Alternative Search Engines user script

[mekineer]

This lets you quickly try out a search on a different search engine, from either of duckduckgo, google, yandex, and bing
For use with Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey/Violentmonkey:
https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/38327 ... ngines-2-1

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

You might look at this as a more generalized solution:
http://legacycollector.org/firefox-addo ... index.html
2.9 works for me.
Also, I commend to your attention: https://metager.org/
It is pro-privacy like Duck, in some ways even moreso, but apparently does NOT draw on Google, and so isn't paying them anything. For some of us, that's an important ethical point in it's favor.

[Herb_]

Put that one up as a search-engine and you're done https://mycroftproject.com/

[mekineer]

Thanks Lew Fan, I'm trying it out and will be adding it to the page I've written on alternative search engines
I have Metager as one of the browser search plugins. Since I've found it listed as a Meta-search engine, I didn't consider that it also used its own crawler to index websites? Is that the case?

[mekineer]

You might look at this as a more generalized solution:
http://legacycollector.org/firefox-addo ... index.html
2.9 works for me.
Also, I commend to your attention: https://metager.org ...

I updated the page https://mekineer.com/information-techno ... ch-engines
to include your recommendations.

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

That's a nicely done page. It's rare these days to find web pages that aren't bogged down with RAM & bandwidth wasting crap, where the text wraps properly, that respects color and font settings, etc. It used to a lot more common. People who defend the crap like to claim it's "progress". In most cases, I think it's kids who'd rather show off imaginary "skilz" to whoever paid them than write a page easily accessible to everybody. I have 4 different extensions and a script aimed at fixing these issues, so I can always get around them, by clicking more buttons, but I shouldn't have to.

Interesting content too. I'll study it. Kudos.

According to these people:
https://restoreprivacy.com/private-search-engine/
metager is a hybrid. Metasearch plus their own crawlers. They look darn strong on privacy. That's part of my interest, on principle, but I won't hide it, I'm also looking to hurt Alphabet any way I can.

Here is part of a post I made elsewhere, which I"ll probably be updating soon in light of some of what you've written. Maybe you can pick something of interest out of it, or correct what you think are errors:
. . . . . .
Just because a search service's domain name isn't google, doesn't mean they aren't helping Google make money.

AFAIK, any metasearch engine that serves results from Google with Google's permission (e.g., Startpage), goes through a Google approved API & pays Google for the privilege. Any that try to get around that (e.g., Searx), soon get blocked by Google.
So Startpage, for example, may be fine for privacy, but they are still giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

AFAIK, Metager is the only conventional search engine, meta or primary, that is both privacy oriented and clearly not buying results from Google. They tell you right on the result page where each result came from, so if this changes, you should know.

There is also the YaCy project ( https://yacy.net ) to produce a distributed search engine, with no central servers, like p2p. It has a ways to go, but if you have computational resources to spare & don't mind tinkering a bit (at least in the Linux version - I can't speak to Windows), help them out by running a node and reporting bugs. If they can make this work, it is the most pro-freedom approach imaginable.

Honorable Mention:
The following are all primary (meaning they run their own crawlers & maintain their own index) search providers that are not Google. They're all quick, don't require enabling scripts for text search, & have clean UIs that presented no difficulties, but make no special privacy claims that I'm aware of:

https://www.bing.com/ (U.S.)

https://yandex.com (Russian Federation)

https://www.mojeek.com/ (UK - & I wouldn't trust them at all for that reason.)

The following metasearch engines are said to draw "primarily from Bing" but that's pretty vague & there's no reason to to think they'll announce it if this changes:
https://lite.qwant.com Nice, clean UI that returns results very quickly.
https://swisscows.com Very unusual GUI interface that some may like, but not at all user friendly to non-standard font or color settings, user styles, or use of zoom. I find it way too hard to use.

And finally, I should mention https://duckduckgo.com because I used to advocate it. I withdraw that recommendation, because if it is true as claimed that it is drawing "from over 400 individual sources", that's likely to include Google, and therefore mean revenue for Google:
https://duckduckgo.com

Personally, I'll add several of these to my drop down menu of search engines maintained by the extension "Add to Search Bar", and switch around often to compare results, but Metager will get a lot of my attention.

Further reading: I drew a lot from here:
https://restoreprivacy.com/private-search-engine/
from Infogalactic articles and from the websites of the individual services.
. . . . . .

I may return to this thread. The subject is a matter of long standing interest.

[mekineer]

from Infogalactic articles and from the websites of the individual services.
. . . . . .

Thanks for the infogalactic link. I'll be looking over this to see if and how it differs from the Wikipedia page:
https://infogalactic.com/info/List_of_search_engines

edit: infogalactic list of search engines hasn't been touched since the 2016 import from wikipedia

I cover Qwant and Metager on the mekineer.com page. Although briefly. It isn't the goal of the page to cover privacy. The goal is to find some non-google and non-bing results that are usable.

Swisscows I dropped early, IIRC because it was too much like Bing (another article stated it as such, and I think I took a quick look and confirmed). This despite Swisscows claim that they add to the results.

Duckduckgo: I'm just glad something else besides google is gaining popularity, even if they include google results. Not exactly ideal. Personally, I'd rather search google and bing individually, than search duckduckgo. Despite duckduckgo saying it uses 400 sources. Seriously, search alternatives, please create your own results!

Google is a really good engine, but it's not everything, and I am tired of them ignoring my search query because they think they know what I'm looking for. With Google I live adding quotation marks around every search term. I think we are guinea pigs for their AI research. Maybe I don't fit their standard human model, so the search results often suck for me.

I hope Yacy starts working. All my attempts to use it time out.

While I don't think my personality is British-compatible, so far I find Mojeek results to be less commercial than Google and Bing, and also relevant. These two factors are most important to me. This isn't a certain conclusion though... I need more months of use. That Google and Bing offer commercial results, is logical, considering their conflict of interest to make money in advertising.

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

Yes, Infogalactic was motivated by good intent, but unfortunately it isn't run well. The answer to the problems with Wikipedia is to make it easier to edit, not harder. But personally, I've quit contributing to Wikipedia. Too many of the articles are locked by cliques and aren't balanced at all. The types that obsess on grammar, diction, punctuation and accuracy are not the types that obsess on control, and the latter prosper more in the current Wikipedia environment. So I decided that it was ridiculous to donate professional level copy editing services, thereby making the whole thing more respectable and credible.