Sigh. Search for information about configuring #Wireguard on #FreeBSD. Second result on #DuckDuckGo is a slop web site, which initially looks plausible but then runs a bunch of configuration commands that don't exist on FreeBSD. It does make up plausible output from the FreeBSD equivalents of those commands though!
I wonder how much of the productivity gains of using GenAI are simply slightly offsetting the productivity loses that come from everyone else using it.
FYI - For Your Information.
I regularly answer to a #toot with just a bunch of #hashtags related to the content or media of the said #post.
It's not only a matter of search engine optimization (#SEO), but also a stake of #findability for this #content.
If search engines (#DuckDuckGo, #Kagi, #SearxNG...) may index your #Mastodon account, according to you settings,
the software itself does not index a toot unless it has a #hashTag.
#duckduckgo just gave me an AI-generated answer (that I repeatedly tell them I never want to see) to my search for my bank's wire routing number. Had I taken it at face value I'd have been out a lot of cash--because it was completely wrong and without reference. #aisucks
Die Mehrzahl der User:innen nutzt (leider) Google, was einen erheblichen Einfluss u.a. auf Meinungsbildung zur Folge hat.
Um so wichtiger erscheint es, auf Alternativen hinzuweisen, niemand ist gezwungen Google zu nutzen! Deshalb sollte schon an Schulen frühzeitig auf diese Problematik aufmerksam gemacht werden und wir alle sollten auch im Freund:innenkreis das immer mal ansprechen.
Bei DuckDuckGo gibts eine andere Fundstellenfolge.
@tante also shit like #ChatGPT doesn't provide amy transferable skills.
"#AI" doesn't provide context. It's the digital version of an annoyed parent shouting "I sez so!" and thus is anti-#creativity and #antiintellectual.
I stopped using Google services a while ago.
I’ve written in the past about my #GoodbyeGoogle story. All part of me trying to leaving Big Tech behind.
I’m getting there.
I have a domain through which I run my own instance of Nextcloud, to replace Google Drive.
The other domain I set up to use for email and other services (albeit it’s via Apple).
In fact, apart from YouTube, my Google account is unused for anything else.
So, why have I received an email from Google advising me to verify my own domain as my recovery email?
How is Google even aware of this?
Rhetorical question, I suppose!
Here is my current tech stack:
* Storage - #Nextcloud
* Photos - Apple Photos
* Email - My own domain (currently via Apple Mail)
* Maps - Apple Maps
* Browser - #Vivaldi (MacBook) #quichebrowser (iPhone and iPad)
* Search - #DuckDuckGo
* Social Media - #GoToSocial
#fediverse #selfhost
The #Enshitification of the #internet by #Google continues.
I went to look up a nearby take away option for dinner that I have looked up many times before. The website for the take away is no longer on the first page of the Google search.
It is all part of Google’s attempts to bury the information you want so you have to spend longer on their site seeing their adds.
I am now using #DuckDuckGo for my internet searches - same search criteria and the take away website came up first.
Found an Italian adjective "pollente" I wasn't familiar with. Collins Dictionary didn't have it, DDG thought I meant polenta, and Google translate thought it was Norwegian for "pollen tree"; when I forced GT to use Italian, it gave "chicken".
Only Kagi translate recognized it as a rare literary term meaning "powerful".
@BeardlyDavid @DavidM_yeg @lauren @gollyhatch Agreed, #duckduckgo works for me. When looking up an English word I choose to use #deepl and when checking Wikipedia I use the actual search engine in Wikipedia. Spread your search queries over multiple dedicated platforms. That will make it harder to create a profile of you and the results are more direct and more reliable.
@DavidM_yeg @lauren @alterelefant @gollyhatch
I have been using #duckduckgo almost exclusively for years with great results. The decline of #google makes the switch even more worth it.
@nixCraft same with #DuckDuckGo and their annoying #LLM proposals!
I've trialed #Kagi for its first 100 searches. Now that it asks me to move to a paid plan, I'm wondering: is it really worth the €10 a month or should I just stick with #DuckDuckGo? Its feature set is essentially the same as far as I can see and DDG runs an ethical business model with a strong emphasis on privacy as well.
Does anyone know of a search engine that doesn't have that much AI slop? I've been using DDG, but results have been getting bad of late. Finding a website I recognize is hard. I stopped using startpage under concern that it was using google's increased water from AI. But yeah.
At the same time, something with too obscure of answers might not work for my job. So I dunno.
It's kind of crazy how #DuckDuckGo went from being the subpar search engine you put up with because it wasn't Google or Microsoft to becoming a legit better experience and it's mainly because of how insane the ad and AI pollution has gotten.
@CppGuy so it's not even a summary of the fictional character (i.e Jack Sparrow, Spock, Teal'c, …) it spewed out!
@thelinuxEXP To add a custom search engine in Firefox, create a new entry in about:config
browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh
and set it to true.
You will get new add and edit buttons in search parameters.
Then go to this duckduckgo page to tweak url parameters to your licking.
https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/settings/params
Here is an example of a working url so you can see what it looks like:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&kp=-2&kae=d&k1=-1&kaj=1
base
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s
and then set your preferences.
@darkrat So it can't even regurgitate sample code based off existing documentation?
Does #Microsoft's plan to cut off #Bing search APIs affect #DuckDuckGo and the other Bing reskins?
@mattblaze and that's why anyone who even mentions #AI gets kicked off premises by me.
