• kava@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Google search isn’t useless. It’s getting worse but still Google is the best search. For a lot of general searches, Duckduckgo and Kagi have been sufficient for me. “What year did WW2 end” “what is the population of Crimea” “north Korean famine 1990s”

    But for example I had a picture of a specific motor an employee sent me that I had to find a replacement for online. It’s a niche motor we use for a large air compressor. All I had was some model / serial numbers. I tried plugging in different variations of the numbers and “motor” into both Duckduckgo and Kagi with no luck.

    On Google, the first result was a PDF of a Honda motor guide that had every single niche Honda motor and I was able to find the model name of the exact motor I needed, which allowed me to find a viable replacement on Ebay.

    It hurts me to say it, but the other web searches still haven’t reached total parity with Google. I use Duckduckgo as my primary and then when it doesn’t find me what I need, I go to Google.

    I would use Kagi but after it couldn’t find me the engine, I stopped paying my monthly subscription. Until then I was happy with it, but if I’m paying for a service and it isn’t any better than the free options…

    • iopq@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s why you can add !g to your search query when you didn’t find anything on Brave or DDG

      • kava@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Thanks for the tip, that sounds more convenient than opening Google in a new tab

    • Matt@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      For what it’s worth I’m not saying that - it’s just a common argument I’ve seen online lately in these spaces. I don’t actually know if it’s true because I don’t use Google Search.

    • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You can use Startpage to do a Google search by proxy. Startpage passes your search query to Google and returns the results to you without having to use Google directly.