Google alternatives: the search engine that brings back the 2000s internet

Yandex, DuckDuckGo and the return of the uncensored search engine

The same search query returns radically different results depending on who is asking. On a computer with Bing, a relevant link appears; on a phone with Google, no trace of it. It's not a bug, it's the algorithm at work. Users looking for unfiltered information are starting to notice that the king of search engines hides more than it shows. The solution lies in rescuing engines that don't yet manipulate results with commercial or ideological criteria.

The search engines that dodge Google's filter

The alternatives exist and they are nothing new. DuckDuckGo, Qwant, Gibiru, PrivacyWall, Startpage and Russia's Yandex are among the options that don't apply the same tricks as Google or Bing. Yandex stands out for searches of unofficial sports streams: where Google barely shows a couple of links, the Russian engine displays dozens of results on the first page. Brave Search is also making headway as a privacy-focused option.

Can a chat GPT replace the search engine?

Another approach is to use language models like ChatGPT or Gemini to perform searches. These LLMs summarize and offer direct answers, but reliability is their Achilles' heel. They copy, mix and paste content from sources that already have quality problems. Anyone looking for accuracy won't find the certainty of an original link in a chat. And censorship doesn't disappear either: some models dodge uncomfortable data.

The paradox of today's search engine

The average user settles for Google for trivial things: schedules, addresses, news. But when they need something outside the official narrative, or simply something that isn't in the first sponsored results, they are forced to dig through old-school engines. The 2000s internet isn't dead; you just need to know where to look.