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‘Reddit can survive without search’: company reportedly threatens to block Google
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Technology
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Whelp with that I guess my leaving Reddit will go from 99% to 100%. Literally the only reason I’ve ever on that site is because I have a Google search result now. It was the last useful thing about it. Google has terrible results now and Reddit search is useless. They only work when together.
I will believe that Google can figure out a way to filter the spam -- I mean, beating the spammers was their core value-add that made them what they are today. The spammers have pulled well ahead for maybe a year, but Google can maybe figure out a way to pull ahead again.
But there is no way that Reddit is going to be a reasonable forum site without a way to search it. Maybe it doesn't have to be Google, but they have to have something sane.
Even aside from people searching, some people contribute specifically so that the information they provide can be found by people searching down the line. If it's just going to a black hole...
I just don’t think Google cares anymore. They don’t have any legitimate competition. Their web browser dominates, their search is literally a verb now, and nobody’s changing anytime soon. The search has been terrible for a solid two years now and I just don’t see it getting any better. They have incentivized an entire industry designed to push low effort noise to the top for over a decade. It would take an unbelievable amount of work and dismantling said industry, or at least heavily augmenting it, to right the ship again.
What's a "good" search engine these days?
Kagi.
Have you used Orion? Any good?
I have. It’s pretty good. I still use Firefox for most stuff, and like 5% of sites that I visit break in Orion, but other than that it’s very clean and easy. I like the side tabs, but it doesn’t completely replace Firefox for me yet. Seems close though!!!
None, to be honest. Google had the best 3-5 years ago. Downhill currently. I use DDG for privacy and just have to work a little harder to find what I want.
There’s one paid one I’ve seen people on HN recommend but it seems pretty fringe and more about being open source than being as good as google. Supposedly decent though. Can’t remember the name unfortunately.
Kagi is probably the paid one you have seen but it’s not open source. And it’s way better results. I make maybe 1 extra search for every 30 searches now compared to google where it was getting up to 3-5 extra searches every time I did a single search. Not sure of a better metric other than that.
Appreciate the info!
Yeah, I'm not specifically beating up on Google. No search engines are beating the spammers right now.
Beyond not using reddit, and only landing on reddit when a search engine leads me to it directly, I've been using SearXNG locally to query many free engines at no cost to me.