Since DuckDuckGo has decided to regionalize all my search results even when no region is selected (why?!? ๐ฉ),
Making my work impossible (I don't spend my day writing about Canada DuckDuckGo! ๐),
I have started to use @Mojeek and I must say that it is a real joy. I find what I'm looking for much quicker, no patronizing regionalization based on IP, and no AI pollution. It feels like I found back the 2010s web and I'm here for it.
Thank you Mojeek ๐
To the excited reply guys in my replies:
No, I'm not claiming that Mojeek doesn't use AI anywhere, I'm simply stating that when I search a term, the result page displays no AI answer to me by default, and it seems the AI-slop results are greatly deprioritized ("no AI pollution" in my results), compared to what I get on DuckDuckGo and Start Page (and would also get with Google and Bing, but I don't use these directly).
This is only a post about my own personal experience, it isn't a full review of the engine, obviously.
If you dig into the settings and find an AI feature you could enable and don't like that, you are free to not use it, and you really don't have to tell me about it (please don't).
If you want to research and write a full review of search engines, please do! And please do it outside of my replies, without tagging me.
For anyone who knows me, yes I dislike AI features a lot, and I don't enable any of them anywhere. I seem to be able to use Mojeek getting genuine informative results free from the AI plague, and I wanted to share this joy with you. Whenever AI is put in my face against my will (like with many other search engines and countless software do) doesn't mean I'm using it. I don't use AI, ever. But yes, it's everywhere around me, to my greatest sorrow.
Being less than happy with DDG lately (though noai.duckduckgo.com has at least made it a bit better) Iโll definitely have to check this out!
Thanks for sharing!
Especially when Canada is so big.
Detroit is so much closer than Victoria.
Part of how we get the US United Auto Workers throwing their Canadian comrades under the bus.
I completely agree. Mojeek is a fantastic independent project, but I have actually moved on to @MetaGer after using Mojeek for awhile.
Since it is run by a non-profit (Mojeek is for-profit) and the code is fully open source (Mojeek is not open-source), MetaGer ticks all of the Freedom 1 boxes for me. The Open Anonymously proxy feature is also great for privacy. I donโt mind the small donation to keep it independent. Especially to get away from the forced regionalization and tracking of other engines.
I'd never heard of Mojeek until now, thanks.
So, Mojeekโฆ
https://community.mojeek.com/t/mojeek-onion-service-for-use-in-tor-browser/
I have a .onion mirror for my own instance: http://ultracrepidarian.pz6brg4ulhwpaf7wwhlpv3ush63zpntxuswi5mxgtswe33jti6oghbqd.onion/
I'm self-hosted, running this thing in a VM on my own hardware, and I expose this thing to the regular Internet through Cloudflare; so I don't know what kind of beef Cloudflare may have had at whatever point with Tor or vice versa, at whatever point, but I've never seen it, and I use both.
I'm really hoping you've reconsidered this. Because this (see screenshot) is a perfect example of why a lot of people, including me, use search engines that offer an official .onion mirror.
As you can see, using the .onion for DuckDuckGo automatically sets the region for the results to everywhere-in-the-entire-world by default.
Obviously, if you had one, too, I wouldn't use it in any browser other than the Tor Browser, and what that actually means is that I would be using your search engine way more frequently.
People who are already interested in online privacy, unsurprisingly, already use Tor constantly.
You need an official .onion mirror.
@Em0nM4stodon Nice!
I've testes Kagi a little bit, which was also a nice pleasant surprise. But requires a sign-up and subscription when you start using it for real.
Will check out @Mojeek as well as @MetaGer ... I really feel the need something else than DDG (noai works but still meh).
I think would really prefer a reasonably priced subscription from a non-profit org hosting a good search engine with full, verifiable transparency.
These days I can't help distrusting all these free search engines with poor transparency - am I a product when I use them?
@Em0nM4stodon @Mojeek thank you for the tip. Ran a couple of quick test searchs and was very happy with the results.
Gonna make it the default for the next month and if I don#t forget I'll post if I'm still happy with it.
@Em0nM4stodon LOL @ no AI pollution, except for the big red box that clearly states that they use AI.
@Em0nM4stodon Like I said, before you post about how this or that doesn't use AI slop and how excited about it that it doesn't use AI, you might want to do some better research. It's just false information being spread to people and it's quite deceiving.
Plus you're giving a company credit for not doing something when they are indeed doing it, therefore making it look as if you're quite ok with it, though you're totally against it.
I'll be honest, when you mentioned it didn't use AI, I clicked it to check it out. Then instantly saw AI being used and was quite disappointed that I gave them a single click.
@cliffwade @Em0nM4stodon @Mojeek This feature is opt-in though, unlike most search engines. As a matter of fact, they have a more hesitant approach to this than other search engines:
1. https://blog.mojeek.com/2025/09/mojeek-is-not-an-answer-engine.html
2. https://blog.mojeek.com/2024/04/mojeek-search-summary.html
3. https://blog.mojeek.com/2023/05/generative-ai-threatens-diversity-and-hyperlinks.html
Honestly and out of curiosity, do you know of some privacy search engines with no LLM integration?
@fonos I don't think it's opt-in actually. I saw the post, went to their site which I had never been to, search for something and the AI stuff was there, front and center.
Not sure why people feel it's ok to defend these things in any way. But the OP claimed that Mojeek uses no AI in any way, and that was proven to be false. Opt-in, opt-out, whatever. The claim is false.
@fonos I've checked again this morning and tested in 3 different browsers on two OS's, and the Summary button is always there. Yet last night was the first time I had ever heard of Mojeek, and therefore the first time I'd ever visited it.
In the end, it just really bugs me when people claim to be so anti-AI and swear that they don't use anything that uses AI and if you use AI you're a complete trash of a human. Yet it's so easy to discover that what they are using does indeed use AI front and center.
It's like they are trying to fit in with the cool kids, but they are failing miserably.
What's even more sad is, the original post will likely never be edited by the OP to state that Mojeek does indeed use AI for things.
Even after it was shown in a screenshot and three links provided from their own blog stating they use AI.
@Mojeek Thank you for sharing this link again. It's definitely made clear on there that Mojeek does indeed use AI, which the OP claimed "Mojeek has no AI pollution".
I was simply pointing out that Mojeek does use AI, though I didn't go into details, as I was merely letting others know that the OP was misinforming others and leading others to believe that there was no AI at all being used.
It doesn't bother me that AI is used as it's pretty common knowledge.
I just hope the original post gets edited so it's not misinforming others. Though likely that won't happen.
@cliffwade @fonos @Em0nM4stodon @Mojeek lol enjoy your internet points? you skipped the point of OP (no forced regionalized search) and hyper focused on an ancillary comment and then did a bad faith interpretation of it. ๐ you are indeed winning points.
what's the goal here? are you just trying to shit on someone online? are you trying to raise awareness of something they may have over looked in terms of AI usage? do you think this rhetorical approach is gonna make people listen to you on the topic you clearly care about? Sounds like you caught a block instead?
I think one might deploy "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar" here as a suggestion for how to approach conversations where you think someone might have made an error you'd like to double check on or attempt to correct. Especially if you want to have a dialogue. As opposed to just snark.
Unless you just wanted to shit on strangers. in which case, congrats again
@dan_ballard I've made it clear that it was about not spreading false information and misleading people.
Sorry if you missed that all three times I mentioned it.
I feel you did a much better job of shitting on someone than anyone else here. Maybe congrats are in order for you for "catching a block" as you put it.
@cliffwade @fonos @Em0nM4stodon @Mojeek friend, it's not about spreading false facts. you are correct, mojeek has AI features. OP's post was about finding a search engine with out force regionliztion. they also mentioned it wasn't shoving AI in their face, like google does with near full page ai summary by default.
Yes, mojeek HAS ai, but from my quick tests, it wasn't showing for me by default, or there's a side pane where I suspect if i click the "summarize these results" button I'd get AI, but it's much less dramatic than google's use.
So when you show up saying "mojeek uses AI" you aren't wrong, but that wasn't the point of the post. "no ai polution" doesn't have to be read as "100% garunteed no ai anywhere" it more likely reads as "no ai shoved down my throat". I think the summary box you have likely was opted into by at least once clicking the "summarise these results" button.
the point it, it was a more subjective ancillary claim and you came in taking huge umbridge with it.
Why? OP also said "it feels like I found back the 2010s web" and like, I could nit pick that if I really wanted to rules lawer the shit out of everything everyone said, trying to like, read the HTML and JS of the page for more modern uses. But that's not the point, it was about a feeling.
@cliffwade @fonos @Em0nM4stodon @Mojeek And again, what is your goal here? Charging into stranger's mentions with sarcasm isn't usually the way to get folks on your side even if you are stating facts. Do you want to raise awareness of an issue important to you? or just dunk on strangers?
if the first, than I'd just being less sarcastic in opening comment? this isn't a contest, there aren't points. it's not a competition. and coming in that hot just takes the tempurature up. I then even trying to respond came in hotter than I'd have liked in response ๐
@dan_ballard You clearly missed the point and escalated things way beyond what they were.
Thanks for chiming in and I hope you have the best of days ahead.
@Em0nM4stodon @Mojeek I just turned it off when I noticed it.
In settings: Region -> Set to "All Regions".
Does that not work for you, or ?
@Em0nM4stodon @suriele @Mojeek this is SO disappointing. I very much want worldwide search; only very occasionally occasionally I use regional search.
I left Google search b/c it was making decisions for me, like regional results and results based on context of my previous searches.
It's exhausting. ๐ฅ
@Em0nM4stodon @Mojeek so, now I'm looking for a better search than DDG. (I detest regional search results ๐คฌ).
I just found this page, addressing search engines and AI. Interesting.
https://www.tenorshare.com/iphone-tips/search-engines-that-dont-use-ai.html
But it does not address regional vs global results. My search continues. Recursive, pun not intended.
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