Mastodawn

Been looking at Kagi for search which isn't bad but I don't want or need all the LLM stuff they put everywhere.
Is there a comparable (potentially also paid) search engine that does not spend their income building another LLM based browser or whatever?

DJ Sundog from the *new* toot-lab Jul 15, 2025

@tante https://www.ecosia.org/ hasn’t been pissing me off since I set it as default search provider in firefox on my machines…

Ecosia - the search engine that plants trees

Ecosia uses 100% of its profits for the planet and produces enough renewable energy to power all searches twice over.

computer maus Jul 15, 2025

@djsundog @tante they are also full of llm bullshit - which is especially ironic because it is supposed to be a climate friendly search engine lol

DJ Sundog from the *new* toot-lab Jul 15, 2025

@kate @tante oh, that’s a shame - I haven’t been inundated by slop so I figured it wasn’t running down that hill. dang. thanks for the info. grabbing my lantern and setting back out into the world to find an honest search engine too, I guess.

Mike [SEC=OFFICIAL]Jul 15, 2025

@djsundog @kate @tante Qwant is working ok for me on the minimal crap front, although they do keep asking me to pay them to add AI slop which is actively discouraging me from supporting them in any meaningful way.

computer maus Jul 15, 2025

@mike @djsundog @tante i like searxng, because it's an open-source meta search engine, so it doesn't try to sell me anything and if one of the underlying search engines stops working for whatever reason it still continues to work

Benjamin Braatz Jul 15, 2025

@djsundog @tante … but it is “only” a proxy for Google and Bing as far as I can see. Depends on how fundamentally you want to get away from those if that is a solution.

Jens Bannmann ⁂Jul 15, 2025

@tante Do you know about @Mojeek ? They don't seem to do anything regarding AI.

Regarding search result quality: I have occasionally tried both Kagi and Mojeek and they seemed okay, but I have not done real comparisons yet.

🌸 lily 🏳️‍⚧️

θΔ ⋐ & ∞Jul 15, 2025

@tynstar @tante @Mojeek they definitely do, you probably turned it off

computer maus Jul 15, 2025

@tante i've been using searxng for a few years now and i'm pretty happy with it, although i self-host it and don't use a public instance. it still feels like a good old search engine and nothing else

flow Jul 15, 2025

@tante quite happy with leta from mullvad: https://leta.mullvad.net/
Similar to what startpage used to be 😌

Mullvad Leta

Leta, the privacy-focused search engine, by Mullvad.

Mullvad Leta

(((((jiawen uffline)))))Jul 15, 2025

@flow just started to use startpage, quite like them, how did they used to be compare to now?

flow Jul 16, 2025

@jwn I used startpage for many years, but after being bought by an advertising company and integrating ads into their search results, I was looking for alternatives.. Still a great service though!

:ulfr:Jul 15, 2025

@tante recommend metager.de all the way

level 60 forgetful Jul 15, 2025

@tante I have a private YaCy instance. Whenever I come across something interesting, I'll index it. I also have a large org roam knowledge base to search in, for stuff I played with, or needed before. This includes recipes, medicine info sheets, everything.

If I can't find what I need in the either, I turn to a handful of sites (wikipedia, codeberg, etc). If I still can't find it, I ask on fedi.

Not the fastest, nor most efficient, but mighty convenient with very good results.

slowdownitsfine Jul 15, 2025

@tante for some time, trying out @MetaGer has been on my list, but I havent gotten around to it. It might be interesting to you too nonetheless.

Dirk Haun Jul 16, 2025

@slowdownitsfine @tante I am currently testing @MetaGer and will probably switch to it permanently once the tokens from my test investment are used up.

lupus_blackfur Jul 16, 2025

As a Kagi paid user...

I've not been subjected to any Counterfeit Cognizance...

I simply don't invoke any of those options.
Hasn't been a problem.

🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Christian Tietze Jul 16, 2025

@tante are they doing that much, actually? I was under the impression they shipped a veneer for existing LLM's so that people who actually believe they want that can do so in a privacy-friendly way

Nils Müller Jul 16, 2025

@ctietze @tante This also is my impression as a user for about a year. In particular, there are no AI features that are "active by default", just convenient but non-intrusive ways to use them if you want to...

Sandra Parsick Jul 16, 2025

@tante currently I'm trying #metager. No LLM what I can see and I'm fine with the search result. You have to pay for search token

MetaGer Jul 21, 2025

@tante
MetaGer would be an option... In a few months, ‘Nolm’ will also be available as a search engine project and will complete MetaGer. In general, our approach is that there should still be alternatives to LLM/ KI-based search options.