Was trying a duckduckgo search for a restaurant in town, and I clicked on a link to read it, then came back to the search results. Suddenly a bunch of links disappeared and the first two links were now tripadvisor.

I selected hide site from these results and immediately a tripadvisor link from another url (different country) pops up. I kind of kept going and hiding about 15 results and new tripadvisor links kept popping up. This went on until "Search query entered was too long. Please shorten and try again."

So is this a bing-underneath thing, or direct enshittification of duckduckgo?

This is while using uBlockOrigin, but that didn't help, I didn't see any way that the ads differed from the normal links either.

By a post of @ueeu I came across the searchengine @MetaGer

As I am still looking around for a good searchengine, and as MetaGer has it's own Mastodon instance, I got interested.

MetaGer says it's a fully privacy focussed search engine, subscription based and located in Germany. It looks a bit like the European counterpart of Kagi.

https://metager.org/

Does anyone have experience with this searchengine? Should I buy a token and test them?

For our second #FollowFriday here (we forgot it last week), we wanted to recommend European search engines that have accounts here on Mastodon.

So we tried to find on Mastodon the European companies listed on this post:
https://social.vivaldi.net/@ueeu/114174129661206035

But unfortunately, very few of them are present on Mastodon.

We believe that those companies who have chosen to join the Fediverse deserve our attention, even if we have not yet used their services.

By receiving their news in our feeds, we might be inspired to explore their services and be informed about their developments.

So we suggest following these 5 accounts to show your support and witness their growth as it unfolds.

@MetaGer (2.2k followers) - Congrats for having their own instance!
@StartpageSearch (4k followers)
@Mojeek (3.3k followers)
@Swisscows (69 followers)

There is also the Open Web Search account: @openwebsearcheu. While they are not a company, they are a coalition of European research and computing centers that promotes Europe's independence in web search. If you'd like to be updated about Europe's digital sovereignty and search engine markets, follow them too!

Do you know any other European search engine that deserves a follow? Let us know!

Joining the #European #propaganda team. Here you go: a short guide on how to become a digitally sovereign European citizen.

I have no idea what’s going on …
I search for “maapl.net” and I get everything except for maapl.net

Is it being blocked my microsoft (DuckDuckGo uses Bing)?

I was able to get to it a few days ago (great search I/F by the way, based on searxing search metaengine/db)

Now, zip! Can’t get to it.
Anyone else not seeing it in their search engines? Does anyone know why?
https://maapl.net

The Search Engine Map
by @Mojeek

The map is interactive, so you can click on each circle to find out more about the different search engines.

We'd love to know when the map was made, as some of the info looks out of date, but unfortunately we couldn't find that information. And the repo on GitHub no longer exists!

European search engines listed:

Mojeek
Oscobo
Entireweb
Metager
Ecosia
Lilo
Qwant
eTools.ch
Swisscows
ZapMeta
Startpage

https://www.searchenginemap.com/

Web indexing: where is Qwant's independence?

Qwant , the French search engine, is probably the biggest European engine that exists today.

But we often hear that Qwant is actually Microsoft Bing in disguise. How much of this is true?

They have their own crawling tools and algorithms, but they can use Bing's results as a supplement when people search for images or things where Qwant isn't strong enough yet.

They explain it here:

https://betterweb.qwant.com/en/2023/09/18/web-indexing-where-is-qwants-independence/

Recently I've been looking at European search engines. #Qwant and #StartPage seem to be the most popular, the latter having stricter privacy policy.

Which privacy focused engine are you using and why?

A recent study by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism has revealed alarming inconsistencies and inaccuracies in AI search tools, challenging their growing popularity as replacements for traditional search engines.

https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2025/ai/ai-search-engines-plagued-by-inaccuracy

would love some suggestions for a new #searchengine
Especially if it has functional boolean searches

The French search engine Qwant is trying to gain more users by starting a loyalty program.

Qwant has launched a loyalty program that allows users to earn up to €10 per week by conducting daily searches on Qwant.com.

The program works by accumulating points and climbing the ranking, with the top users being rewarded. To participate, users need to create a Qwant account and sign up for the loyalty program.

Once signed up, users can earn points by using Qwant for searches, and these points can be redeemed for money that can be transferred to a user's bank account.

Note:
- you don't need to create an account to use Qwant

- if you join the loyalty programme and receive money, you need to give your bank details (name and IBAN to receive the money)

- they say they don't store your search history, and if you're tempted to try it but don't know if you can trust them, use it wisely. You can use it to search for everyday questions that you don't care if others know about. It shouldn't be a problem to search for beautiful landscapes, but be careful with sensitive information about your health, for example.

Has anyone here tried this? Any comments?

https://www.qwant.com/join/reward
#qwant #searchengine

Searching for a new #SearchEngine. I just saw that Ecosia added an AI Chat tab.

INITIATIVE: Ecosia and Qwant have launched the European Search Perspective (EUSP) to build an independent European search index.
The goal: strengthening digital sovereignty and providing a transparent, privacy-focused foundation for future technologies, including AI. How could an independent search index reshape the European tech landscape and user experience?
#EUSP #DigitalSovereignty #SearchEngine @ueeu
https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/

#DuckDuckGo est passé à l'IA depuis quelque temps et ça me saoule

Quelqu'un connait-il des alternatives ? (bien évidemment anti-Google, anti-AI, vie privée etc etc etc)

Merci !!

So, to kick off our interview series, let's dive in with Christian Kroll, the big boss over at Ecosia. This cool German search engine actually plants a tree each time someone uses their search engine.

It's a really nice interview where Kroll chats fluently in German, French and English with Ecosia users and employees, and answers all kinds of questions about the company.

You can also check out the Ecosia channel on YouTube, where you'll find loads of videos of tree-planting all over the world.

It's an incredible project and a very interesting concept. Let's hope they keep innovating... and planting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sJA-gHFCVo

Open a tab and start searching! https://www.ecosia.com
#ecosia #searchengine #europeanalternatives #interview

The European search engines (and competitors) Ecosia and Qwant are joining forces to build their own European search index!

And the best part? It'll be open and available to all of us!

This is great news for other small search engines, start-ups and the AI industry, as they'll now have the chance to use this index instead of the ones offered by Microsoft and Google.

https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/
#ecosia #qwant #searchengine #european #europeanalternatives #germany #france #innovation