Okay.

Now that we already know we are pretty much at the hands of one pupeteer, what options are there?

I already read about Kagi (apologies if mispelled) but I like to write as a hobby and 300 searches per month go fast.

What other options are there?

Edit:

For those who may be arriving now:

• Kagi seems to be a good option for an alternative search engine; it is a paid service, for which I don't have the €€€ right now. Many speak very well about it.
• SearXNG is a thing as well, to my understanding a decentralized search system. Worth the try, in my opinion. If it's something that is decentralized, it is worthy to support and divulge.
• There is mojeek.com, supposedly not very good but any option that goes against the monopoly is worth the try! I'm going to try this one.
• Brave.com is an option but is a bit shady.
• You should try Ecosia if you want to support reforestation efforts. Read somewhere in the thread it is part of the Bing ecosystem.
• Yep is a thing as well. Somewhere in the thread, a lemmy points they use the search results for AI trainning. So... That is that.
• And it seems there is a search engine by the name of dogpile.com.
• Startpage is another search engine (portal?) suggested by another user. I've used it before and like it. Read somewhere it somehow piped a standard google search but removed tracking and ads.
• and I just remembered Presearch.com. This is a really shady one (crypto warning!) that I suspect is a fork/collab with Brave Browser. I've used it, they have reward-per-search reward system (or had) where they give you crypto for every search. Good results, some that don't come up neither on DDG nor Google.

p.p.s Should I start categorizing these from "shady" to "worthy"?

p.p.s 2 Does anyone remember StumbleUpon? I know it was never a search engine to begin with but it was the best source of good internet content I ever got acquainted to.

Can we get something like that back?

I do not care how true or untrue this may be.

Upvote for wholesome.

You know? That is not bad at all. Not bad at all. Why not? Why not the parallel universe version? Maybe they could use the chance to fix the dumpster fire the prequels were as well and perhaps even go along with Darth Jar-Jar.

To quote someone a lot wiser than myself:

It's a shame stupid people carry themselves through life full of certainty while the wise ones suffer a life of doubt.

So, basically, we don't know that much on anything besides understanding it's really complex and difficult to figure out.

My country blew a hole in that logic by making essentially any government issued document a virtual certificate accessible through a permanente code.

You can get one copy, scan and email it indefinetely and all entities receiving only need to check the permanent code online.

It was complete chaos when it rolled out, especially for old, outdated, progress resisting entities.

Nestlé has been patenting human milk proteins for decades. To my understanding, this prevents other companies to add such molecules to baby formula, even if somehow methods to synthesize said molecules were developed.

That is a scary notion, a malevolous intent and a gross outcome.

The best thing I ever read on this subject in a zombie book:

"Why are you taking the jeans off that zombie?" "100% cotton; after boiled and washed, I can cut it up for pads."

Can't remember the rest of the book but this stuck.

Someone on Lemmy wrote the modern anti-cheat systems are essentialy rootkits.

And after reading that list, I wholeheartdly agree.

This picture is incomplete.

You need another guy on the ledt side, just casually watching as the others fight. That's Debian.

The poor dude being shoved into the locker is Suse.

The bully is Ubuntu.

Now we need a bigger guy behind the bully, waiting to get his hands on the bully. That will be RedHat.

Arch will be behind RedHat, getting ready to punch him in the face.

Gentoo will be right behind Arch, laughing like a maniac at the carnage unfolding.

And to the far right side of the picture you get to see this underrated guy, just shrugging his shoulders. That's LFS.

This classic attention seeking.

The suffering they would be going through to clean everything by themselves would be a life long memory.

Someone mentioned having the kitchen cleaned with a toothbrush: have the kitchen cleaned with a tooth brush, twice, supervised and recorded, to have it published on the same medium these photos were posted.

And zero priviliges for 3 months, minimum.

This is a total and complete lack of respect towards pretty much everything.

Can I share an episode?

We're a Window$ free house; Linux is the daily driver on every single computer we have.

I have school age children. They have IT classes. I set up a machine with Mint, clean install, to serve has the school workhorse. Not one task assigned at school can not be done in the Linux box. My child came home a few worried a few times because the teacher disliked having a linux box in the room.

What happens is the teacher is terrified has they cannot load a single piece of software on that machine, as they do with all the other students, at will. The notion of explaining to all the other students they need to go to some site to download some program while my child just needs to fetch it (or already has it pre installed) from a secure repository is baffling. The knowledge that that humble and rather older machine can not be trivialy tampered with is mind disturbing.

At some point the teacher explained how to maintain the system (clean temp files and random junk Windows collects over time by just having programs installed and removed) and looked at my child and chidded that was something she could not do.

I taught my kid how to do basic system maintenance. Through the console. Like a boss. They upgraded the system while they colleagues were "busy" hunting down temp files.