#DuckDuckGo just presented me with a CAPTCHA to proceed with a search.

I closed the site and tried again. Same.

So now I need a new search engine.

@dentangle brave

Not really sure what to use for search now. DDG doesn't support IPv6 as I discovered last week while working on an #IPv6 only network. Neither does #Mojeek (and their language support is limited to ascii-only languages - even entering "français" it will ask "did you mean francais?" (same for umlauts) and Russian and Ukrainian aren't indexed at all).

Google and Bing are the only ones I know with IPv6 support.

We seem to be getting driven off the web, folks.

@Marwe brave? Isn't that the Chrome clone run by the homophobe? Do they offer a search engine now too?

Finding something in the mid nineties required knowing something about the content of the page you might expect to find it on. I was pretty good with the old search engines.

Then Google entered with PageRank in 1998 and everything changed. In the office we'd state a question out loud during a conversation and then go type it verbatim into Google and it Just Worked.

Until about 5 years ago, when we started sliding back towards mid nineties level search, but now the haystack is much bigger...

@dentangle kagi.com

kagi.com 2600:1901:0:daa1::

@dentangle Screencap?

I'm not doubting you, I just suspect you're seeing Cloudflare's intrusive, irritating, and useless CAPTCHA, not DDG's.

Now, thanks to the size of the web, and the fact that nearly every website is collapsing under the weight of AI crawlers, it's not really feasible to build a search engine from scratch effectively.

Building a new web browser from scratch is also a difficult problem.

The web is dying. Perhaps its time has come. ⚰️

@dentangle dunno about phobies, but yes, search engine with own index (!).

@dentangle Kagi supports v6, which is nice

@dentangle you can give duckduckgo's javascript free version a try ~ https://start.duckduckgo.com/lite

@dentangle So often when I search for something I just want it to do a literal search for what I typed and give me whatever comes out.

But ranking is always like: No

@dentangle I don't have IPv6 only networking and DDG hasn't given me a captcha, but I too would like to try other search engines again. I remember @neil experimenting with them some time ago, but couldn't find it on his blog.

There was one named something Ecosystem, but can't find that either, now.

@liw @neil I'm on a dual-stack network today with no VPN, and it presented a CAPTCHA. Same IP I've used previously with same cookies loaded.

@nitpicking

@dentangle I wish it doesn't die. No web means we're going even more backwards, to AOL and Compuserve-like silos again, just that we now call them "platforms."

@Marwe

Thanks. Didn't realise they had a search engine, but I'll pass on anything involving Eich. The homophobia is strong in this one:

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CEO_and_resignation

@ariadna I think we're almost back there anyway. Most people spend most of their web time on a handful of portal sites that hoover up their data and resell it.

There are many of us working on alternatives and improvements through #ngi0 and @nlnet but we all need to pedal faster! 🚴

@dentangle I was wrong. That's either DDG or a really good man-in-the-middle attack.

@dentangle #Ecosia works with the current protocol, that's what I use instead of DDG

@holsta Yes, I'm actively looking for a replacement.

@liw @dentangle

I am using:

* search engines for individual sites, rather than general search, for sites which I search regularly (https://neilzone.co.uk/2024/07/setting-up-custom-site-specific-search-shortcuts-in-firefox/)

* DDG, with an increased sense of frustration, for everything else, having ruled out most of the others so far (https://neilzone.co.uk/2024/01/from-kagi-back-to-duckduckgo/)

@neil @liw Yes, that's about where I'm at too. I find myself avoiding search engines whenever there's an alternative and building my own bookmark map of the Internet. It's ridiculous.

Google genuinely made the Internet better, for a while. I even liked their original advertising model. Showing me clearly marked ads for something I'm actually searching for is helpful. It's like looking in the classified ads of a newspaper. It made them billions - why couldn't that be enough? *sigh*

@dentangle @neil @liw

> why couldn't that be enough?

shareholders 😑

@dentangle @neil @liw I use Ecosia and it's usually ok. No AI, clearly marked sponsored results. The search results used to be a bit worse than Google but Google's death spiral means that Ecosia is now a lot better and predictable.

@gumnos @dentangle @neil @liw

Luckily didn't get DDG Captcha's yet, and on Saturday learned they have a No-AI version of their search FWIW:

https://noai.duckduckgo.com/

@liw @dentangle @neil

DDG doesn't give me a captcha, maybe because I run DDG searches in incognito windows?

Has anyone tried SearXNG - self hosted search aggregation? No tracking or profiling and searches can be run over Tor.

It's on my list of #selfhosting things to try.

https://docs.searxng.org

@AlanJP @liw @neil https://docs.searxng.org looks interesting, although the results of my first search weren't impressive. Literally every second result was a link to support.google.com ?!

@holsta I looked, but am put off by them pushing AI. Then I re-read the post by @neil and remembered their attitude when criticism of using the Brave API was raised.

It may be one of the best of a very bad bunch. If they dropped AI and Brave I'd consider a subscription.

@dentangle what about #Kagi?

@felixxx I considered Kagi, but their overt pushing of AI put me off, and I was reminded of their poor handling of criticism when they added the Brave API to their mix.

@dentangle @felixxx fair, (about the ai thing: just to add: unlike google and duckduckgo, it won't automatically give you ai overviews. only if you explicitly press Quick Answer or add a question mark at the end of your query. otherwise it'll never do ai in search.

@dentangle Okay, the focus on AI doesn't particularly bother me, and I mainly use the standard search results anyway. What exactly is the issue with the Brave API? I guess I must have missed something.

@abucci @dentangle Well, if that's the case, you probably shouldn't support any of the big tech companies, because all their CEOs are a bit nuts in some way.

@abucci I simply don't believe that companies of this size can be operated profitably without having to resort to objectionable practices; unfortunately, our world is too broken for that. Perhaps it could be financed through massive donations, but such projects are just incredibly rare.@dentangle

@felixxx @abucci Google made billions simply by displaying keyword advertising next to the search results. I've no objection to that. Show me ads for keywords I'm actively searching for, and thus fund the free service I'm using - yes please.

Track me and sell my data and I'm out.

@felixxx @abucci I don't pay any of the big tech companies and actively reduce my usage of them. Kagi is a paid subscription. I don't mind paying, but I won't fund AI or homophobia (Brave).

> I find myself avoiding search engines whenever there's an alternative and building my own bookmark map of the Internet.

I've been doing that, too.

> It's ridiculous.

No! It is absolutely an avantgarde thing to do!

Good for lessing the impact of corporate greed on your life, and good for the environment, too!

@dentangle @neil @liw