Search engine recommendation

goodValue

A year or two ago I followed a suggestion for using Startpage.
This was an improvement over google, but now there are so many Sponsor links that it is difficult
to see the real links.
Are there any search engines that would give a better experience, or have they all been moving in this direction?

MattMattMattUK

goodValue said:

A year or two ago I followed a suggestion for using Startpage.
This was an improvement over google, but now there are so many Sponsor links that it is difficult
to see the real links.
Are there any search engines that would give a better experience, or have they all been moving in this direction?

Google...

Or if you want to be paranoid, https://duckduckgo.com/

DullGreyGuy

goodValue said:

A year or two ago I followed a suggestion for using Startpage.
This was an improvement over google, but now there are so many Sponsor links that it is difficult
to see the real links.
Are there any search engines that would give a better experience, or have they all been moving in this direction?

What are you defining as a "better experience"?

• Google 94%
• Bing 4%
• Yahoo 1.25%
• DuckDuckGo 0.75%

If you look at just use on mobiles then Google is 98% and everyone else under 1%

Dont know your issue with Google but its what most the UK use by a long way unless youre a tin foil hat wearer and then its DuckDuckGo

Mark_d

I've compared search engines assessing speed, clarity, accuracy of results, data harvesting...

I've concluded that Qwant is the best overall - as it's the fastest at getting me to the correct destination.  It's not perfect but ublock origin (browser plugin) does an excellent job of blocking any adverts. Runner-up is DuckDuckGo.

Sarahspangles

I tried DuckDuckGo because I thought the name was cute, it gets me the search results I want so I’ve stuck with it. No tin hat required.

Neil49

I'm a long term Duckduckgo user and it's always my default option when doing a search. 

oldernonethewiser

Another vote for DDG.

My default browser on mobile and all my other devices.

Farway

oldernonethewiser said:

Another vote for DDG.

My default browser on mobile and all my other devices.

Same here, it just works for me, even without my tin foil hat

goodValue

As said in the OP, the issue was with the number of Sponsor links drowning out others.
I did a test with DuckDuckGo and didn't see any marked as sponsored.
When I changed engine before, there seemed to be a controversy about privacy - is that what the references to tin-hat are referring to?
When talking about adverts, does this mean Sponsored links?

I'll try out DuckDuckGo and Qwant to see what I think of them.

oldernonethewiser

As posted earlier using the uBlock Origin with DDG will save you from most of the "joys" of advertising.

Sponsored links are just adverts by another name.

Tin Hat - Google deal in data, your data, and some people like to keep some degree of control over that.

Sarahspangles

goodValue said:

As said in the OP, the issue was with the number of Sponsor links drowning out others.
I did a test with DuckDuckGo and didn't see any marked as sponsored.
When I changed engine before, there seemed to be a controversy about privacy - is that what the references to tin-hat are referring to?
When talking about adverts, does this mean Sponsored links?

I'll try out DuckDuckGo and Qwant to see what I think of them.

DuckDuckGo has sponsored ads, that’s how they fund the search engine. The ads are tailored to your search but not to you. There’s no history building up. I got fed up of being stalked around Google and Facebook by companies I’d expressed a nano-second’s interest in a month ago.

From time to time I go into settings on sites like Facebook and delete as much history and customisation as possible, unfollow things I didn’t realise I was following and so on. For a while I actually see more interesting content!