Ask HN: What are the viable alternatives to DuckDuckGo?
I dropped Google Search over 10 years ago because my searches were enshitified and bubble wrapped, and quotes stopped mattering, making it impossible to escape the bubble. As the saying goes, it happened before and will happen again: now DuckDuckGo is enshitifying my searches by bubblification and ignoring quotes. I'm not interested in AI chatbots; I prefer multiple sources and to cross-check information myself. What alternatives are you using or recommending?
I've been using Startpage for a while. It gives Google results without the tracking, and quotes are respected. It's not perfect, but it's a decent middle ground.
Try SearXNG. It's a metasearch engine that aggregates results from multiple sources, and you can self-host it to avoid any filtering or bias. It respects quotes and doesn't bubble-wrap.
I've moved to Kagi. It's a paid search engine that prioritizes privacy and lacks ads. You can customize the results, and it respects quotes. It's not free, but it's worth it for the quality.
For technical searches, I use Marginalia Search. It indexes non-commercial, independent websites, so you get more authentic results without the SEO spam.
I've been using Brave Search. It has its own index and doesn't rely on Bing or Google. It respects quotes and offers a privacy-friendly experience.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7
Here are some "web search engines" that still work for me without CAPTCHA, Javascript or cookies
Most do not require SNI or a User-Agent (UA) header
https://api.mwmbl.org/?q=example
https://www.bing.com/search?q=example&cc=US&first=1
Need SNI
https://www.webcrawler.com/serp?q=what&page=1
Need UA and Accept-Language headers
https://monocles.eu/search {POST q=example&pageno=1}
https://crowdview-next-js.onrender.com/api/search-v3?query=e...
https://wiby.me/?q=example&p=1
NB. I (a) do searching from command line
(b) use UNIX filters I wrote that take SERPs/JSON as input and output SQL and simple HTML
(c) read HTML with a text-only browser that has no Javascript engine
(d) have no familiarity with Javascript-enabled, "AI"-enabled browser experience other than reading comments about it
(e) have other search strategies for finding information, do not rely on "web search engines"
- SyneRyder
If you don't mind paying and someone else having control over your search experience, Kagi is an option. Urkey (sp?) is another new alternative.
If you just want a free search engine, Brave is probably the best index. Bonus points to Marginalia for finding the obscure things Brave doesn't surface.
But if you want to go down the rabbit hole, it's easy to build your own metasearch engine and search several engines at once - an AI model can make one for you in a single night with just a small PHP script, if you have your own website / webost. In my case, the combination of Brave, Mojeek & Marginalia covers all my search needs.
Deeper down the rabbit hole, you can build your own search index with SQLite, as an additional index for your metasearch. There are projects like Hister that will help make your own search index:
- worldsavior
You can use noai.duckduckgo.com if don't want AI, and lite.duckduckgo.com if you don't want bubblification.
- kstrauser
I gladly pay for Kagi because the experience is so much better that it’s worth it to me.
- gtfiorentino
Hi, I work on Search at DuckDuckGo. Can you clarify what you mean by “bubblification”? Would be interested to know what has changed for you as a long-time user.