Are you looking for a cleaner, AI-free search experience?

[makeithappen5634@privacysafe.social]

@nixCraft Duckduckgo IS NOT a search engine.

It's just a Bing Front-end.

It's still feeding every search to Microsoft

[tjunker@mastodon.social]

@makeithappen5634 @nixCraft
Finally someone who gets it.
Rather use Ecosia or Qwant which now both created their own European search index.
Ecosia also have optional AI search.

[c_merriweather@social.linux.pizza]

@nixCraft Don't forget to add the Privacy Badger extension.
#EFF

[wiredfire@mstdn.social]

@mjdxp @nixCraft I’d assume for the choice. AI exists and, until that sucker of a bubble bursts, is here for a while. DDG at least offer a way to use some LLMs with a level of privacy otherwise unavailable. Not everyone has the “no, nay, never!” take on AI (understandable as it is) so offering a way to limit how training matter is given to them and to not have it linked to yourself has merit.

[wiredfire@mstdn.social]

@tjunker @makeithappen5634 @nixCraft anecdotally I also find Ecosia faster to load and respond than DDG. More consistently so anyway.

[ellaw@exquisite.social]

@nixCraft it was without slop on main address, until those mfs made it default for everyone without asking

[lxskllr@mastodon.world]

@nixCraft

I'll also note that if you allow cookies from duckduckgo, you can turn AI off in the settings, as well as tweak a bunch of other things, and the settings will persist until the cookie is deleted.

Saves you from having to use a weird url on your own machine. On a foreign computer, noai is probably the easiest way to go.

[gboussard@mamot.fr]

@tjunker @makeithappen5634 @nixCraft
Qwant has been a just a Bing Front-end.
Has it changed?

[esanchis@mastodon.world]

@tjunker @makeithappen5634 @nixCraft AFAIK they say that explicitly in their website. The point of duckduckgo is not having an index, the point is not storing your search data so you can search anonymously.

[kris@mas.to]

@nixCraft https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/

[raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie]

@mjdxp @nixCraft
I switched from DuckDuckGo to Qwant. No AI & European.

I don't miss Google or DuckDuckGo (MS Bing based?)

[raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie]

@wiredfire @mjdxp @nixCraft
I tried DDG AI on stuff I knew the answers to. Unlike real search it produced plausible rubbish, or possibly answers for a different question.

[raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie]

@tjunker @makeithappen5634 @nixCraft
I tried Ecosia (before they had AI) and thought Qwant was a little better.

I wonder what AltaVista would be like if DEC had survived and Google never existed? Intel got their ARM stuff and resold most to Marvell.

Why no boolean operators? Amazon is worst as there is no way I know to stop them doing a fuzzy search on each word separately and adding irrelevant sponsored results. Easier to find items on Amazon via Qwant!

[makeithappen5634@privacysafe.social]

@esanchis @tjunker @nixCraft have you even tough or are you just stpiting their lie back ?

They cannot do that with their own index ?

They lie to hide the fact they prefer to sell you to microsoft.

Don't you remember they did not block microsoft tracker some time ago ?

[schtaks@infosec.exchange]

@nixCraft I've been going to mojeek more and more... Microsoft is hiding simple results from DDG. DDG feels like windows search sometimes.

[bedifferent@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft And for those fast typers who don't want other things to drain our thinking, just use settings and turn off AI and search assist etc.

Before you decide to download it, check to ensure it doesn't mess up your system. I'm never trusting the download again.

[makeithappen5634@privacysafe.social]

@raymaccarthy @tjunker @nixCraft yeah onestly i did not understand why they did not all build their engine around presearch / yacy / and the european index.

a decentralized one would bing many hobyinst that would add their server as scanning bot, that could even become bigger than google's one.

edit: and of course since i'm for sovereinty any country could 'just' join.

but no they all want their own to sell it after because money.

money ruin every tech.

[kajer@infosec.exchange]

@schtaks @nixCraft

DDG is Bing based. The more you know.

[wiredfire@mstdn.social]

@raymaccarthy @mjdxp @nixCraft It’s still just chatgpt or mistral or Claude etc depending on the model you chose. But my point is if someone’s going to use AI they’re better off using DDG’s gateway than going direct.

It’s still drivel, of course, but choice remains a good thing and giving people a route to play with LLMs without signing their digital life away isn’t a terrible idea.

[raulmv93@tkz.one]

@nixCraft Waterfox is better