Your Favorite Search Engine and Why?

Google.

Just out of interest, I searched for the same word on 4 different search engines to see how many items were blocked by uBlock Origin.

The count was Brave 0, Startpage 3, DuckDuckGo 13, Google 27 and Bing 192.

When using Brave search, when you scroll down the results there is an option to "Find elsewhere", with buttons for Google, Bing and Mojeek, so if I can't find what I want (which is rare), I click on the Google button.

Brave claims that "Brave Search doesn’t track you, your searches, or your clicks. It’s impossible for us to share, sell, or lose your data, because we don’t collect it in the first place."

Not all of us can be on board with the worlds largest ad-server.
I quit Google when it purchased Doubleclick back in 2008.
We used to write Doubleclick out via .htaccess back in the day because of it's nefarious intrusions on our servers - Google = Good, Doubleclick = Bad.
Google gave up on it's goodness with the purchase of Doubleclick. Google chose to join them rather than beat them and the rest was history.
Since the acquisition of Doubleclick, Google proceeded to go down that road.

A heads up to webmasters -- Google can now inject ads into your web pages just like Doubleclick tried to do way back in the day. Funny how everybody blocked Doubleclick when it tried to do that, but nobody bothers trying to block Google when it tries to do that today ... the intrusions are actually quite welcome now because ... you know ... Google.

Index results on Google stopped making perfect sense after 2008.
I had a habit of searching things like University white papers on various research subjects back in the day, and after the incorporation of Doubleclick suddenly I was encouraged to buy brown shoes from Indonesia -- It was a total disaster.

Google killed off keyword search and chose to instead use the spyware tactics of Doubleclick. It took a few years for Google to get it's head wrapped around all of the new telemetry data that Doubleclick sent back.

During that period, Google managed to stay in the game by purchasing loyalty with introducing free stuff for it's end users.

There have only been 3 great search engines since 1995 -- Ixquick, Alta Vista, and Google. Start Page ruined Ixquick by caving to Google pressure when it began to use the Google index for it's results instead of using their own - Alta Vista was killed off by Yahoo when it started using the Yahoo index for it's results. Google was killed off when it purchased Doubleclick and became the largest ad-server on the planet.

Even though DuckDuckGo pulls it's results from the Bing index and sends all of it's telemetry to Microsoft, I'll still use it. There simply isn't any other choice really -- You'll either be using Bing or Google simply because it's just much too cost effective and tempting to siphon off of the largest indexes -- There's no money to build any more large indexes that are truly independent from Bing or Google so we're all pretty much stuck with what we have.

Modern search isn't designed to help you find stuff like it was back in the day -- Modern search is designed to show you things that you've already been looking at. This is why things like telemetry and following you around on the internet is so important to companies like Google and Microsoft.

White label search is what it is.

Off brand search like DDG or Brave, or whoever else is only going to purchase what they're able to afford. Paying for API access isn't anything new at all. Off brand search like DDG, for instance, does have it's own smaller index (DDG has the largest private index and is 3rd only to Bing and Google) but it still has to purchase API access from Bing in order to pay the bills.

DDG protects your privacy, this is true (you'll never find telemetry data on DDG servers) -- But your privacy stops where Bing's API begins.

The reults on the white label, or off brand search, are totally dependent on just how much of a % of the telemetry/data/index they are willing to purchase. If for instance .. the more money the off brand has, the better the results are going to be, because they can pay for more access to whoever they're doing business with. Some of those who can access the Google API may not show ads on their results because they don't have #1 enough money to do that, or #2 the percentage that Google want's from the ads shown are too high. Off brand search also may not be able to show their own ads because if they did, Google would cut off their API access because suddenly the off brand became a competitor and Google certainly couldn't have that.

Both Google and Bing control the results, either a little or a lot, on all of these white label search entities.

Awww..., quit your bellyaching, folks! You don't know how good you got it!
When I was a kid, we had to browse through a mile long corridor of Encyclopedia Britannica at the local Library to search something!!!

You're all gonna laugh - but whichever one finds me the results I want.

I use DDG because I can customize the theme, with a dark bg and fancy colors for URLs and visited URLs, but I also use Google because it almost never fails, and shopping there is still easier.

I refuse to use Bing. They want to shove Co-Pilot down my throat as enabled by default? F them. Bing gets killed, and Co-Pilot gets killed.

I've used a handful of others too, had high hopes for Neeva, but that obviously went nowhere fast. Few others here and there.

But as long as it consistently gets me results, it's my fav.

Edwin said:

Awww..., quit your bellyaching, folks! You don't know how good you got it!
When I was a kid, we had to browse through a mile long corridor of Encyclopedia Britannica at the local Library to search something!!!

Click to expand...

Well, I browsed through the ones we had at home, but yeah.

Library card catalogs, too, and indexed microfiche.

Edwin said:

Awww..., quit your bellyaching, folks! You don't know how good you got it!
When I was a kid, we had to browse through a mile long corridor of Encyclopedia Britannica at the local Library to search something!!!

Click to expand...

You've convinced me. I'm going back to the library, if I can still find one.

Edwin said:

Awww..., quit your bellyaching, folks! You don't know how good you got it!
When I was a kid, we had to browse through a mile long corridor of Encyclopedia Britannica at the local Library to search something!!!

Click to expand...

Tell us some more stories… Grandpa.

Edwin said:

Awww..., quit your bellyaching, folks! You don't know how good you got it!
When I was a kid, we had to browse through a mile-long corridor of Encyclopedia Britannica at the local Library to search for something!!!

Click to expand...

johnlgalt said:

Well, I browsed through the ones we had at home, but yeah.

Library card catalogs, too, and indexed microfiche.

Click to expand...

When I was a kid, we had to search for things in the local library which was miles away, open only certain hours of the day, and we walked uphill in the snow both ways! You kids have it so easy now.

But seriously;

Impatience is rampant now with technology providing us with instant gratification. Would I go back to the way it was? Maybe, but much more likely NO. But me being an impatient person by nature, I think the answer is not in your life would I ever go back to the olden days!!!

Google all the way, baby!

Why? Because it always works and finds what I want and more. I especially like the advanced search feature which many users don't even know is there.

Open Google search page, look down and right on the Google page, and select Settings. From the menu click on Advanced. You'll then get a plethora of search parameters by which to search for. My favorite is the selection where you can search within the last month, the last year, and some others I can't remember now since my wife chased me back to bed for posting in the wee hours of the morn.

- bob3d

Edwin said:

Google, cuz there's nothing better!

Click to expand...

Hello from China.In China I think Bing is the best.

oldhelps said:

Hello from China.In China I think Bing is the best.

Click to expand...

I thought most things were blocked other than baidu. I used to like Yahoo more than Google but that was in 1998 since if Yahoo can't find something, it will basically borrow from Google.

Edwin said:

Google, cuz there's nothing better!

Click to expand...

I have tried tons of supposedly great search engines like Quant and Duckduckgo and so on and so foth but the search results yielded on most of them are so limited. Ive even installed the script to allow the stuff not indexed or whatever on google but i dont think that did anything. But still yeah I always keep coming back to google.

Click to expand...

A lot depends, also, on your specific search Settings, and,
how explicit your query is...
99% of the time I search with voice, even on YouTube..., say only what needs to be said, say the proper words, clearly and concisely, in the proper order...