Systems Engineer and Configuration
Management Analyst.
My postgrad degree is in computer science/cybersecurity, but my undergraduate is in archaeology. Someday, maybe, I’ll merge the two fields professionally!
In addition, I love true science fiction, as well as all things aviation, outer space, and NASA-related.
Glad to be here trying out kbin and the fediverse.
They do have their own crawler and I believe supplement from bing only when necessary. Something like 98% of results are from their own index across all users. They actually have a breakdown for every search.
I think they actually have the largest independent index outside of Google/Bing right now.
Others that exclusively use their own index are:
Mojeek (results aren’t great)
Kagi (result are pretty good imo)
I think Google peaked about 6-8 years ago now and then started slipping at an ever accelerating rate.
It’s almost useless for me when searching anything remotely technical or otherwise niche.
I almost consistently need to go to the second page of results now, something I don’t remember doing since like 2009.
I find Bing acceptable. Brave search works well. But I’m actually using Kagi now since I’m hoping their paid model will actually mean I’m not the product.
I use Kagi too, it’s surprisingly snappy! Like seriously impressive for a small org. They talk about speed optimisation being critical for them as well. I find the result to be excellent as well. A true Google replacement/feels like Google in its prime.
I believe they have their own index and bot as well?