[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Are there valid Google Search alternatives?
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Ask HN: Are there valid Google Search alternatives?
Google Search is broken. I wanted a list of the most popular text
editors for writers. I searched "best mac text editors" and of
course all articles are about code editors, silly me. I then
searched "best mac text editors for writing" and Google just spits
out same results, a bunch of listicles about VScode vs VIM.
Completely ignoring the "for writing" part of my Search (not
excluding the term, just giving irrelevant results). It has become
so comically bad that I would be surprised there is not some cool
startup out there trying to reinvent a Search that just works. Any
hints?
Author : lnrd
Score : 9 points
Date : 2023-10-28 21:48 UTC (1 hours ago)
| hilbert42 wrote:
| I can't agree more, Google just doesn't cut it anymore, it's
| pretty terrible these days.
|
| As well as DuckDuckGo I use StartPage,
| https://www.startpage.com/, and Mojeek, https://www.mojeek.com/,
| they're not a universal panacea but they often find items that
| Google doesn't find. I'm surprised how good they can be given
| they're much smaller operations.
|
| The secret is to break the habit of using only one search engine.
| To save time I use multiple browsers with a different search
| engine as homepage on each. Moving between each is quick and
| easy.
|
| Using multiple browsers also reduces tracking/fingerprinting,
| etc.
| Unfrozen0688 wrote:
| >The secret is to break the habit of using only one search
| engine. To save time I use multiple browsers with a different
| search engine as homepage on each. Moving between each is quick
| and easy.
|
| As a tip, checkout DDG Bangs
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/bangs eg type "jazz music!yt" and it
| will do a youtube search, !s for startpage, !g for google etc
| lphillips0825 wrote:
| Kagi looks pretty good
| ctvo wrote:
| Pay for Kagi. It's worth it.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Gave it a try some time ago and it was at Bing's level in terms
| of the search quality. Even simple queries for something as
| trivial like (Windows) API function names came back with a
| _lot_ of noise and junk as a top result. Less trivial stuff was
| worse. I love the idea behind it, but it 's not a real
| alternative for Google, not yet.
| nvarsj wrote:
| Been using Kagi now for a couple months and overall find it
| better than G. G also returned lots of rubbish depending on
| the query. At least in Kagi I can blacklist obvious SEO spam
| sites and never see them again.
| elektor wrote:
| That's the beauty of Kagi, you can hide and downrank the
| noise and junk websites so that you only get the high-quality
| domains you're looking for.
| furyofantares wrote:
| I've been happily paying for kagi for over a year now.
| rc_mob wrote:
| duck duck go and kagi are the only 2 real options
|
| i pay the 10 for kagi and I'm happy with it. tons of ability to
| customize searches
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Marginalia, perhaps?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Not really trying to compete with google, more like trying to
| provide a minority report for the stuff you can't easily find
| elsewhere.
|
| Also still quite some algorithm jank to fix. Found this case
| the other day xD:
| https://search.marginalia.nu/search?query=java+island+site%3...
| Lazare wrote:
| Kagi is great if you're willing to pay. DuckDuckGo is...okay if
| you aren't.
| necroforest wrote:
| Maybe "best word processor for mac" is a better search for you?
| throwaway237289 wrote:
| I think that "for writing" is incredibly generic and a terrible
| search term. If you were talking to a human being about this, and
| you clarified that you weren't simply looking for text editors,
| but text editors "for writing", I would tell you that you hadn't
| clarified anything at all. Do you think one doesn't "write code"?
|
| You might as well had said "for typing". And even THAT might have
| implied voice vs keyboard.
| ximeng wrote:
| Yandex gave relevant results for me for your query
| Unfrozen0688 wrote:
| No need to pay for Kagi imo
|
| https://search.brave.com/
|
| + Own crawler!
|
| + Nice summary AI
|
| + Discussion section with Reddit/Spiceworks etc answers
|
| - Bangs work but not as good as ddg
|
| - crypto company, just feels shady
|
| - Ads
|
| https://www.startpage.com/
|
| + Proxied Google results but sometimes you need that
|
| - Owned by AD company
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/
|
| +Bing + own crawler
|
| +Long running private search
|
| +Bangs!! https://duckduckgo.com/bangs eg type "jazz music!yt" and
| it will do a youtube search, !s for startpage, !g for google etc
|
| -Relies on Bing
|
| -Ads but can be turned off
|
| https://you.com/ - Combined ChatGPT and web search
| cvalka wrote:
| Kagi is shit. Use kagi if you use godaddy. Startpage uses google.
| https://seirdy.one/posts/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-...
| contact9879 wrote:
| I used DuckDuckGo from 2018 until Brave Search came out. I know
| HN seems to be mixed on Brave Browser but their search has been
| great for me so far. And necroforest is right, you probably just
| need a more appropriate search query; "text editor" is almost
| universally understood as code editor nowadays.
| irrational wrote:
| I haven't used Google Search in so many years that I can't recall
| when I last used it. I've been using DuckDuckGo and it has always
| found what I'm looking for. Maybe I'm missing out on some
| results, but I have no way to know without double checking on
| Google, but I've always been satisfied with the results I've
| received and have seen no need to go looking elsewhere.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| I've used DDG for about 5 years and I literally haven't thought
| about it since I changed. Now I just ask the machine gods (GPT4)
| about most shit I would have googled. If I want citations I hook
| it up to academic search engines.
| ukd1 wrote:
| Kagi has been worth paying for myself.
| eslaught wrote:
| Just FYI, the direct answer to your question (about text editors)
| is Typora:
|
| https://typora.io/
| esafak wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
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(page generated 2023-10-28 23:00 UTC)