Data on search engine market share is available, but I wonder what that looks like for Lemmy users in particular, who I would assume lean more technical than the average user, so probably use DuckDuckGo and alternates more than Google.
I use a mix of DuckDuckGo and Kagi. I’ll also use ChatGPT, which can be good if you’re careful to verify the answers it gives you as a check against hallucinations. It’s useful for short, direct answers without ads or SEO bullshit.
This article on Ars (and if you’re not a subscriber, you absolutely should be, as they are the best tech journalists out there) inspired the question: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/google-admits-reddit-protests-make-it-harder-to-find-helpful-search-results
Fucking Reddit. Enshittification ruins everything.
I’ve still been using Google but it has gone seriously down hill. After an experience earlier today I think I’m done with them for good. I was trying to check if digital international drivers permit were legit (they’re not), and when I googled it, the word “digital” was completely ignored, which was the most important modifier in the query, making the results worthless. I think they’re generalizing queries so they’re more cachable and cheaper to fulfill, but it’s made the experience terrible now, so I’m finally done with them.
I’ll probably switch to duck duck go. The bing index didn’t ignore the word digital for me.