I recently had an experience while doing a simple Google search that was so profoundly weird that it stopped me in my tracks.
Understanding this Google se...
Have we gotten to the point where we have to constantly be in a parasocial dialogue with our computers?
No. You don’t have to use the horrible crap from the megacorps. DuckDuckGo exists. Kagi exists. Ecosia exists. Alternatives to all this shit exists. The more people use them, the less power Google etc. have.
Bing and Google. Separate index so far only available for France.
I use it anyway, I like how it shows climate impact I made by using Ecosia with ads (right now it’s 3 trees planted, 22 square meters of land restored).
I use DDG when I need to search pictures though, because Ecosia doesn’t have “no AI pictures” toggle, so it’s all AI slop.
No. You don’t have to use the horrible crap from the megacorps. DuckDuckGo exists. Kagi exists. Ecosia exists. Alternatives to all this shit exists. The more people use them, the less power Google etc. have.
Is ecosia’s back end still Bing?
Bing and Google. Separate index so far only available for France.
I use it anyway, I like how it shows climate impact I made by using Ecosia with ads (right now it’s 3 trees planted, 22 square meters of land restored).
I use DDG when I need to search pictures though, because Ecosia doesn’t have “no AI pictures” toggle, so it’s all AI slop.