Google Search sucks, AI is everywhere: what should you use?

Web search engines are in a precarious state, with major players like Google and Bing declining in quality due to increasing ads, AI-generated content, and SEO manipulation. This trend often leads to inaccurate or unhelpful search results, prompting users to append terms like "Reddit" to queries to find human-generated content.

To combat this, users can implement custom search engine shortcuts to filter out AI summaries and ads on Google, or explore alternative search engines. While some alternatives, like DuckDuckGo and Eosia, offer more privacy and customization, they often rely on Bing or Google for their results. Others, like Brave Search and Mojeek, boast independent indexes but may deliver less satisfactory results. Federated meta-search engines and paid options exist, but each comes with its own set of trade-offs regarding privacy, control, and result quality.

Ultimately, finding a satisfactory search experience involves balancing privacy concerns, the quality of results, and the prevalence of AI-generated content. The speaker's current preference is DuckDuckGo, but acknowledges that user experience can vary significantly based on language, search type, and personal priorities.

• Major search engines like Google and Bing are deteriorating due to an abundance of sponsored links, ads, and AI-generated content, leading to less accurate and helpful results.
• To improve Google searches, users can create custom search engine shortcuts to remove AI results and ads, defaulting to the web tab.
• Alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo and Eosia offer more privacy and customization but often rely on Bing or Google for their results.
• Search engines with independent indexes, such as Brave Search and Mojeek, exist but may provide less consistently good results.
• Finding the right search engine involves a trade-off between privacy, AI-generated content, and the overall quality of search results, with user experience varying based on language and search type.

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The Worsening State of Major Search Engines [00:11]

• Major search providers like Google and Bing are experiencing a decline in quality.
• This decline is characterized by an increasing number of sponsored links, ads, and product promotions.
• Accuracy is suffering, with pre-made snippets often not directly relevant to the search query.
• AI summaries, while appearing to save time, require extensive fact-checking due to AI's current unreliability.
• Consumer reviews are compromised by review farms, and SEO hacking has turned search result optimization into a competitive industry.
• The proliferation of AI-generated content, often verbose and uninformative, further degrades search quality.
• A common workaround is appending "Reddit" to queries to find human-written content, though its quality can be debated.

The current state of major search engines is marked by a significant drop in quality, driven by an overwhelming presence of ads and the rise of unreliable AI-generated content. This makes finding accurate information increasingly difficult, pushing users to seek out human-written content on platforms like Reddit.

The pre-made snippets that they display often don't refer to what you're looking for. They're generally related to it, but they're not exact when you're searching for specific things.

Improving Google Search and Exploring Alternatives [04:25]

• To combat the decline in search results, tips for improving Google searches and exploring alternatives are presented.
• Google has begun incorporating AI results at the top of searches, which can contain inaccuracies and misinformation.
• A method to mitigate this is creating a custom search engine shortcut in web browsers.
• This shortcut can be configured to remove AI results and default to the web tab, filtering out extraneous "crap" like ads.
• The specific URLs for creating these custom search engines are available in the video description for Firefox and Chromium-based browsers.
• Making this custom engine the default can significantly clean up the search experience.

This section offers practical solutions for users dissatisfied with current search engine results, focusing on refining the Google experience and introducing the concept of exploring alternatives. The custom search engine shortcut is highlighted as a key method to reclaim a more functional search interface.

If you still want to use Google search because everything else is for your use case not as good, you can at least create a search shortcut that removes a bunch of crap Google ads.

Alternative Search Engines: DuckDuckGo and Eosia [05:51]

• DuckDuckGo is presented as a viable alternative with a focus on user customization and privacy.
• Users can disable AI features, ads, and instant answers, and even modify the stylesheet.
• A key feature of DuckDuckGo is "bangs" (e.g., !r for Reddit, !g for Google), allowing users to quickly search other platforms.
• DuckDuckGo primarily uses Bing search APIs, raising potential future concerns due to Microsoft's API changes.
• The potential of a new open web index in the EU is mentioned as a possible future alternative.
• Eosia is another alternative that also utilizes Bing but is working towards its own index.
• Eosia offers a "hashtags" system similar to bangs and partners with organizations to plant trees with ad revenue.
• While Eosia was liked, DuckDuckGo is suggested to provide better overall results for the speaker.

The discussion introduces DuckDuckGo and Eosia as primary alternatives to mainstream search engines, emphasizing their privacy features and unique functionalities like "bangs." However, their reliance on Bing's API presents a potential challenge for future sustainability.

On top of that, you have bangs, as in you can type an exclamation point and a string of letters and you get results from another search engine or website.

Federated and Independent Search Engines: Search (CIRSNG) and Brave Search [08:21]

• Search (CIRSNG) is a federated meta-search engine that decentralizes search by hosting through multiple instances.
• Users can self-host Search for ultimate control over their data and search engine choices, or use public instances, requiring trust in the host.
• Search aggregates results from various engines including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Quant, stripping private data from queries sent to these providers.
• Brave Search is highlighted as a rare engine with its own independent index, not relying on Google or Bing.
• Brave Search has AI features that can be disabled and aims to provide results solely from its own index, including for images and videos.
• The speaker notes that Brave Search results can be more "hit or miss" compared to DuckDuckGo.
• A key advantage of Brave Search is its complete independence from Google or Bing for all search queries.

This section explores more advanced search options, including the decentralized nature of federated engines like Search (CIRSNG) and the independent indexing capabilities of Brave Search, offering users greater control and privacy.

The problem is if you only send all of those queries to Google, Bing, and others through one server with one user, they will very easily know that it's one single person making all these queries, and they might start tailoring your results to you or have access to some information about your searches.

Paid and Privacy-Focused Alternatives: Kagi, Mojeek, and Others [11:24]

• Paid search engines like Kagi exist, offering a premium search experience, though user feedback is mixed, with some praising it and others citing questionable decisions and reliance on Yandex.
• Mojeek is a UK-based search engine with its own index, focusing on privacy by not using Bing or Google, thus avoiding their biases.
• Mojeek aims to eliminate tracking and pre-made summaries, but its results can be inconsistent due to its smaller scale.
• Start Page, formerly using Google results with enhanced privacy, has been acquired by an ad tech company, raising privacy concerns despite founder oversight.
• Quant, a French search engine, experienced issues with GDPR compliance and data transmission to Microsoft via Bing, though it has since been rectified.
• These alternatives present a spectrum of trade-offs, from potential privacy risks to inconsistent result quality.

This segment delves into specialized search engines, including paid options and those with independent indexes, highlighting their unique features and potential drawbacks, such as privacy concerns or variability in search result accuracy.

There's no tracking. You can get rid of the pre-made summaries from Wikipedia, and it's reasonably fast. Results, though, can be hit or miss because it's a smaller project.

The Search Engine Dilemma: Quality vs. Privacy vs. AI [14:43]

• The core dilemma for users is choosing between improving existing search engines like Google, using alternatives that may be beholden to larger providers, or opting for independent but potentially less effective engines.
• Google's results are susceptible to gaming by websites, and its focus on AI suggests unlikely improvements, as current AI models tend to hallucinate more.
• Search engines that use results from Google or Bing but re-rank them offer a middle ground, potentially yielding better results than native Google or Bing.
• However, these engines are still limited by what the primary providers deem worthy of indexing.
• Engines with their own indexes, like Brave or Mojeek, offer independence but may not match the quality of results from major players.
• The ideal search tool requires balancing privacy, the prevalence of AI-generated answers, and the quality of results.
• User experience is highly dependent on the language of search and the specific type of information being sought.

The concluding thoughts emphasize the ongoing challenge of finding a perfect search engine, weighing the declining quality and AI integration of major players against the trade-offs of privacy and result accuracy in alternative options. The speaker's personal preference has shifted to DuckDuckGo, acknowledging that this choice may evolve.

Search engines are that they're tools and you have to find the balance that you want to strike between privacy, AI predigested answers, and results quality.