FallenWalnutYour guide to finding a new Search Engine service and supporting European companies!
cRazi_manI changed to Ecosia when I last saw this chart. It’s working really well and is my main search engine across all my devices now.
But now I’m considering moving to Mojeek if that’s better for privacy.
Ecosia is based in the EU and it’s working together with Qwant to build an European index. But Ecosia’s mission is planting trees, and in order to do that they need revenue, which comes from targeted advertising.
Søren Ladegaard@Scrollone @cRazi_man But I think it’s contextual advertising. If you search for “lawnmower” you get lawnmower ads.
I want to support an EU company and the eco mission, but I also want privacy. I used to use Brave but I want to move away from that and still avoid leaking my data to Google.
I think the difference between “targeted” and “contextual” is an important one to make re: privacy. “Targeted” means they’re tracking you and using your characteristics to customize the ads; “contextual” means they’re just showing ads related to the search term.
brave has ties to homophobic owners, and peter thiel. i wouldnt be surprised if brave starts incorporating palintr at some point.
Ecosia is a better balance between experience and independence. Mojeek sadly will be a hit in terms of quality of results.
I switched from duckduckgo to ecosia based off your graphic :)
cosmicrookieI wish Kagi was not American. I was pretty happy with it until America became a thread
Me too. Kagi is the best of them all, including Google.
The only downside? It’s an American company.
MeldrikAnother downside is that is costs $5 a month to use…
RexiosHow terrible that you have to pay for a product you use
No one wanting to pay for anything is what got us into this mess in the first place
I was thinking about the aspect of privacy. Not only do you need a user, you also have to give them your payment details.
And don’t get me started on their “300 searches a month”-bullshit. If I pay for 300 searches, I want my 300 searches. Regardless of how long it takes me to use it.
You can sign up to Kagi and pay anonymously, they state how to do it in their FAQ’s.
I was thinking about the aspect of privacy. Not only do you need a user, you also have to give them your payment details.
Kagi has established Privacy Pass which perfectly meets the need of balancing paid search with privacy. If you have a better fix I’m sure they’d love to hear about it on their feedback forum.
And don’t get me started on their “300 searches a month”-bullshit. If I pay for 300 searches, I want my 300 searches. Regardless of how long it takes me to use it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As a someone who averages >1000 searches/month, I burned through the 300/month tier pretty quickly. They’re kind enough to credit you if you don’t use their service in a given month, which is already uncommon in the subscription business model.
I’m okay with forsaking one avocado toast a month for a search engine that actually works, but if I don’t feel good about where my money goes then I’m signficantly less willing.
I like spending money on the things I use. The status of paying customer is an enviable position (minus the paying part).
Yacy. Self hosted p2p ( or local only ) search engine. Crawl the Web yourself.
What kind of storage space does it take up, and how good are the results?
Of course, it depends on how you set the crawler, i.e. how deep because of subdomains and how far links to other domains etc. are.
I crawl 71 pages: My index is currently 4,576,319 documents and occupies just under 14GB
The results depend on several factors. For example, whether you only use local or p2p. But then it also has a number of settings and you can also explicitly control what is responsible for the results down to the smallest detail. But I have to be honest and say that I haven’t dealt with this at all (especially since it’s a bit complex in some cases) because I want to expand my list of pages to crawl myself first and I only use it locally. I still regularly use duckduckgo to search. However, if you take the time for it you will get what you want in terms of quality of results.
This is exciting, TBH.
I’m going to try it out! Storage space be damned 😂
Alexanderlooks really good, something to rewrite in Rust some day!
ReluctantZenWorth noting about Startpage: they’re part of System1, an American advertising/marketing company. Sytem1 claims that privacy is one of the biggest focuses though.
Make of that what you will.
whalerossI’ve been happy with DDG for so long. Uuugh.
no bananaHonestly I shopped around a lot and tried various services for 7 days each. In the end I came back to DDG because it’s the most useful engine to me. It delivers results I look for and doesn’t get in the way.
As a result I’m not quite satisfied, but it will have to do for now.
Ek-Hou-Van-BraaiIt's a marathon not a sprint.
DDG is a big improvement, keep using it till you find something better that works for you
DDG is a big improvement, keep using it till you find something better that works for you
They’re basically all compromised in one way or another. 😞
For Search, it is about finding the least bad option and hope that they will become more independent. Mojeek (fully independent but poor quality) or Qwant (building own index, but dependent on Bing)
Pretty weak chart to not even include “I care most about porn search”
TapionpoikaThis is a bit like Trumps tariffs, we need to cut everything off but there is no real alternative services.
According this infograph, Startpage should be politically correct choice…
Qwant is the closest to being independent and Non-US… I was recently told about StartPage being bought out by System1 (A US company)
explodicleDaily reminder that
- Brave’s CEO donates to homophobic organizations and
- Brave is connected to the BAT pay-to-surf scam
Don’t use Brave.
Yup! It is noted in the highlighted text in red. I’ve had several people respond that they didn’t know about it, and would be making the switch away :)
Never had a good feeling about that one.
It’s a shitty “secure” browser to begin with imho
ZeroOneI’m waiting for Servo (I know it’s not a browser) & LadyBird.
- Brave is based on Chromium and therefore helps contribute to Google having hegemony over web standards.
Always use a Firefox-based browser, even if you think Mozilla sucks.
What about Vanadium?
If it relies on Chromium as a base in any way, it is still beholden to Google’s design decisions.
At least until Ladybird is ready. I hope they are not under too much pressure to rush things so we get a truly independent web browser.
What about on iOS where it’s all forced WebKit?
Ideally don't use iOS it's a walled garden, you don't really control your device
perfectly_boiled_pizza
@grue @explodicle This is the one true universal browser truth. Unfortunately…
Also reminder that StartPage is majority-owned by American ad company Sytem1
where is duckduckgo on this chart?
In the PrivateSearch section, but greyed out as they are not an EU based company.
CherryThanks. This I nice little guide, easy to suss and helps me figure my priorities.
For now I’ll stick with SearXNG, it’s among the first things I get up and running when I distro hop, but I’m glad there are other non-US options to try.
yeah I wish decentralized search engines were more common
Very strange to put Kagi as “less private” when it’s the only non-self-hosted option that allows for completely private searches with their Privacy Pass tokens. You can access them with Tor, pay with crypto (not really that private though), and sign up with a fake email. kagi.com/privacy#anonymity
It isn’t marked as less private. It is grayed out because it is not based in Europe. I personally use them as I find them the best option with what is out there.
The text at the bottom says “kagi doesn’t collect any identifying data, but does require an account, so it is considered less private than the alternatives”.
With fingerprinting and even just IP tracking, I think the question is more whether they can be trusted to not track you (i.e. whether it makes business sense).
But they allow access over Tor and their privacy tokens means they can’t tie your search to your account, so they both don’t get fingerprinting nor know who is even making the request.
I think that’s Walnut’s nod to the fact that PrivacyGuides still hasn’t wrapped their head around the concept of paid search.
I haven’t seen any legitimate evidence that Kagi’s Privacy Pass is any less private than any other search option on the market, but long ago PG defined private search as “not requiring an account” and are completely locked up on that concept.
Even though just about every VPN on the planet (and all of their recommended ones) require accounts, as do most of the other services they recommend. The world is just so used to “free” search (which just sells your data or your time) that they don’t know what to do with a new business model.
Bitcoin isn’t private at all. It’s a very transparent cryptocurrency.
I didn’t say bitcoin and I called out not really private in my comment.
I’m just adding extra info to your comment. They take payment in Bitcoin, but crypto like Monero is private, which they don’t take.
Oh ok
Is there something like Weebly from Europe?