I suspect that this is the direct result of AI generated content just overwhelming any real content.
I tried ddg, google, bing, quant, and none of them really help me find information I want these days.
Perplexity seems to work but I don’t like the idea of AI giving me “facts” since they are mostly based on other AI posts
ETA: someone suggested SearXNG and after using it a bit it seems to be much better compared to ddg and the rest.
they’re pretty bad, but ddg at least feels like I’m getting actual results.
I prefer DDG, but I hate the news search. 90% of the results are paywalled.
Oh, and sometimes the image search will return a pile of porn for a seemingly clean search request. I once searched for “R34 Skyline” expecting Nissans, and got VERY different results without safe search.
Searching for R34 is on you. Naming something R34 is on Nissan. The popularity of R34 is on all of us.