you can go even further with the duck. https://lite.duckduckgo.com/lite/
for even more easier easy lazy access: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/
What makes me suspect them having an agenda behind all their self-marketing is the fact that this isn’t already the default page…
Or if your job wipes your browser preferences for whatever misguided security each time it closes and you end up on the default AI BS page at the start of each day.
Yeah, what’s with the auto-opt-in for features that cost them money? I’d think they’d prefer if nobody used the AI search, because they’d get their ad impressions with only server overhead, rather than that plus AI overhead. Clearly I’m wrong, but I can’t figure out why.
would be great if it could also not show links to ai generated content websites
Combo it with Ublock Origin and use their AI site blocklist.
I didn’t see a list like that in the Ublock Origin settings. Is it an importable list and do you have a link?
It’s built in the filters list, under Annoyances>Huge AI Blocklist. There’s two different ones (the larger “nuclear variant” might slow down search a bit).
I switched to MetaGer long ago. No AI bullshit, no trackers, no ads, you pay a pittance per search to cover the costs of your search. I started using it 8 months ago and i still haven’t used up the 10€ i charged my account with. They are run by a non-profit, and it’s FOSS under AGPL3.
Does it work as well as Google before it became absolute shit?
My only gripe is its not default. I use many different devices and to set it on each one is annoying.
Agreed, let me opt in, dont force me to opt out, especially on something that costs them money. Like what?
I’ve noticed that ddg is now way slower than a couple of weeks ago…
Searxng, a metasearch engine, and better, self hosted in a container. Easy, searches a stupid amount of engines, 100% private.
I’m sure the search engines log the IP, and with enough searches could be correlated back to you fairly easily even if you host it on a VPS? Unless it does some kind of mitigation I’m unaware of.
Not seeing any adblockblock, do you have all of the annoyances filters enabled in uBO?
