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Yacy is about as useful as searching the internet with grep. You can search "Facebook" and the first 20 pages are foreign spam blogs that have the word facebook on them.

way back in 00s, Google felt exactly like grepping the whole internet, including niche blogs, minus the spam (for the most part).

Somewhere in between, Google stopped caring, and we have what we have today.

They're definitely not great but they're a good place to start.

And Searx is only useful in English or so it seems.

I made the switch to a Searx instance from Google about 3 weeks ago and it's been great for me (now I just get Google's results in Searx with added privacy).

Dark mode to save my eyes, setting my own personal preferences for which search engines to use for results, Cached results link and proxied links, a files search engine...

The only difference is that I wasn't already heavily invested in other Google products. e.g. Gmail, Lots of saved Maps POI, etc.

For someone who is heavily invested, I'm not sure if the switch to Searx is worth the lack of convenience.

There's these alternatives also, all privacy focused but mostly reliant on other engines for data: https://www.eu-startups.com/2020/09/5-european-google-compet...