Many “alternative” search engines are better for privacy, but they are still vulnerable to censorship, because they rely on g**gle and m*crosoft’s indices for their search results. This isn’t a deep-hidden secret either, many of them disclose what search index they use on the “about” page, for example:
- https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/
- https://support.startpage.com/hc/en-us/articles/5138782571796-Why-isn-t-a-particular-site-appearing-in-the-results
- https://www.ecosia.org/privacy
There are still search engines that (claim to) maintain their own index. Most surprisingly, br*ve:
I like the idea, but I can’t justify $10 a month. Downvote me or whatever, but I’m broke and need to cut as many subscriptions as possible.
That’s fair.
You could argue that it’s worth the money to get better results and avoid Google, but with so many companies trying to take $10 a month you have to draw the line somewhere.
No, I’m with you. $120 a year is too steep for searching for me. I like what they are trying to do but I don’t think the average person will spend that much.
Why downvote? That’s a fair point. There is a free tier with a few free searches per year (2000 or something). You could sign up and use this budget whenever your search engine of choice fails you.
The free tier is 100 searches one time only.
Really? Dangit, I’m misremembering stuff then it seems. Sorry.
make it $1 per month and i’m game, i’m not paying more for a search engine than i do for email holy shit
Yea, I just think I either pay for something like Kagi, or I am subject to something like Google. I’m not sure there is a third way that pays for the servers and talent needed to deliver search results, but my imagination might just be limited.