this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026

25 points (100.0% liked)

No Stupid Questions

47776 readers

692 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)

Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.

Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.

Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.

Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.

Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.

Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.

Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.

Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.

Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

technopagan@lemmy.world

Are there seach engines that dont depend Google and Bing, if not what are the barriers to entry of new search engines? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 5 hours ago by Twoafros@sh.itjust.works to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Not a technical person, as I understand it, Google and Bing are full search engines while options like Seaexng, Ecosia, Duckduckgo are meta search engine that depend on Google or Bing. Are there other search engines that are fully independent, and if there aren't, what are the barriers that stop other search engines from emerging

all 20 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 11 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (2 children)

Yes there is. Kagi is probally the most well known I can think of, and even that still uses Google and Bing as secondary sources.

The biggest barriers is data/context. The biggest being the primary index.

Google has a lot of web scrapers/indexers and also offers hosting platforms. They also partner with big hosting companies for index trees to be able to easily show web sites reliably AND have been around for years finding it.

This is sadly also one of the primary damages that AI is currently doing to the internet field, because not only is it decreasing web traffic for web hosts due to AI summaries and searches, but it's also forcing web hosts to have to block or restrict indexers. Which is making it even harder to establish search platforms. Because these same agents are abusing the user agent system to try to pretend that it's a normal indexer, so web hosts are faced with either having their platform spammed so many bot traffic that it takes their website down, or block indexers, which means that they don't appear in web searches. It's a lose lose.

[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

This is sadly also one of the primary damages that AI is currently doing to the internet field, because not only is it decreasing web traffic for web hosts due to AI summaries and searches, but it's also forcing web hosts to have to block or restrict indexers

Not to mention the damage it's doing to content quality, as websites become increasingly written in a way that's meant to optimise for AI placement, and are increasingly being populated with content written by an AI in the first place. Information, written by machines, for machines. It's depressing as hell (and hard to see how it ultimately helps engage real actual people, who seem to be an afterthought sometimes).

[–] Twoafros@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

Thanks for this. Its very detailed. I heard abt Kagi but I thought it was a meta search engine, thanks for the clarification.

Thanks for letting me know about the barriers ad well and the current damage ai companies are doing. Hopefully, we'll think of something to beat back the ai companies and Google

[–] Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I've been using Lite Duckduckgo. It gives 10 text link per page. No video, shorts, pictures, ads. Just link. Someone on lemmy mentioned it and I've been using it since.

[–] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

That's a good thing to know about!

[–] schwim@piefed.zip 14 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Kagi has independent indexes.

Kagi Search Sources( source ):

Kagi is known for delivering a unique flavor of high-quality search results, sourced from our own web index (internally named "Teclis") and news index (internally named "TinyGem"). Kagi's indexes provide distinctive results that help you discover non-commercial websites and engage with "small web" discussions surrounding a particular topic.

We don't stop there; we are always trying new things to surface relevant, high-quality results. For example, we recently launched the Kagi Small Web initiative, which showcases content from personal blogs and discussions around the web. Discovering high-quality content written without the motive of financial gain gives Kagi's search results a unique flavor and makes it feel more humane to use.

Our search results also include anonymized API calls to all major search result providers worldwide, specialized search engines like Marginalia, and sources of vertical information such as Wolfram Alpha, Apple, Wikipedia, Open Meteo, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other APIs. Typically, every search query on Kagi will call a dozen or so different sources simultaneously, all with the purpose of bringing the best possible search results to the user in a split second.

Our unique algorithms down-rank pages with a lot of ads and trackers (which we have found correlate with a decrease in content quality) and promote content from independent, ad-free sources and personal websites. This ensures that Kagi shows results that delight users and are worth paying for. Subscriptions from our members pay for search results, allowing Kagi to remain ad-free and 100% privacy-respecting.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 4 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

Yeah. I just... it costs too much. I can't justify it, even though I tried. It should be 1000/mo. for $3. That I would pay.

[–] Steve@communick.news 8 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Your search engine in a very real way is your internet. Nearly everything you see online starts there.

If you aren't paying for it, someone else is. And the reason they're paying, is to make sure you get the internet they want; Not the one you want. If you want the internet be be what you want, you have to be the one to pay for it.

I don't know where you live, but in most of the developed world $10 is roughly the cost of a single lunch. Not even a fancy one. What's worth more to you? An inexpensive lunch? Or making sure the internet you see in your search, is the one you want to see, instead of what someone else wants you to see?

[–] blitzen@lemmy.ca 9 points 4 hours ago

I think part of why the internet sucks now is we’ve grown accustomed to too much for free.

The $10 I spend on Kagi is the best subscription I have, and one of the only ones I still keep.

[–] br3d@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

I think the best model would be that you top up an account and pay some small amount per search. That's also a bit more transparent, and directly linked to use

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 17 points 5 hours ago

Ecosia at least partially uses the European Search Perspective (EUSP) search index which they develop in collaboration with Qwant.

[–] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 15 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Ecosia and Qwant have their own search index.

[–] nimpnin@sopuli.xyz 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Well, you gotta index the whole internet

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Before you can make an apple pie from scratch. Or something.

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I've not used it, but have heard decent things about Kagi, a paid search engine. Supposedly, it finds things like how old Yahoo or old Google worked, without AI (but is optionally available?), and no ads.

I would think the major barrier to entry is the business model: ad revenue goes to those that can deliver results. Google AdSense has dominated that realm for years, so it would take a major upfront investment to challenge them on that. Not much different than how it's hard to compete with established airlines to a particular airport that they already serve. Economies of scale tend towards consolidation.

[–] LordMayor@piefed.social 4 points 4 hours ago

Someone recently posted this:

Marginalia Search

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.today 1 points 5 hours ago

yandex maybe, i think mojeek is also independent

[–] CannedYeet@lemmy.world -4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Brave delivers results from its own, built-from-scratch index.

https://brave.com/search/

[–] notfromhere@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Lemmy has an unhealthy obsession with shiting on Brave. (Responding to your downvotes)

Brave Search privacy notice

Brave Search is designed to be private by default. We don’t collect personal information about you, your device or your searches. We also don’t transmit information to the web that could be used to profile you or track you or learn anything about you. Your searches are private to YOU.