Alternatives to Google search

[Anuovis]

I have been thinking for some time if there were any. Alternatives from two-three years ago did not seem to be any good but the situation might have changed now. After some superficial searching and a couple of articles I found these:

Wolfram (http://www.wolframalpha.com/index.html)
Not an alternative but more of a different way of searching.

Cuil (http://www.cuil.com/)
Not sure about this one, the results seem to be rather poor.

Hakia (http://hakia.com/)
Next generation semantic search? Results seem to be OK.

Clusty (http://clusty.com/)
I really liked this one, it groups all the results.

Exalead (http://www.exalead.com/search/web/)
Seems to have a very precise search syntax but I don't know anything about the results.

I have not been using any of these, just made a list where to start from.

Does anybody have some tips on how to test if a search engine is doing an OK job or not? Any other engines I have missed?

Also, could you share your experiences about alternative searches if you have been using any?

[pwnst*r]

Does anybody have some tips on how to test if a search engine is doing an OK job or not?

yep. compare them to google's results.

[lisati]

Found out about this "search engine" from a Doctor Who episode: http://www.search-wise.net/

:)

[pwnst*r]

http://www.bing.com/

[benerivo]

ixquick.com (https://ixquick.com)

It's a meta-search engine that promotes itself with a strong privacy policy.

[LeifAndersen]

Well, if you like pulling your teeth out, http://www.yahoo.com. But it just uses bing, with a really bad interface.

[juancarlospaco]

Apache Lucene, if dont work is your fault. :)

[adeypoop]

http://www.ask.com/

[The Toxic Mite]

ixquick.com (https://ixquick.com)

It's a meta-search engine that promotes itself with a strong privacy policy.

My family often used that during my mum's university days, but then we discovered Google.

Still, they are both pretty good. I also like Clusty despite just discovering it today :P

EDIT: Just added it to my browser's search bar with HTTPS enabled ;) :P

[adeypoop]

Does anybody have some tips on how to test if a search engine is doing an OK job or not?


i reckon the best way to test one is to set it as your default search engine and leave it as the default for a certain time period (eg a week).

Also try and stay open minded, just because something is different to google doesn't mean its not as good.

Its a good idea for a thread, I think I'll try some of these that have been suggested

:guitar:

[hoppipolla]

http://www.everyclick.com/

but I think it uses Yahoo, which is strange coz I thought they weren't so ethical... oh well, there are a fair few good charitable search engines :)

[The Toxic Mite]

http://www.everyclick.com/

but I think it uses Yahoo, which is strange coz I thought they weren't so ethical... oh well, there are a fair few good charitable search engines :)

Therefore, it actually uses Bing and it's crap.

[hoppipolla]

Therefore, it actually uses Bing and it's crap.

it's mainly cool for the charity though ^_^

[pwnst*r]

Therefore, it actually uses Bing and it's crap.

actually Bing is the next best thing to google. it's okay if you don't agree.


no, really.

[The Toxic Mite]

actually Bing is the next best thing to google. it's okay if you don't agree.


no, really.

http://blog.pharmalive.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/o_rly.jpg

:lolflag:

[VastOne]

Before Google I used http://www.altavista.com/

And lo and behold, it is still there

[Gramps]

InfoSpace created the Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com) search engine because your time is important to us. Powered by Metasearch technology, Dogpile returns all the best results from leading search engines including Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask, so you find what you’re looking for faster.

[73ckn797]

If you search for Ubuntu answers and find the forum search difficult, try http://www.uboontu.com .

[phawnex]

i use google and yahoo.

i tried other search engines, they just dont work as well lol.

[Anuovis]

If you search for Ubuntu answers and find the forum search difficult, try http://www.uboontu.com .

Is it the same as http://crunchbang.org/ubuntu-search-engine/ ?

I need to actually use it for some time before saying anything but www.ixquick.com seems like a decent one.

[hoppipolla]

If you search for Ubuntu answers and find the forum search difficult, try http://www.uboontu.com .

that's awesome :)

[HappinessNow]

try this one: http://www.yubnub.org/

type 'gym' in front of any search term; ex.


gym ubuntuforums

It splits your web browser screen into 3 between Google/Yahoo/Bing

[73ckn797]

Is it the same as http://crunchbang.org/ubuntu-search-engine/ ?

I need to actually use it for some time before saying anything but www.ixquick.com (http://www.ixquick.com) seems like a decent one.

I have not tried Crunchbang and cannot comment on it.

ixquick is not bad.

[judge jankum]

https://ssl.scroogle.org/

[Barriehie]

Title says it!

http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm

[hoppipolla]

www.keyboardr.com is cool and there's also another one that acts the same but I can't remember it's name...

EDIT -- it's www.heapr.com :)

[Warren Watts]

InfoSpace created the Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com) search engine because your time is important to us. Powered by Metasearch technology, Dogpile returns all the best results from leading search engines including Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask, so you find what you’re looking for faster.

Add me to the Dogpile crowd. I use Dogpile almost exclusively for internet searches.

[Frak]

yep. compare them to google's results.

I just laughed so hard.

[gnomeuser]

I tried a few search engines, I tried my name to see where my blog and other online presences were placed, given that I share my name with a famous danish footballer this is prone to giving undesirable results. I am aiming to find my blog as that gets updated fairly regularly and has several popular posts.

Google: page 5
Bing: page 1 (but for my outdated Fedora Maintainer page)
Hakia: Page 2 (but my rarely updated identi.ca page)
Yahoo: Page 1
Cuil: Page 1

Then I tried to search for my famed Vista review which on Google is the first hit for "windows batshit insane".

Google: Page 1 (first hit)
Bing: never (I read past 15 pages of hits with no luck - major fail Microsoft)
Hakia: never (I read all 10 pages of hits - major fail Hakia)
Yahoo: Page 1 (first hit)
Cuil: Page 1 (first hit)

Based on this highly unscientific test Yahoo and Cuil give better results on the limited sample size. Of the two I think Cuil is my prefered search engine, the page is neater and the results are displayed in a more useful manner, I especially like the context related groups on the right side. As a bonus Cuil detects that I am using Chromium and discretely offers instructions on how to add itself to the search engine with handy screenshots and helpful text.

[Giant Speck]

http://www.bing.com/

I'm going to have to +1 this, especially for the Image search, which doesn't require you to click through pages of images. It just lets you keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling...

[RPG Master]

I've been using Cuil since the beginning :D

Yes, even back when it was an absolute turd :P
But now it's actually really awesome :D

[siimo]

+1 for Bing.

It is the best search engine after Google. Yahoo doesn't count - uses Bing backend anyway.

Especially like Bing video search that lets you mouse hover over to preview the video. Also like the never ending ajax scrolling image and video searching.

[NaickJa99]

I came across this shopping search engine that I'd like to share:

http://www.onewayshopping.com

[Sporkman]

Where can I buy cheap ****** and acai berry supplements?

[blueshiftoverwatch]

Title says it!

http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm
Indeed.

[m0o]

It could be great if we can add this to the Firefox search bar.

[RabbitWho]

*likes google*

*loves commercialism*

*loves capitalism*


I like the cooky art 90s web style on that though.

[fromthehill]

It could be great if we can add this to the Firefox search bar.
you can :)

http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html?name=scroogle

[Barriehie]

It could be great if we can add this to the Firefox search bar.

Check here. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3682

[judge jankum]

scroogle rocks

[Barriehie]

Found another one...
https://us2.ixquick.com/eng/

[t0p]

Found another one...
https://us2.ixquick.com/eng/I haven't made up my mind about ixquick.com yet. It returns a lot less results than the same search with Google, but sometimes they're more relevant. As for Scroogle: I get hanging connection a lot of the time. It doesn't matter how great a search engine is with your personal data, if it doesn't perform searches efficiently.

[NCFC]

I haven't made up my mind about ixquick.com yet. It returns a lot less results than the same search with Google, but sometimes they're more relevant. As for Scroogle: I get hanging connection a lot of the time. It doesn't matter how great a search engine is with your personal data, if it doesn't perform searches efficiently.

You can change your IXquick settings to show 100 results which is the same as Scroogle.

There's also a SSL Scroogle which can found at: https://ssl.scroogle.org/

I've tended to move towards IXquick but I've got Scroogle SSL in my Quick Search.

[BenAshton24]

They're all good, but what's really needed is an (almost) exact replica of Google with the exact same results and thumbnails for videos etc. Maybe one that pulls the source code from Google and hard-codes all of the URLs to images etc. That would be good XD

[bapoumba]

Threads merged.

[RabbitWho]

They're all good, but what's really needed is an (almost) exact replica of Google with the exact same results and thumbnails for videos etc. Maybe one that pulls the source code from Google and hard-codes all of the URLs to images etc. That would be good XD


(http://tiny.cc/6WvLz) Try this one. (http://tiny.cc/6WvLz)

[m0o]

you can :)

http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html?name=scroogle


Check here. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3682

Great, thank you both for the links. I also started using the Firefox keyword bookmarks feature for Scroogle's searchbox.

[Jags_FL]

I've been using http://www.bing.com/ since its launch in June-2009 and quite happy with it :)

[Georgia boy]

If you go to manage search engines and click search for more search engines you'll get over 600 results returned. I went through a few pages. Too many to chose from for me right now. Have a look at those.

Tom