Which search engine do you use for what? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 days ago by FreddiesLantern@leminal.space to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Someone (average smartphone user) complained to me the other day that there isn't a clear solution to navigating the web because it's either ai slop or the results are poor.

And I kinda agree, nowadays you do have to put in some more effort to get what you're looking for.

And so I told them I'd compile a list of which search engines are best for what purpose.

So far I have:

Startpage: works, but does a poor job of finding product codes and whatnot.

Duckduckgo: gives more general results afaik

Ecosia: works great but relies on bing

I have tried things like qwant ect but haven't really settled on those.

Any other suggestions?

I'd tell em to use udm14 but it's still google so I'd rather keep that as a plan B.

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[-] chat_mots@jlai.lu 7 points 2 days ago

Searxng with custom engine weights and a proper filter of upranks/downranks domains give me as good results as kagi !

[-] BigJohnnyHines@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

Is there a guide somewhere for this?

[-] chat_mots@jlai.lu 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

No there is none unfortunately, but i'm in the process of making one! For now my settings are these. And i made a quick tool to compare results from a searxng instance to a list of desired results, you can find it here. If you want help with that, i'd be glad to help !! :)

EDIT: more details in my settings example

this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026

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