Alternatives to Google?

[KiwiNZ]

What do you mean by that?

There is no law requiring google to filter search results. (SOPA did not pass)

The whole idea behind the DCMA, is that companies like google are protected from legal action.

I think they just do it to avoid confrontation.

And prefer to use a search engine that does not do that.

I was referring to compliance with DCMA, I prefer to use compliant Applications etc

[cbanakis]

I was around before google took over. There were a lot of search engines, yes. But there really weren't any "alternatives to google". Google took over because it was really good, unlike the other crap that was around (looking at you, go.com). Before google, searching the web was very difficult as it was based only on keywords and most of the results were really useless. All while you had to stand the ads.

The huge mistake everyone was making before google was that web search was a trivial thing. You just needed spiders and servers and lookup on tables by keywords. What google brought to the table was an actual algorithm that was barely able to rank pages by relevancy. Or rather an actually good way to measure relevancy. It was really a whole different product than what "search engines" were offering then.

PS: The DMCA claim actually shows you the stuff that was removed from google. See the "Allegedly infringing URLS" section.

I agree that its the best. (Function wise)

But I don't like having my actions logged, and my results filtered.

I would rather drive a Ford Escort, than drive a BMW that had a gps tracker that was actively monitoring my every move, and making certain roads invisible to me.

But anyways, my reasoning is not really on topic.

Just looking for peoples input on search engines that they have used, that are not google.

[cbanakis]

I was referring to compliance with DCMA, I prefer to use compliant Applications etc

I also prefer to use compliant applications.

But I also prefer to avoid censorship on my internet.

[vexorian]

The thing is that whether or not to follow the law is not a choice of the web search engines. Bing* probably do exactly the same filtering. Else they would be shut down.

* Yahoo does not count, it uses Bing.

So in order to avoid the censorship, you would need to find a web search engine that does not actually use google or bing as result provider. And that it intentionally disobeys DMCA complaints and that it can actually provide accurate results. Each of those assertions makes the theoretical search engine more and more unlikely.

True.
However startpage.com adopts a strict privacy policy, the details of which may be read here.
The search results when compared to Google are comparable.

If by "comparable" you mean, "It actually uses google for the searches" then yes.

[SeijiSensei]

What do you mean by that?

There is no law requiring google to filter search results. (SOPA did not pass)

The whole idea behind the DCMA, is that companies like google are protected from legal action.

Have you actually read the DMCA and documentation about it? Try starting at chillingeffects.org.

Whether posting a link to infringing content itself constitutes "contributory infringment" is, I believe, still not resolved by US Courts. It certainly hasn't been taken to the Supreme Court.

ISPs are protected from legal action only if they comply with take-down requests. The law is vague about whether noncompliance with one request could remove the "safe-harbor" provisions under which an ISP may operate. If I were Google I wouldn't want to take a chance with that.

My biggest complaint with Google these days is that search result URLs are embedded in tracking URLs so it's typically no longer possible simply to right-click a URL on a results page and copy and paste it into another document without the Google cruft. If the URL points to an HTML document you can follow it to the actual site and then copy and paste the URL from the address bar. The process is much more difficult if the link points to a PDF document. Following the link downloads the document and displays it in a helper application (in my case, Okular), but that doesn't help. Sometimes you can copy the link text which is displayed below the title, but if the URL is too long, it will be edited and thus cannot be used.

[bra|10n]

If by "comparable" you mean, "It actually uses google for the searches" then yes.

You find it inadequate in some way?

[vexorian]

Just saying that a website that uses google as search engine is not really an alternative to google. It is good as a layer between you and google to avoid logging your searches. Not really a true "alternative" but more of an addon.

I think the only real alternative to google is Bing. But it logs you just as much if not worse than google.

[cbanakis]

True.
However startpage.com adopts a strict privacy policy, the details of which may be read here.
The search results when compared to Google are comparable.

Startpage.com looks pretty good.

Not sure if it actually uses google, but it claims its not tracking me, and does not seem to be filtering results.

[vexorian]

It is using google. It is actually the first thing the web site tells you. Any DMCA-related filtering google does will be inherited by startpage.com.

It is really no different than a proxy between you and google.

[Mikeb85]

Google respects user privacy more than any corporation I've ever seen or heard of... And they're also quite open about what they track and don't track, and give plenty of options to the user.

I think this Google paranoia is completely unfounded...