• remotelove@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Yeah.

      The columns are squished together so the titles are basically one word and the data creates a ton of empty space. The colors should be lighter shades. White on yellow is just annoying. The row separators don’t extend to the row header, so it is easy to get lost when reading the actual data.

      My eyes just get confused and nope out.

          • TrustingZebra@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            As in the actual data is bad, inaccurate, opinionated and doesn’t explain anything. Half of the chart is just “Cloudflare lol”, like at least explain why.

            It’s a chart that looks useful at first glance, but the more you look at it the less you learn.

  • BrikoX@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    Brave Search fully using their own index since April 27, 2023. But they refuse to identify their crawler and rely on googlebot if sites want to be excluded. Also their search API monetization of possible copyrighted content while understandable is a bit doubious due to their public stance on transparency.

    StartPage also blocks VPN usage.

    DuckDuckGo by their own admission now re-rank “trusted” sites to the top when it comes to what they clasify as"misinformation" so calling their “censhorship” mild is huge understatement.

    • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      If I wanted to search for unverified info or misinfo, I could, but almost always I am lookkng for factual and sourced information. Please don’t force me to do otherwise.

        • DigitalJacobin@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          That’s how all search engines fundamentally work though. The whole point if that they try to bring the most relevant results to the top and downrank things like spam and unhelpful/irrelevant results. Downranking misinfo spam websites isn’t “censorship”. Not ranking resullts would make search engines completely pointless.

          • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            I’d disagree with equating disinfo with spam. Spam seems easier to classify, sites that try to get ahead by having nonsense keywords or whatever and want to sell you something. Dis- or misinfo is trickier, you need to decide what is correct info. Do you understand what I mean?

    • Atemu@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      StartPage also blocks VPN usage.

      Only accidental I think. They have the option of reporting that you’re behind a VPN proxy when it happens.

      • BrikoX@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        They don’t pretent to be googlebot, they use their own crawler they just don’t share the name they use for it, so sites can’t exclude it with robots.txt. They just scrape the same sites that googlebot does, so if the site is excluded by googlebot they also skip it.

    • TrustingZebra@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      StartPage also blocks VPN usage.

      Ancedotal but Startpage works perfectly fine with VPN for me. Certainly better than Google, which works but requires a lot of annoying captchas.

      • LinkOpensChest.wav@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        I used Startpage for a long time, and I’m perpetually connected to VPN on both my PC and my phone (different nodes at different times)

        Never had a problem with my VPN

  • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    Interesting that you’re doing a search engine comparison, and not add google into that comparison. Also, there are no sources at all, so we can’t verify any of it, and I know that some of that data is incorrect. Sources would help us (the end user) determine whether our data is incorrect or yours is incorrect due to poor sources. Leaving out the sources, means this chart is actually rather pointless, because it can’t be verified (as correct or incorrect).

    E: also, ignoring cloudflare with this statement and zero explanation, removes author credibility. Either explain exactly why “cloudflare so who cares lol” or don’t include that section at all.

    This chart reminds me of this, which was actually quoted in a presentation as an actual quote…

  • cerement@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    shouldn’t that category be “SearXNG” instead of “SearX”? – SearX went into maintenance mode a year ago and then archived their code last week – searx.space isn’t even bothering to list SearX instances anymore

    • Tibert@compuverse.uk
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      1 year ago

      Because it doesn’t show the conspiracy theory enhancing the authors conspiracy anti-covid/anti-moon landing opinion :

      meaning you will never find the truth about the moon landing or COVID vaccines there even if the query asks for exactly that. What you will find - though - is a bunch of irrelevant “fact check” or “science loving” sites, or ones shitting on “conspiracy theorists”.

      • Kilgore Trout@feddit.it
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        1 year ago

        Leaving out all other conspiracy theories, since I may agree with some of them, the claim that the moon landing was staged strikes me as mindblowing over everything else. You just need to look at the Moon wath a telescope to disprove it, no need to believe to any scientist.

  • Adramis [he/him]@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Are the Ecosia results up to date? They used to be great, but awhile ago they changed something and it’s been hot garbage since. I still use them because trees, but I usually search with Ecosia, don’t see what I want, and then have to use another search engine.

        • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          Disturbing for having their slogan as, “the search engine that doesn’t know anything about you”

          I guess they meant, “doesn’t know anything about you… Yet”

          • Kilgore Trout@feddit.it
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            1 year ago

            They need to earn money somehow, and the deal with Microsoft is the least privacy-invasive option they found.

            I suggest overall to use SearxNG, but Qwant isn’t bad.

            • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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              1 year ago

              No doubt. And I’m not faulting them for making the deal or for collecting the data in general. I am, however, faulting them for claiming they don’t know anything about you and then turn around and collect things about you.

      • AWildMimicAppears@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        after looking around on that site, i deeply mistrust the original author about probably everything. using the search term “christchurch shooting was faked” and arguing that the search results attack conspiracy theories, which means that there is censoring going on - that does not fit my definition of sanity.

        • Tibert@compuverse.uk
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          1 year ago

          Wtf. Didn’t even have to go too far. Here in the brave section

          meaning you will never find the truth about the moon landing or COVID vaccines there even if the query asks for exactly that. What you will find - though - is a bunch of irrelevant “fact check” or “science loving” sites, or ones shitting on “conspiracy theorists”.

          WTF is wrong with this person.

          This “article” is about spreading search engine for people doing “their own research” and making the US look stupid on TV or something.

          I am for no “censorship”, however sometimes it is needed, because as for the example of the vaccines or moonlanding, people may je mislead, then search s* online and get a trash conspiracy article which enhances that stupid opinion. In this case there needs to be a way to spread good information.

        • JasSmith@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          While I don’t agree with his conspiracy theories, search engines should give us the information we are looking for. He asked for information, and some of the search engines effectively told him, “no.” That’s valuable information because it’s not just conspiracy theories they’re removing. For example, some years ago I heard a news report about some American political group called the “Proud Boys.” I wanted to look into them to find out what they’re about, so I Google them. Turns out Google has scrubbed their site from search. Accusations of this kind of political censorship are mounting, too. Another politically contentious site, KiwiFarms, is also delisted. I can only imagine how many other sites have been delisted over the years which we just don’t know about.

          I’m an adult. I can make up my own mind. If I ask for information, I expect a search engine to provide it. Kagi passes this test.

          • Thorned_Rose@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            This is my issue too. Yes, there are some things that are absolutely dangerous and some things that are completely nuts. But not all conspiracy theories, for example, are crazy. Some are actual conspiracies. That aside it’s a dangerous precedent to set when someone is picking and choosing what to show or not show and removing the ability of others to decide for themselves.

            Many governments, organisations, companies, etc. can be above bord, but they don’t always stay that way. Others are dystopian in their obsession with power and control. Its not always obvious what’s what when censorship and curation of results are going on.

            And frankly, sometimes the ‘facts’ turn out to be wrong. Our reality is that we live in a world where profit and greed drives information and trends, where late stage capitalism leads to more exploitation and all of this is helped by bias, fraud, science for sale and yes, censorship.

            I cannot trust a company or organiation that censors search results because quite simply it means I can’t tell if they’re covering over anything else nd what that anything else could be.

            Much like the parable of the boy who cried wolf. You’re either 100% above board and trustworthy or you’re not.

            • JasSmith@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              100%. We learned this lesson centuries ago during the Enlightenment. Censorship is harmful to society. Sure, if there were some magical and neutral arbiter of information, maybe it could work if democratically controlled. By there isn’t, and these tools are not democratically controlled. Every time people or groups get too powerful, they abuse the system for their own advantage. We should always presume companies like Google do the same using the age old premise of “protecting the children.” How many violations has this adage defended over the years.

                • Kilgore Trout@feddit.it
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                  1 year ago

                  I still disagree. Arbiters of factual information can’t be companies, and can’t be governments. Currently we don’t have a proper arbiter; I would argue that finding one isn’t “hard”, it’s straight-out impossible.

                  On the same line, who is it up to to decide what does it mean to pursue true knowledge?

                  I strongly believe that censorship is not the answer- it’s not the answer to anything. Let’s say you are in a circle of strangers, and one of them starts shouting to the others that you did something horrible. The solution to this problem is not to kill him, but to present a different source of information that can stand more stable than is (ex: I wasn’t there at that time, I have history of not doing that kind of stuff, you claim this for your own gain, …).

                  The solution to ignorance is not to shut down dissident opinions or theories, as flawed or dangerous as they may be, but to be open to educate.

                  In this specific instance pertaining to search engines, the correct way to make misinformation available would be to provide appropriate disclaimers with reputable and independent sources, not to censor.

        • ChrisLicht@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I heard Naomi Klein say that conspiracy theories are the socialism of fools.

    • Little1Lost@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Because the results are from google so their censorship applies. Startpage is only a google search proxy.

  • nyakojiru@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    There is something that is irrefutable that sadly google has the best algorithm and most crawled information. So it has by far the best results using it correctly with parameters. Sometimes I fall to use it but i take my precautions like in a separate container using Firefox Multi account containers and some other stuff

    • mintyfrog@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      It’s refutable, and also you can use Google’s results through a different search engine, like SearXNG

    • nik282000@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Google used to be the ultimate engine 15 years ago. Now it’s the same 5 sites and 10 ads over and over.

  • bernard@lemmy.film
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    1 year ago

    Mixed in here are search engines and metasearch engines. Metasearch engines like DDG, Metager, and Searx are not actual search engines but rather sites that query other engines. I would rather see only actual search engines for comparison. I would like to see some non western (search engines based in non NATO aligned) countries included such as Yandex.

    Data collection always happens. How does the engine know what to return if you did not send it a query(data)? Sometimes results are personalized/manipulated. Anonymity reduces impact of both.