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EU Search engine incoming: Ecosia is teaming up with Qwant to build a European search index (blog.ecosia.org)

submitted 2 days ago by Kualdir@feddit.nl to c/buyfromeu@feddit.org

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For the people who have not yet decided on a search engine. The most EU way you can go is Ecosia or Qwant as they are building their own search index.

Ecosia is my personal pick as its also aimed at planting trees and they have quite a good browser alongside it.

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[-] Clbull@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Qwant is actually pretty decent compared to the competition.

[-] segabased@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 day ago

Anything that can displace American tech is good.

[-] bearboiblake@pawb.social 9 points 1 day ago

Search engines are dying, I doubt they'll have much relevance in ten years or so, unless something radically changes. Walled gardens, SEO, AI spam, and so on.

I wonder where the solution lies. The way the modern internet works is completely hostile to the idea of crawler-based search engines, so I feel like the focus should be on creating an alternative, people-first internet which is completely hostile to brands, corporations and advertisers, ran by communities and individuals, etc.

[-] betternotbigger@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago

Far from it, if you're willing to pay for good search check out Kagi. You don't realize how busted search is until you see what it's like when ads aren't the business model.

[-] bearboiblake@pawb.social 2 points 17 hours ago

I've been a paying subscriber to Kagi since 2023. Everything I wrote in my previous comment is still true. I'm glad that it works for you, though.

[-] Apricot@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

How would it be paid for? Subscription?

[-] betternotbigger@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

It already exists, it's called kagi

[-] Kualdir@feddit.nl 3 points 22 hours ago

Its US based tho, so not in the spirit of this community

[-] ClusterBomb 12 points 1 day ago

So many people are happy here. I can understand why but quick reminder that Qwant is not privacy friendly like they claim to be and that the CEO is a bastard who threatened employees.

As for Ecosia, the only green they have is their name. Great they plant trees but they pushed AI so it's basically like if they are destroying the trees they planted.

There is a search engine with their own index from UK, privacy-friendly, it is called Mojeek. It is not as good as the others but I've been using it for maybe 4 months and it already improved a lot. They need users to give feedback and improve. Give it a try ! 😊

[-] coen@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago

I get your point regarding AI and Ecosia, but this is a personal choice whether to use AI or not. I don’t think it really negates the good they are trying to do. And I expect we’ll see some breakthroughs regarding AI efficiency in the near future.

[-] AkashicOwl@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

I don't know how far in the rabbithole I am, but at this point I feel like it's nearly impossible to find a company that doesn't have dirt on it in one way or another. There are alternatives in some domains, but for search engines, it's really narrowed down to Brave (which also have some not very nice people in it) and Duck duck go, which uses Bing. Which is basically pointless to me, not even talking about using UE products, for me, the best way to get some fresh air is to have companies that have their own search engines (so, not Bing or Google, this is why I don't use alternatives like Starpage or Searx) There's Mojeek, yes, but last time I used it, it was...really bad. I still encourage them tho! I'll give it another shot now.

[-] ClusterBomb 3 points 1 day ago

To me there is also a topic no one is ready to talk about : the way we search the web. I changed the way I search the web. Most of the time I need to browse the same websites so I added keywords search for those search.

For Mojeek, I took time configuring "focuses" (a feature they have to limit the websites searched to a predefined subset).

I reduced my need of search engines globally and now I'd say I use Mojeek and there's 50% chance I need to go to DuckDuckGo because Mojeek failed to give me my answers. When I started using Mojeek, I almost never found answers so I'd say it got better!

Google always suck for me except if I'm looking for products, the only domaineit shines but that's kinda expected to be honest considering Google business model.

[-] FundMECFSResearch 28 points 2 days ago

We will develop a privacy-first search index, which will be used by both Ecosia and Qwant, and unlike proprietary solutions, we are making the index available to others.

[-] Tenograd@feddit.org 14 points 2 days ago

Good news, needs to happen as fast as possible.

[-] Kualdir@feddit.nl 4 points 2 days ago

France and Germany will have it this year, we'll have to see how it evolves further but hopefully its a success!

[-] Extrawurst@feddit.org 54 points 2 days ago

Great! Ecosia works super well, and it feels good to not having to rely on google to find things. Only thing I’d wish for is that they’d have some map service or similar to find restaurants and shop. There is sadly no good replacement for google maps that I’ve found

[-] rraggl@mastodon.nl 3 points 1 day ago

@Extrawurst @Kualdir For Navigation alone, I find Magic Earth (which uses OSM] to be a perfectly fine replacement, that even offers some features Gmaps hasn't. Like being able to download whole countries for offline navigation, Driver Assistance etc.

For the reviews... That's more difficult. https://lib.reviews/ is one attempt, but it has nowhere near the dataset (duh) and the reviews are not directly visible on the map.

[-] Kyouki@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Here we go, is a pretty good alternative.

[-] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 13 points 2 days ago

Organic Maps

[-] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Yeah but open street maps does not handle temporary road closures, construction, or temporary one-ways well...

https://nelsonslog.wordpress.com/2024/03/30/openstreetmap-temporary-road-closures/

I don't even know if organic maps respects tags. https://www.reddit.com/r/openstreetmap/comments/vuuecd/how_or_where_can_i_submit_temporary_closed_roads/

It certainly doesn't respect road conditions or road priority. It constantly tries to send me through a 2 meter wide cobblestone and broken up asphalt service road instead of the main residential roads because it "technically" is 50, even with surface marked as bad condition.

I try to contribute to OSM where I can, but i never can trust organic maps to get me somewhere I haven't been before.

[-] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 1 points 15 hours ago

open street maps does not handle temporary road closures, construction, or temporary one-ways well

that sadly depends on your region and the amount of volunteers in your area. I remember reading how OSM was more reliable after the 2023 Turkey earthquake for the first responders than Google Maps, because the changes in the terrain were added there much faster.

I don't know about the road conditions during the navigation. it definitely does support this kind of data as I input it myself every now and then, but I don't drive so I haven't had to try out different OSM navigation algorithms to see if they account for it, or anything like that.

[-] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 1 points 14 hours ago

I more mean the actual method of doing it isn't straightforward and there is still no fully agreed upon and documented method for construction changes, just a few "you can do it this way" kind of things.

And indeed navigation picking up the OSM updates and using temporary closure tags and road conditions seems to be more miss than hit with organic maps at least. But the UI is 10x more usable than OSMAnd so I use it where possible.

[-] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago

Ecosia works well enough for me too. The tree planting thing should never be forgotten. The scope of their work is impressive and they're very transparent about their goals and funding. No other search engine comes close to that.

[-] Comptero@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

The tree planting sounds so much like greenwashing and an excuse to serve ads

[-] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

200 million trees. Far from greenwashing.

Folks, critical thinking is more important than ever these days. Making conclusions based on a brain fart - when we have the internet at our fingertips - is partly why the world is the way it is.

[-] Teppichbrand@feddit.org 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I listened to a podcast a couple years ago. The founder talked about how he made sure that Ecosia can not be sold and monetized, he himself is not making much money from it. My english is not good enough to explain it in more detail. :)
I see greenwashing everywhere, but as far as I can tell from the podcast and their YouTube, this is legit.

[-] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 6 points 2 days ago

You could also use open street maps. For mobile I recommend using Organic Maps.l Only problem is, that the search isn't that good.

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[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 16 points 2 days ago

Maybe I'll use Ecosia again

[-] atro_city@fedia.io 11 points 2 days ago

It doesn't mention whether it'll be opensource or not. A proprietary search index that isn't USAian is probably better, but still opensource would be better.

[-] Kualdir@feddit.nl 23 points 2 days ago

Don't let perfect stand in the way of better I'd say, in the end both companies still need to make a return on investment

[-] atro_city@fedia.io 9 points 2 days ago

True, it's a first step in the right direction :)

[-] mattc@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Sounds great! I've been happy with Ecosia currently. I tried Qwant, but I have strict privacy settings enabled in my browser and it says it couldn't get a secure connection. I'm sure it's 100% safe, but I just settled for Ecosia for now. Looking forward to trying out their new partnered search engine.

[-] Phytobus@lemm.ee 21 points 2 days ago

Both are great! In my experience Qwant gives better search results, so thats what i use. I even prefer Qwant's results over Google's. But Ecosia is a great option as well because of the tree planting.

[-] Kualdir@feddit.nl 5 points 2 days ago

I use Ecosia for personal use and Qwant for work. So I support both!

Ecosia is my personal choice because of the tree planting as well. But I agree Qwant results are a bit better, which for me only matters while I work.