In the last couple of months I have noticed an increasing trend of supplying me search results that are completely unrelated to the current query and tie back to my location or previous searches. I can say this with a high degree of certainty this is without a doubt beyond the 100th instance this has happened.
My browser is configured against tracking and fingerprinting (in fact all my devices are) which would make it fairly difficult to retain any data unless they are profiling me.
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I’ve also noticed that if you do a search, click a result, then hit back to go back to the results they manipulate the results in some weird way so they’re not the exact same results you got the first time. Infuriating
Yes! I thought I was losing my mind. I was like “I swear this was the third result but now it’s the 5th? Eh, maybe it was the 5th.”
Ducks are learning to gaslight people. Fascinating.
Yeah I hate that. Now all results have to be opened in new tabs just in case.
I’d bet that’s more bug than feature. Like they’re trying to avoid SEO providing any consistent ordering to be gamed.
Still a pain in the ass either way. Vindication for being a complete tab whore.
Odd. I wonder what is going on here because when I search that exact same query I get accurate results.
I’ve had iffy search results before but never anything that bad.
I also don’t get the same results. I also have tracking and fingerprinting disabled everywhere.
What would we suggest as a realistic alternative? Sears? Startpage? Brave? (I am no expert by the way, just looking for tips)
Searx sucks for images in my experience, startpage was bought by an advertising company, brave is weird for a multitude of reasons but I don’t know how good their search engine is as I’ve never tried it
However I do think that finding a searx instance that works for you and then using another engine like ddg for images is the way to go… You could add a shortcut like “.ddg garbage truck” for easily searching with for example ddg on firefox
How does searx suck for images exactly? 🫠
Also a bit confused by this. I thought the point of searxng is to combine your preferred search engines. So couldn’t I just configure ddg for the image results?
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It does though? Right under the search bar there should be a switch bar to turn on localized search, and a dropdown to pick different location.
Or is it itself location locked?
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It is not accidental, they localize searches
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Nope not locked. I have always on vpn (random countries) anti fingerprinting and DDG happily allows the search localisation to my actual or a different country
I have still the same good results in ddg, no matter what device or browser. I have noticed that they have some location bias when ddg (and any other search engine i have tried) has non good results globaly but good resulta locally.
Still better then anything i have tested. Just because there are minor anomalies i will stick with them.
Yes, I have the same issue with DDG for something like a year now. I can’t use it anymore for basic searches, I feel like the bing api they are using is getting worse and worse.
It might be blindly searching for websites that contain any of the words scan, mark 2, pro.
It seems to do that when it can’t find a page with all of the words, and the only way I know to fix it is put the whole thing in quotation marks.
I use DDG, tho’ it’s with a VPN. And it seems to work just fine. shrug
If you’re looking for a new search engine, I’ve been using paid search provider, Kagi.com, for the last few months. They’ve been great.
Slowly but surely I am coming to the realisation that free services sooner or later will drift away from their privacy claims
Precisely. Ad and user data supported products will always balance making their users happy, with making their paying customers happy.
Same! Switched over to kagi a couple months ago and I’ve been loving it!
Kagi is awesome! I recently fell in love with it.
I turned JS off other than for specific websites. This includes DDG. It gives me accurate results, although the other commenters don’t seem be facing your problem either
The only time I use ddg is to find conspiracy sites to add to the blocklist I maintain. All the trash rises to the top in that search engine. It’s rubbish.
No shit in my experience its also filled with random ad stuff and mainly companies selling you shit
Tell me more…
Do you maintain the block list to avoid conspiracies or because these types of websites are riddled with nasties?
Mostly to avoid conspiracies. The intended users are people who want to protect vulnerable family members.
Another purpose is to demonstrate that the big social networks could get rid of disinformation if they wanted to - “look what 1 person can achieve, in their spare time”, kinda thing.
My browser (Firefox) is configured the same way.
No issues with your search term here. I think you have gremlins.
I get the same shit at work where I can’t use a VPN: like 7-8 relevant results then basically just ads for local businesses after that.
On DDG I can type in an exact company or product name and not get a proper result, it’s crazy. Google seems to find the stuff no problem, it’s really quite frustrating when the search engine isn’t even capable of basic queries.
It has been doing this shit for a while. Returning results based on just one key word out of many keywords from my query.
Lately they have been even ignoring the restrictive +“keyword” syntax and returning whatever shit just so they won’t admit their (or Microsoft’s indexer) is shit
