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.
I’ve been using this for about a year, but at work I’m still on Google (don’t know why).
What’s weird is SearXNG seems like it gets better results now, even though they’re just coming from the others.
One thing I like is that I can switch instances to get varied results based on the instance’s geographical location. In other words, it doesn’t feel like anything’s targeted.