Google's new AI search results promotes sites pushing malware, scams

If you believe Google is the most reliable, you can still use it in a private way via :

Startpage

Startpage is a private search engine known for serving Google and Bing search results. One of Startpage's unique features is the Anonymous View, which puts forth efforts to standardize user activity to make it more difficult to be uniquely identified. The feature can be useful for hiding some network and browser properties.

https://www.startpage.com/

SearxNG https://searxng.org/

SearXNG is an open-source, self-hostable, metasearch engine, aggregating the results of other search engines while not storing any information itself.

There's plenty of public instances too https://searx.space/

Whoogle https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search

Get Google search results, but without any ads, JavaScript, AMP links, cookies, or IP address tracking. Easily deployable in one click as a Docker app, and customizable with a single config file.

Couple of public instances too. Basically SearxNG with ONLY google as a source. https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search#public-instances

I'm pretty sure Startpage got sold out to an ad company. I think the best option is just to use SearxNG
- They do, but it's still separated from that business. At worse, it's more an ethical issue of using something that an Ad company own, exactly like using Google with or without proxies services. https://web.archive.org/web/20210118031008/https://blog.privacytools.io/relisting-startpage/
Thank you

Any alternative to Google Alerts?

Long time looking for such service which monitors web for keywords.

I've been happy with Kagi. It's for-pay but it's quality to me.

It’s just a bit too expensive imo.
- For something I use constantly every day $10 is nothing
  
  but for something you never use $10 is quite a lot.
  
  $5/mo. If that's too pricey deal with shit 🤷‍♂️.
  
  Be nice, this isn't the app next door.
- That's fair. Like the sibling comment says, it's worth it for me. But not everyone has the ability to pay.
- The old saying goes: if you don't pay for the product, you are the product.
  
  Yeah, still too expensive tho
  
  Yeah, but $10 a month is a lot. And the $5 plan for only 300 searches a month goes by really fast if you have to do any kind of research for anything. Even for trying to figure out what brand of something to buy, you blow through those searches super quick.
  
  Yup, I'd pay maybe $1. That's way more than the ad revenue search engines get, so it's a more than reasonable price to pay.
  
  maybe $1. That's way more than the ad revenue search engines get
  
  And where did you come up with this info? Source? Do you really think that search engine ad revenue (for the engine itself, not what one measly advertiser gets back) tops out at "way below" $1 per person?
  
  In 2023, Google's ad search revenue amounted to 175 billion U.S. dollars.
  
  Google's ad search revenue amounted to 175 billion
  
  That includes way more than search:
  
  That “search and other” figure includes revenue generated on Google’s search properties, along with ads on other Google-owned properties like Gmail, Maps and the Google Play app store.
  
  I couldn't find a reliable source for a breakdown, so I'll use Microsoft Bing statistics instead:
  
  $12.2B ad revenue in 2023
  
  ~1.3 billion unique visitors globally as of March 2023
  
  $9.66 Bing revenue per user
  
  That last number is really close to my $1/month figure.
  
  So something around $1/month range seems like a fair replacement for ad revenue for a search engine.
  
  As you said, it's hard to calculate an exact number. But if you think your search results are only worth $1/month, that's up to you to determine. I know if I was an ad-broker or profiler, I'd pay more than $1/month/person as that's valuable information, in my opinion. And Kagi is worth much more than that to me. Proton theorizes:
  
  If Google Search market share is also 90% in the US, that’s over 274 million people using Google, and the company earns $393 per year from each of them.
  
  Ref: https://proton.me/blog/what-is-your-data-worth
  
  They've said that it costs them 1.5 cents to answer a search query, so that dollar a month wouldn't go very far. I probably incidentally run 40-50 searches a day between my devices... $10 is a value that works for me.
  
  I've been using Kagi as my default since June, and don't plan on stopping anytime soon.
  
  That sounds unlikely... But they're a small search provider with a small customer base, so costs will be high maintaining all the infrastructure needed.
  
  As I linked elsewhere, Bing makes ~$10 per user per year. That's really close to my $1/month figure. And that's revenue, which doesn't count advertiser acquisition costs and whatnot.
  
  I'm unwilling to pay $5/month for limited searches, but I'm willing to pay for search if it's reasonable.
  
  That doesn't mean the price has to be the same as a fucking Netflix subscription.
  
  Which service uses more computation? Streaming HQ video to millions of people, or running a search engine. Keep in mind, search engines have existed since basically before the internet in some form or another...
  
  Well, it costs Kagi about 1.5 cents to answer a search query. Consider how many searches you use in a month to determine how much they're making off you at $10/mo.
  
  I'm lucky enough to be in a position to be able to pay for products that I use, instead of relying on freemium, or ad-supported, or data-mined, or pirated products. That hasn't always been the case for me, so I don't judge anyone for making a different choice.
  
  If they're taking in less than 1000 searches of money for 3000 searches, the numbers still aren't adding up. Someone is misinformed or the product still.
Same here, happy Kagi subscriber 👍

DDG queries can't really be written the same way you'd write one in Google if you're after effective results. It'll take some time to get used to it, tbh I was using DDG alongside Google until I fully switched.

I keep reading that Google’s search results are supposedly much better than DDG’s when my experience is the exact opposite. I don’t even live in an English speaking country and the results I get are a vast improvement over Google’s. It has been this way for me since at least last year, but in my experience DDG had caught up to Google in 2022 already. It could also be that Google has just deteriorated a lot in the last two years (which it definitely has, judging by all the bad publicity they’ve been getting for it), so I’d urge you to give DDG/Brave Search/Bing/Kagi/SearxNG another chance.

I’d also recommend setting an alternative of your choice as the default everywhere and to use it exclusively for like a week before making up your mind about that specific product!
Do you mean grammar-wise, or special operators?
- Grammar, I've noticed I get much better results if I word things more directly instead of like a question
  
  I've never used questions to search, I use keywords, even with Google. So if I want info on the Russia-Ukraine war, I'll search "Russia-Ukraine War". If I want casualty numbers, I'll add "casualties" there, probably at the start if I want to emphasize it. Searching "how many people have died in the ukraine war" has never been something I do.
  
  That said, natural language search may be more useful with AI tools though, but for regular search, I've always used keyword-dense queries, roughly ordered by priority in the query (important terms first).
- They probably mean grammar, since most Google operators do work. If there's a specific difference in search syntax (other than bangs) though, I'd love to know what I've been missing.

I use mainly Andisearch, also has AI but relay on reliable sources (and one of the most privat search out there), Startpage and Whoogle use the old Google search engine, Mojeek also is fine, Groot search has a own search index, Etools a Suiss made Metasearch engine and some more. In the Vivaldi Forum you'll find the, maybe, most complete list of search engines you can try.

Whoa! You weren't kidding about that list of search engines. What's with the Germans and search engines? They sure do have a lot.
- The author of th Thread is German, he icluded because of this also searches in German media sites or dictionaries. But if you want a German search engine, you can use MetaGer, not bad at all. Good privacy but freemium, in the free version there are ads, (context, anonymous) and limited on 2 search engines.
  
  Hah! I in fact have been using metager for a couple of months now as my defult search engine, since I saw it recommended in Lemmy those 2 months ago. Works great. Tried kagi before but I just don't search that much and paying per search makes much more sense to me.

Nobody will tell you, but keep the best for the last I guess – Yandex. Russian, results reminiscent of old 2005 open internet, has no regard for US DMCA laws or western Atlantic Council censorship laws. Undisputed and incomparable for web results, reverse image search, videos, anything. Preferably use a VPN though to get more search results variety and for extra privacy. Its privacy is better than Google/Bing, but worse than DDG, but DDG has high censorship.

Do Russia have some fuck up law like USA that the government can access the data of Russian's companies?
- Probably but I have seen Yandex Disk being one of the main choices among pirate uploaders and game level creators, among other kinds of unusual people. You can use Yandex searching without an account, so I doubt it matters. And Yandex does not go around trying to track you outside of few Russian internet websites, from my observations, and its tracking is mostly limited to ad clicks and basic website counter.
  
  You can use Yandex with any VPN and enjoy its fruits with zero consequences.
  
  Thanks for the tip. I'm gonna give it a try
Yeah, Yandex censors quite a bit, at least since the war with Ukraine:

Yandex, the leading search engine for Russian speakers, has meanwhile tightened its censorship, removing independent media from its search results.

And Yandex altered results to trash Navalny.

But at least they have a banner when they're likely censoring stuff.

So I absolutely wouldn't trust it for anything related to politics or Russian interests. Maybe it's okay from a privacy and non-Russian interest perspective though, idk, but by default I don't trust it because Russia is so repressive against media in its country.

As for DuckDuckGo, here's what I found:

censorship of Russian "propaganda" annoys far-right activists

another source citing DDG combating Russian disinformation

potential censorship or reduction in rank for legally-questionable content

That said, it seems as if it's just reducing the search ranking for Russian "disinformation," not removing results. That's annoying, but not as troublesome as Yandex or Google. BTW, I found all of those links through DDG, so it's not like they're trying to hide anything.
- Yandex censors quite a bit](https://rsf.org/en/russian-journalism-chained-kremlin-s-systemic-censorship-0
  
  You posted content from RSF, which is a CIA propaganda outlet.
  
  The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) supports RSF’s reporting of media freedom violations throughout the world and especially in Asia.
  
  Yandex altered results to trash Navalny](
  
  Navalny was trashed by about 70% of Russian citizens in a mayor election. His approval rate was absymal, and he was only propped up by western countries to create infighting in Russia. This has been NATO's motive ever since it was formed.
  
  So I absolutely wouldn't trust it for anything related to politics or Russian interests. Maybe it's okay from a privacy and non-Russian interest perspective though, idk, but by default I don't trust it because Russia is so repressive against media in its country.
  
  You trust Google a lot, looking at your trust in Graphene and other stuff. Are you a western liberal by any chance? Because there is zero reason to trust western media that loves Zionism and genocide. On the other hand, west keeps lying about Russia and China doing genocides.
  
  Also, if you are posting western propaganda outlets like NYT, The Verge et al, I should also be able to post Russian sources on western propaganda. But you will claim it is "Kremlin" stuff and claim it is invalid, like you are saying about Yandex.
  
  That said, it seems as if it's just reducing the search ranking for Russian "disinformation," not removing results.
  
  DDG uses Bing's index and shows western propaganda results.
  
  You are trying to poke the bear, and seem more suited to Reddit than Lemmy.
  
  You posted content from RSF, which is a CIA propaganda outlet.
  
  You're going to need to provide some proof of that.
  
  Here's the media bias factcheck for RSF, it's rated as mostly neutral, high factual reporting, and no failed fact checks in the last 5 years.
  
  Navalny...
  
  I don't see how that has anything to do with Yandex altering search results.
  
  You trust Google a lot
  
  Not sure what you mean...
  
  I trust Google's security at least as much as other phone manufacturers in the space, I don't trust their data collection. They're an ad company, so they stand to gain by having people trust their security, provided that doesn't interfere with their data collection.
  
  Are you a western liberal by any chance?
  
  Depends on your definition of liberal. I do live in the west, and I do ascribe in Liberalism, but not in what most people today call "liberal."
  
  zero reason to trust western media that loves Zionism and genocide
  
  That's pretty charged language.
  
  For your information, I try to get my news from a variety of sources. Some of my favorites are:
  
  Al Jazeera - especially on world events, not so much on middle-east events (esp. the Israel-Palestine war)
  
  The Guardian
  
  Reuters
  
  Reason
  
  NPR
  
  BBC
  
  Wall Street Journal
  
  I'm not a fan of Zionism, but I also dislike Hamas. I'd like to see Israel get sanctioned for war crimes, but also Hamas eliminated as a terrorist organization.
  
  I should also be able to post Russian sources on western propaganda
  
  Sure, by all means, as long as their source their claims. However, there is lots of documentation of Russia interfering with its media that I'm going to be a bit more skeptical vs a more peer-reviewed publication, especially while Russia is involved in an unpopular war.
  
  I'm not saying other countries don't interfere with their media as well, and things like wikileaks are important to help keep all governments honest.
  
  You are trying to poke the bear
  
  Are you essentially saying you're a Russian shill? I just think that's an interesting choice of words, considering the context.
  
  I'm not sure what you're trying to insinuate with Reddit vs Lemmy, please elaborate.
I would not use anything in Russia as Russia isn't a democracy and does not allow freedom of the press
- ...while protecting the president of Freedom of The Press, as he stays away from US gov dictatorship assassins?
  
  The world is truly bazaar

Kagi. It's better here.

Not sure who's down voting you, its quite a valid option that, unlike google, is actually innovating in interesting ways.