Duckduckgo also has bangs, which I consider an essential feature.

Although I use SearXNG instead, since their equivalent is a lot more customisable (although less bangs out of the box).

I don’t think that’s true. They are using the index of bing, but the search results are not. At least that’s what I heard, no idea if it’s factual or not.

It’s so obnoxious. I hate researching a topic only to be fed results leading to useless AI spam. The entire thing is clogged up like this. Searching on the internet absolutely sucks, now.

I’ve read good things about kagi but haven’t tried it yet.

Yeah. Really sucks how you need to know what you’re looking for in order to get any use out of a search engine these days.

For example, if you want to find a “free online video chatroom”, you’re not going to find it by typing those words into google. You need to know, specifically, that there is a free chatroom called https://stumblechat.com/ and type that into google in order to see it.

The world is fucked.

Recently I don’t feel that way after using Kagi. Sure, there’s still some junk, but somehow I’m finding what I’m looking for a lot easier. That search in forums toggle is magical.