Browsers

[Richard_C]

I feel we are being burried in advertising that is just putting overheads on our systems for nothing.

Most search engines let you use boolean operators just like in the olden days. So if you put "" around a phrase or word it will just find the exact term, if you put minus sign in front of a word it excludes it, so if you search for Boris -Johnson (no space twixt the minus and the word) it will get you Boris various but not the ex PM, a plus sign, Boris +Johnson will only get you results with both names. With a bit of practice you can cut out a load of unwanted results.

 

[selectortone]

I feel we are being burried in advertising that is just putting overheads on our systems for nothing.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

 

[MrBear]

I always make sure I have at least 2 browsers on my computer for those times when one one goes faulty or doesn't display pages right. My main one is Firefox, generally very good, although has had times in the past where it's been a bit sluggish or not great, but then they tend to put a lot of effort in and get it sorted again. But the main reason is that it's the only browser that doesn't run on Chromium, which is controlled by Google. We all saw what happened when Microsoft thought they owned the internet, we got IE which was a pile of crap, trying to set new standards that weren't needed and so forth, so while Google hasn't gone quite as mad they are still trying to implement controls and systems that will make them even more money.

Then I tend to go with Opera as my backup, although there is Edge built as well, but not that big of a fan. Keep meaning to try Brave, but never seem to get around to it.

 

[Kittyhawk]

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Years ago wife and I were were on a 5 day kayaking/camping trip around Lake Manapouri, a large and remote lake in the south island. One day somewhere around noon a tourist boat stopped alongside and the skipper told us he had six guests on board, should have been eight but two no-shows he said as he handed us a couple of bags of pre packaged food.
Sometimes there is such a thing as a free lunch.
On computers, thinking of going right back to square one and installing Linux as the operating system.

 

[Spectric]

Well having tried several others including duckduckgo I can say that only google really returns a widespread set of matches, the others seem restricted and so looks like google has become the big brother of search engines, only time will tell if this dominance is good or bad.

 

[artie]

, thinking of going right back to square one and installing Linux as the operating system.

I did that a few years ago, but had to come back to windows, it's just simpler for the average/below average user.

 

[Spectric]

Here is an update, tried duck but it looks like google has the market like it or not. Duck just does not deliver the searches like google and a good thing about google is that you can pick page numbers so easy to ignore the first couple of pages that are mostly adverts. I have been finding I am reverting back to google for more and more search results as duck fails to deliver.

 

[selectortone]

In a couple of years AI will be answering all our questions (if it isn't already...).

 

[thetyreman]

I use startpage for searching, I also find that google chrome is a bit slow compared to firefox but use both.

 

[Spectric]

In a couple of years AI will be answering all our questions (if it isn't already...).

Lets hope it is better than predictive text which I really find annoying, maybe AI predictive text will solve.

 

[Inspector]

You could try the Yahoo version. Yahoo Search - Web Search

Pete

Opps looks like I suggested this on the first page, at least it is on my display. Link this time though.

 

[Agent_zed]

Another vote for Opera. It's really good these days. I always find the other browsers eventually bog my system down if I don't close the browser every now and then. Opera just puts tabs to sleep so doesn't use all of your system resources.

 

[Spectric]

Looks like will have to trial opera and startpage, but duck can return to the pond.