What's the best alternative to Google now that they're censoring?

[bishop101]

What's the best alternative to Google now that they're censoring? Now that they're censoring I'm not getting the same results that I would with Images. No I'm not looking for porn. And now I don't even have the option to turn it off (safe search).

For example when I search for WWII images now it's all watered down removing anything that people might find offensive, and worse I can't turn the off the safe search option. I want to see everything available when I search for 'Operation Barbarrosa'? The same images that would come up a couple months ago have disappeared forever, or at least are not accessible.

This is really disappointing, is their anything equal to or similar to what Google use to have? Bing? Yahoo!?

 

[AC]

I've had the same difficulties with censoring images that are "offensive" to most people. I use to use Google for everything, now I've switched over completely to Yahoo!. I just like it more than Bing or Ask.com. In second though, would be AOL. At my school, for some strange reason, Yahoo! is blocked, so I use AOL, since it isn't for some reason.

 

[bishop101]

I guess I'll just have to try other alternatives and see which one I like best. It really is disappointing though. Initially when I heard the news I thought it was just referring to porn, but when I did a Google Image search for WWII battles and wars I noticed that it was incredibly watered down compared to what it use to be.

 

[carwiz]

I've been using Bing for the past couple of years. I set it as the default in IE8 but I can also use Google in the search bar by using the drop down. But I hardly do. Here's a liink to Search Providers. Apparently, there's 132 available but it looks like most are context specific for the provider. Still, there's a lot of choices. Or you can use the search bar drop down and select "Find More Providers".

 

[Layback Bear]

Okay I just used Firefox Google for Operation Barbarrosa and I don't notice anything water down. Can you give us a particular website you are having problems with. I'm a history lover and I surly don't want anybody messing with history. WWII being one of may favorites.

 

[BrightBlessings]

I use this quite a bit.

https://duckduckgo.com/

 

[AC]

I use this quite a bit.

https://duckduckgo.com/

Hmm... bookmarked. I'll check it out a bit later.

 

[indianacarnie]

I use that one(DuckDuckGo) and Bing, with yahoo thrown in the mix too."Barbarossa" was indeed a moment when the world held its breath.

 

[Layback Bear]

To get a better understanding of Barbarossa read about the battle of Stalingrad. Their are many authors.

 

[pincushion]

I got fed up with Google some time back and settled on Startpage for a search engine - less advertising - but since it uses Google I might have to look elsewhere now. From Wiki -

As of December 12, 2012, Google now 'censors' explicit content from image searches. The changes to SafeSearch now remove the "on", "moderate" and "off" settings, and instead offer the option to "filter explicit content," which will remove any such content identified as such, regardless of how specific the searches are. They have now left the public with the options to "Turn off Safe Search and have searches censored" or "Turn on Safe Search and have everything censored." Previous options – No filtering, Moderate and Strict – is not available anymore. The two new options, Safe Search On and Safe Search Off, is now equivalent to the previous options of Moderate and Strict filtering. The option of No filtering, is not available anymore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil

Seems they have finally got a conscience for perhaps being the easiest avenue for disseminating porn and illegal images for over a decade. I wonder how it will affect people's useage of Google?

 

[bishop101]

I'm really liking DuckDuckGo, I've set it up as my default search engine in Chrome, thanks for the referral.

Having said that, even if I type a search in the Omnibox Google is still logging my keystrokes right?

I've disabled both the prediction service and Chrome instant but from Google's policy page it sounds as if they still log my searches through the Omnibox even though I'm using a different search engine.

Google says on their policy page:

Both the address bar prediction service and Chrome Instant are disabled

Policy: Searches are logged only after you press Enter.
Example: You type "flow," and pause. Nothing is logged by Google. You press Enter. Google logs "flow" as a search.

https://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=180655&p=settings_instant_policy

 

[bishop101]

As for the Image searches I got regarding Operation Barbarosa I got a lot of images of video game screenshots. That's probably Google tailoring the results to my past searches and penchant for video games.

That's what I meant by watered down. Apparently two people can input the same search query and the results will vary drastically based on past search history and preferences.

 

[King Arthur]

Apparently two people can input the same search query and the results will vary drastically based on past search history and preferences.

This isn't neccesarily a bad thing by itself; having tailored search results can mean we get potentially less irrelevant search results and we won't spend as much time sifting through results we don't want looking for results we actually want.

That said, ideally a feature like this should be switchable on/off according to a user's needs. Google's decision to force this isn't earning them any points.