Say Goodbye to Google Search Portals for Linux, Mac and More

I'm beginning to come to the opinion that the best search engine is one that is not popular. That way one gets results that aren't gamed by marketing scumbags*. Their results have gotten so laughably poor when I really need help, that I just don't bother. I've gotten to the point that I only use Google's search engine when I purposely want to land on a "SEO enhanced" site.

The rest of the time I use http://duckduckgo.com/ .



* To make it clear, I don't think ill of all marketers. Far from it. Good marketing is very rare, but works well (for example, putting potato chips and soda on the same aisle at the super market is "marketing"). Unfortunately, most sites don't use "good" marketing, they use brute force marketing.

Google still provides more results that anyone else but, as you point out, they are hardly trustworthy. They also collect your search queries to sell the results and better target you for marketing. Isn't that just grand?

Quoting:Google still provides more results that anyone else but, as you point out, they are hardly trustworthy.

Precisely. I'd rather have 3 relevant hits than 847 million totally dis-related to my query hits.

Quoting:They also collect your search queries to sell the results and better target you for marketing.

Considering that I spend most of my day job dealing with medical folks, their efforts to market to me are hilariously misguided anyway, so that doesn't bother me too much. Google is probably convinced that I'm a paranoid schizophrenic hypochondriac. I'm definitely not a hypochondriac (LOL). But still, point well made.

Quoting: They also collect your search queries to sell the results and better target you for marketing. Isn't that just grand?

If that's what it takes to provide free services, stay a friend to Open Source,... I'm all for it. I like my ads targeted to my tastes, anyway. And Google is actually getting more relevant for me as; 1) A replacement for Skype that's SIP compatible, 2) A way for me to sync calendars without need for a 3rd party server, or my own server exposed to the net, & 3) a great free mail provider, allowing me to tweak sales presentations at work over my MiFi link, despite our company's oppressive workstation lock-down.

Quoting:Google still provides more results that anyone else but, as you point out, they are hardly trustworthy. They also collect your search queries to sell the results and better target you for marketing. Isn't that just grand?

There's an app for that! (Sorry, just couldn't resist.) If you use Firefox, there's an addon named Google Sharing. Contrary to its name, its purpose is to defeat Google mining your search queries. It works very well. I have to turn it off to access GMail or Groups, though.

Quoting:The rest of the time I use duckduckgo.com

I am going to start using this. I'll see how it (duck-duck) goes.

I've been using IXQuick for a long time now, I'm very happy with the results I get. As an added bonus IXQuick doesn't store your ip address or pass it on.

Quoting:As an added bonus IXQuick doesn't store your ip address or pass it on.

Ditto duckduckgo. They also have an https site for times when one is searching for, um, questionable search terms.

DDG also has a node on Tor, so a query never has to leave the proxy chain.

Another good up-and-coming search engine is Blekko.

That duckduckgo seems pretty cool..I like it.

Less than three years ago, there was the Cuil search engine. See the LXer piece 'New Search Engine Cuil "analyzes the Web, not its users" ' found at http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/106102

Now;

Quoting:Another good up-and-coming search engine is Blekko.

Less than three years ago, there was this quote by the same commentator;

Quoting:The bottom line... I can't trust Google to provide accurate and unbiased information. Cuil and Mooter are good choices. Alta Vista isn't half bad nowadays either.

(from the 'Goodby Google' thread found at http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/27592/ )

Alas, there is no more Cuil itself --- it was shut down this past September of 2010 --- but Mooter and Alta Vista are both still chugging around. See http://www.mooter.com/ and http://www.altavista.com/ respectively for these latter two.



Based upon the 1st entry in the 2008 'Goodby Google' thread, one might ask which search engine this particular commentator (and LXer editor) now uses, since Cuil shut down 3/4 of a year ago, and ever since Google was presumably forsaken and definitely made "decreasingly relevant" ??

Again, this thread is found at http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/27592/