this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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Hello fellow lemmings,

I was a wiz at google in the early 2000s. I would find obscure forums for every interest and usually get some pretty good info. My research skills haven't aged well, and I'd like to get a bit more with it.

I use:

  • Rtings, for TVs and monitors
  • Consumer reports, for <500
  • Sites like scamreport where people rant about shitty companies not living up to their promises
  • glassdoor, to see what a company's employees think and how they are treated

How do you research your purchases when there is so much AI slop out there and google doesn't really work right anymore. Duck duck go and bing are marginally better. Are there trusted impartial review sites?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

Reddit, and hopefully Lemmy will get there too ;)

Also, I quite like using Kagi search engine (paid) for its neat features. Things like

  • No Ads and no SEO to ruin the results.
  • Blocking/Lowering/Raising certain domains from the search results. So, I never have to even see the name of those turd websites that specialise in SEO-optimized or AI-vomited non-content.
  • Small Web, which only search small websites
  • Lenses (to focus search on certain type of content/websites)
  • Bangs and a few other more usual stuff one may also find in other search engines.
  • They also have optional AI-stuff, if that is your thing.

I've been using Kagi for almost a full year (it is supposed to renew in a couple days) and I've been loving every instant using it. Like really.

That said, it's not cheap. Here in Europe (I live in France), it's 130€ a year (tax-included) for their second-best plan, and I have not yet decided to renew because of that cost. So, the last couple weeks I've been forcing myself to use the search engines I used before Kagi to see how well it went (startpage & qwant, mainly). And, yeah, I already miss Kagi a lot ;)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I've seen this in various threads on Lemmy. I'm sure Kagi has some cool features, but I don't know how any search engine can overcome the walled garden effect that is plaguing the internet today. The data just isn't out there to be curated anymore, it's locked behind the hedges of the different sites.

I think search might have been killed. I expect in my lifetime, we'll have to sign all our communications using encryption to keep algorithms from impersonating us online to trick people into buying stuff. I'm kind if surprised there isn't an organized resistance collecting legit reviews.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I’ve seen this in various threads on Lemmy. I’m sure Kagi has some cool features, but I don’t know how any search engine can overcome the walled garden effect that is plaguing the internet today. The data just isn’t out there to be curated anymore, it’s locked behind the hedges of the different sites.

I think search might have been killed.

I 'm pretty sure you're 100% right and that's where we're heading. It has already started but we're not there, yet.

I'm convinced too that in a not too distant future I'll be witnessing (and I'm 50+ year-old) almost all content will be put behind pretty and comfy walls but walls nonetheless, with doors and locks on them we wont own the keys (btw, that's the reason why I completely quit posting on reddit, as I explained here I refuse them putting any walls around the only valuable stuff they have ever owned, our content). But we're not there, yet. I mean, the Web is still not that walled garden and, so far, Kagi has also been working more than fine (they even try promoting an alternative, for example with their 'small web' feature).

How it is working now is the reason why I'm (was paying? As I've yet to decide to renew, in less than two days). I pay for how fine kagi is working today, not how it will be working in the future. The day they stop being relevant, I'll stop using them (like I quit using Google search many years ago). Will I be sad? No idea, what I know is that I'll be a lot more sad for what the Web will have finally turned into.

Imho, as of now, Kagi is simply too small for the big sites or for the other engines to be worth worrying with them.

At this time there are less than 35k paying members/users (they publish their stats but seeing how some people can be jerk when one is mentioning their appreciation for a paid product I think it's safer to not share a link. It should be easy to find, though). Considering their size, I imagine it's not like they represent a threat to anyone's business. They're just a tiny, tiny alternative, and a paying one at that! Something that will not help them grow fast, if at all.

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