Technology

Searxng, reddit, gmap or OSM for mapping.

I mostly use Startpage and Waterfox as browser. I know system1 was bought by an advertising company which on itself is a bit spooky, but they haven't done anything that would be a concern for my data.

Startpage uses google as a serach engine but anonymizes your search query and u don't see these paid google ads in your searches. pretty neat.

Waterfox is modified Firefox but without the Mozilla shit. I wanted a good balance between usability and privacy and other Firefox based browsers like LibreWolf were just such a drag for everyday use. I can still sync my Mozilla account for bookmarks and stuff which is neat but for other than sync functions and updates Wterfox doesn't phone home

I've still been using Google but it has gone seriously down hill. After an experience earlier today I think I'm done with them for good. I was trying to check if digital international drivers permit were legit (they're not), and when I googled it, the word "digital" was completely ignored, which was the most important modifier in the query, making the results worthless. I think they're generalizing queries so they're more cachable and cheaper to fulfill, but it's made the experience terrible now, so I'm finally done with them.

I'll probably switch to duck duck go. The bing index didn't ignore the word digital for me.

SearXNG, searches every search engine and regroups them in a single list, alongside the very powerful "bang" variant they use ("!!" is like "!" for ddg, and "!" is to only search with this search engine, ":en" is to choose a specific shortcode language.)

I use Ecosia. It works quite well, and if I ever need to search something on Google instead (like a coin flip/stock ticker) you can just do #g or #yt for Youtube They also plant trees and are carbon negative

Bing and DDG.

Can we stop trying to coin cute terms like "enshittification"? What that term describes is just capitalism working as intended.

There is a term that describes this behavior that we've been using for at least decades (to describe behavior that has happened since the inception of capitalism): rent seeking.

Bing/Bing chat in combination with Microsoft Rewards.

A combination of DDG and Google. DDG's results too often look like a list of sponsors so when that happens I fuck right back off to Google.

Get an ad blocker, get Privacy Badger, use a VPN, experience the internet the way it was before corporate shitbags got hold of it. Mostly.

Self-hosted SearXNG. Very easy to self-host, and (for the most part) works just fine

The only correct answer here is to use an instance of SearXNG because it's open source, utilizes privacy, and queries every kind of search engine that exists on the internet.