#I mostly use duckduckgo

[ct-hardcase]

bro screw g**gle's predictive search when I write 'antonym' I fucking mean 'antonym' and am not secretly searching for the word synonym, nor do I want to be provided synonyms. if I wanted synonyms I'd look for them. jfc.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

everyone: shares funny results on google searches generated by ai

me, protected by seventeen layers of extensions i don't even remember ever installing that stop weird shit from happening on my firefox: whut

[nyoomerr]

is duckduckgo's main search any good? i've been using startpage for a while but since it's just filtered google it's started to get the same ai listicles clogging up search results

eh, five years ago i probably would have preferred google's results, but at this point we're stuck with grading search engines based on "what's the least shitty" instead of "what is actually decent."

i don't see the AI garbage that google pushes on me, the higher standard for privacy is appreciated, and supposedly if you don't have an adblocker then you'll see less ads, too.

also, this is a purely personal anecdote, but it seems like duckduckgo prefers to serve smaller websites and avoids some social media as first page results. i.e. whenever i search related to programming, google will often give me reddit pages in the first page while duckduckgo will prefer to give me some random devblog i haven't heard of. this could be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your preferences, i suppose, but it's pretty easily solvable by specifying a domain when searching if you have something specific in mind.

i do specifically go to google for any sort of image search, though.

[void-botanist]

Get to Know Me tag

Thank you @touloserlautrec for the tag! (This is the writeblr/more personal blog for @an-elegant-void.)

Rules: Tag 10 or more people you want to get to know better

Relationship status: married to my husband, who I mention occasionally since he helps me work out story bugs

Favorite color: purple

Song stuck in my head: right now, The Walker by Fitz and The Tantrums, for no reason. But lately it's been the soundtrack for Into The Breach, which is a great game.

Favorite food: I'm not sure I have a Favorite but one of my favorites is blackberry pie

Last song listened to: Drive You Mild by The Verve Pipe

Dream trip: seeing my best friend in Europe (he lives there, I don't)

Last tv show/movie: Dead End: Paranormal Park season 2 lol

Spicy/sweet/savory?: honestly same as Jasper but most of the time if I had to pick one I'd go savory. I'm always that person going "this would be awesome if it was 50% less sweet" unless we're talking about very specific things that are supposed to be very sweet, like gulab jamun or those store-bought sugar cookies with the icing

Last thing I googled: "hero jounral", by which I meant "hero's journal", because I had heard about it and I wanted to take a look at it

Tagging: @multi-lefaiye @jezifster @kk7-rbs @outpost51 @writernopal @vacantgodling @autumnalwalker @sunset-a-story @sarahlizziewrites @kahvilahuhut

[alivehouse]

honestly google and duckduckgo both suck but in different ways

[dinosaur-ears]

Like many people of good conscience, I'm trying to avoid a lot of companies right now. I think the best approach is to use (and repair) what you have, make what you can, buy used if you need to, and buy local for the rest.

But the reality is that there are some times and some services where that's not an option, so I'm compiling a list of my current alternatives (as of March 2025):

Google Search ➡️ DuckDuckGo

Goodreads (owned by Amazon) ➡️ Storygraph (lacks public book descriptions and reviews, but has a lot of great features and allows you to import your Goodreads library!

IMDb (owned by Amazon) ➡️ Letterboxd

Audible (owned by Amazon) ➡️ Libby (via your library)

AbeBooks (owned by Amazon) ➡️ Thriftbooks

New books (vs. Amazon): Bookshop.org

Hobby Lobby ➡️ Michael's or local craft retailers

Netflix (etc.) ➡️ Kanopy (via your library)

BJ's ➡️ Costco

Home cleaning items (vs. Amazon/Walmart/Target): Grove and my local grocery store (not Whole Foods)

Clothing (vs. Amazon/Walmart/Target/Shein): I've been using mostly local thrift stores, Poshmark, or Thredup. Poshmark has all sorts of items; Thredup is well sorted but only has women's clothing. I also shop at Marshall's when I need something more urgently.

[copperbadge]

Sam, what search engine do you use? Recently I have decided to stop using Google, due to privacy concerns and the honestly terrible forced answers to regular search terms… for 99% of my searches, I want a catalog of results that allows me to become informed.

Any suggestions on search engines for doing proper long tail keyword searching these days?

Honestly, when I use one at all, I still use Google. I've given up on expecting privacy or the idea that it's effective to try and ensure it on a personal level -- it needs legislation at this point. People say it's gotten measurably shittier but I haven't really noticed a drop in quality, which is not to Google's credit since it's never actually been great. It is, however, convenient and generally gives me what I want. Perhaps part of it is I grew up without it so when search engines started to be a thing I was like, already prepared with critical thinking skills to weed out the trash. Just because I haven't noticed a drop in quality because I've always ignored the increasingly numerous sponsored/garbage results doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

I don't actually use search engines at all that often -- in my work, I'm using databases or specific sites, and in my personal life I usually know a specific site I'd consult first (ie, Serious Eats for recipes, Wiktionary for language research, Jstor or NIH for scholarship, etc). So I mostly use Google these days as an index -- finding a specific page on a site other than Google that I'm already aware of.

I believe a lot of people recommend duckduckgo, mainly because the privacy function is so much stronger, but I can't speak to its robustness in terms of giving you what you're looking for.

Readership, feel free to chime in with whatever you're using and why! Remember to comment or reblog, as I don't post asks sent in response to other asks.

[creature-wizard]

For those of you trying to educate others about Project Monarch alter programming conspiracy theories and where they actually come from: Don't say "RAMCOA is a conspiracy theory," "alter programming isn't real," or "TBMC isn't real." This is not helpful.

For one, "RAMCOA" is an umbrella term that covers a number of abuse types, including all sex trafficking and many forms of spiritual abuse. Yes, Project Monarch was lumped under this term by the people who created it, but it's still not helpful to say "RAMCOA isn't real."

The word "programming" is often used synonymously with "indoctrination" and "conditioning." If you say "alter programming," someone might immediately think of a case where an alter experienced normal religious indoctrination.

Few people know that trauma-based mind control/TBMC originally referred to alleged Project Monarch practices in specific, so if you use it without clarification, they might think you're talking about any kind of punitive conditioning.

So what do you do? Be more specific. Personally, I often say "Project Monarch alter programming conspiracy theory." I also try to include enough details that it's very clear I specifically mean the kind of programming detailed by O'Brien, Phillips, Springmeier, and Wheeler.

So I might say something like, "this stuff about flower/gem/ribbon/etc. programming is literally just the old Project Monarch alter programming conspiracy theories with the serial numbers filed off."

If I say "trauma-based mind control," I clarify that I am using it in its original meaning - as a synonym for Monarch programming.

It also helps to be familiar with the antisemitic tropes and witch panic tropes the Project Monarch conspiracy theory repackages, so you can talk about how these conspiracy theories manifested in other times and places.

It also helps to read the actual conspiracy theory books so you actually know the full extent of just how ridiculous the Project Monarch alter programming conspiracy theory actually is. I know, they are infuriatingly hateful and full of pseudoscience so bad you'd wonder how anyone other than a small child could possibly be taken in by it, but this is stuff you can point out. (Why would you trust your mental health to a couple of people who claimed immigrants are secretly Manchurian agents sent by the New World Order?)

The books you can read are:

Trance-Formation of America by Cathy O'Brien and Mark Phillips

They Know Not What They Do: Illustrated Guide to Monarch Programming Mind Control by Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler

The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave by Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler

Deeper Insights Into The Illuminati Formula by Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler

Just a warning, the books do contain a lot of potentially-triggering content (mostly torture and SA-related), but if you think you can stomach them, please try. Not nearly enough people are familiar with the books where these ideas come from.

And if you need to talk about whether it's possible to cultivate confabulated memories, some of the most indisputable examples of such are "recovered" alien abduction memories. (You can find a lot of relevant information on cultivated memories of alien abduction by searching Qwant or DuckDuckGo for "alien abduction memories hypnosis.")

If you want to learn the origins of this conspiracy theory in a hurry, or help someone else get caught up in a hurry, try this post.

And while you're here, I also recommend reading and sharing this online tutorial on information literacy, because it's very useful in general.

[bikefuckersoftheworldunite]

hello bikefucker<3 I'd like to ask you how to find old motogp articles, cuz my google search is a bit out of whack😭

hi, anon!

the general answer is that google sucks sooo bad, that’s why you can’t find anything afghhjjjk.

the real answer is that it depends on what time period you mean by “old” and what topics or which riders specifically.

for 80s-90s stuff I just browse through the issues of Cycle News (scans here on Internet Archive) - it’s a general motorsports magazine, you can use the Archive’s search function to search issues by rider’s name or something for all the mentions of them. [the magazine run in the 00’s too and those issues are also available but I’ll talk about why it’s not a very good source for 00’s motogp info later in the post.]

Internet Archive also has most Mat Oxley books, Valentino’s 2005 autobiography and many more motogp related books

Now, the 00’s stuff!

It depends on where the rider your interested is from! For example, most informative articles on Valentino (and his rivalries) are in Italian! He didn’t talk to English language media that much. And generally speaking since Italian and Spanish riders have been dominating this sport for the last 20+ years, media from these two countries pays the most attention to the sport! So, there are lots of publications and sites in Italian and Spanish that get their news/interviews with the riders first hand (which is important). And, as a result, lots of english language articles are just not that interesting or informative, or up to date or factually correct etc (especially when it comes to 00’s articles).

And as a result the vast majority of all the 2003-2005 sete&vale info or quotes I’ve managed to dig up, for example, was either in italian or sometimes spanish (and I speak neither of these languages lol) because they mostly interacted with Italian media!

now, some tips:

I mostly use DuckDuckGo to search for the articles instead of Google! It has a filter by Date function in its tool bar, where you can set a custom date range so that you’d get the results from a certain time period only, and if you need articles in particular language you can pick the Region you need.

That helps a lot butttttt ehhh allora you need at least to be vaguely familiar with the topic you’re trying to find more info on! (I did a lot of creative “googling” using google translated words in Italian or Spanish, and some times THAT WORKED. LOL) And, of course, sources are important! A lot of articles that you might find might just be factually incorrect or might be misquoting etc. Especially if, for example, the article that you found is like from a Spanish language publication reporting on what Vale said to Italian media agdghjjk. So, just keep that in mind. I’ve encountered Vale being misquoted or his words being misinterpreted or certain stuff just not being factually correct a couple of times already. So, always try to fact check - like at least find several sources of the quote or maybe the original article.

Good “first hand sources” in Italian (at least for my needs) are La Gazetta Dello Sport and Dueruote - lots of reports directly from the GPs and the press cons, interviews with the riders. Obviously, mostly Italians. In Spanish language it’s uhhhh As dot com I guess? Kinda less familiar with 00’s spanish motogp media to be honest….

Also! Crash dot net has motogp articles going back to the early 2000s, but like I’ve said it’s mostly good for basic info. Same applies to Cycle News or some other English language magazines - they were more up to date when Americans and Australians were dominating the sport!

But it’s not like english language media should be ignored, there are interesting tidbits here and there!

And again on DuckDuckGo you can select for results from only one website to be displayed.

But even then finding interesting info or quotes often comes down to just reading through a lot of articles until you hit the jackpot🤪

For example a month or so back when I started my deep dive into 2003/5 seasons I tried to find more about Vale & Sete and their Ibiza holidays but most of the results I got were not relevant and hardly ever mentioned Ibiza at all….

Well, that’s it, I think?

Also, anon you can always dm me and I can give you links to the articles and stuff? But I’m only “researching” 2003-2005 years atm……..

[cold-piss]

So i left tumblr for about 5yrs after spending probably ages 13-24 on this site daily....i feel like ive missed some things. Could someone clue me in on whats happened?

First off, what happened to add-ons? I swear I had something on my dash that made like quick reblogging a thing? I dont use chrome as a browser anymore, mostly the app or duckduckgo on my laptop. But i swear tumblr had add-ons...maybe it was chrome extensions idk

Also, do we have html pages anymore??? I had so much fun customizing my page and was excited to redo it now that Im back amd its gone??

And do people not talk in the tags anymore??? Theres a comment section now thats inbetween reblogging and tag-commenting it seems, is that new? Do people not asgrjtkglglror in the tags or give full blown takes for paragraphs in the tags? I dont wanna do a faux pas and look out of touch if that aint the case anymore.

Feels weird to come back. This community was so prevalent to my teenage years and early 20s. I felt like I had a community here. I left tumblr due to stress from politics and work (2020, it was not a good time to be in the funeral industry). Coming back has been nostalgic and jarring. So much has not changed and so much more is different.

Yall are still a bunch of freaks tho, that hasnt changed. Love to see it.

[roguesareth]

Fuck the Playstore Stop using the app

There is no reason, and has never been any reason to use the Tumblr app. Anyone who has ever used Tumblr ever knows the app is shit. Search and tags don't function properly, it crashes all the time, and is otherwise buggy as shit.

Now, Tumblr in general is notorious for its ""functionality"" but the desktop site and mobile browser site actually do work mostly fine. Search and tags and archives all function as well as they are probably ever going to unless someone competant finally buys this place.

If you really want that neat little Tumblr button for your home page, you can make the mobile browser page into a widget to put on your home screen. I have one of these for both Tumblr and Ao3.

Im not sure if Chrome or Safari allow you to do this, but I made DuckDuckGo my default browser and not only is that better all around, because fuck Google, but I can turn browser pages into homescreen buttons easily for more convient access.

There is nothing convenient about the Tumblr app and never has been. This site was built primarily for desktop use and despite most people using apps and mobile these days Tumblr never quite bothered to make the app really usable. So there is no reason to keep using it.

Further more if Tumblr is going to continue caving to the playstore and implementing idiotic censorship rules continuing to use the app is just playing into it (let's not mention that Twitter and Bluesky have mature/NSFW content posted by actual nonbot users all over them and you can still easily download their apps from the playstores)

Pick a good browser you like (not Chrome or Safari) to make your default and turn the mobile browser page into a button for your homescreen. Fuck Google and Apple.

[commonbard]

life update game

tagged by lou @goodluckbabeheffron tyyyyyy <3

🎧Last Song: strangelove by depeche mode

🖍️Favorite Color: greennnnn she's my friend my wife my best ever. omg and im even wearing green. not beating the allegations. got home and switched from one green sweatshirt to a different green sweatshirt.

📚Last Book: the last book i progressed on is firestar's quest (that's my father who raised me) um and embarrassingly i am not helped by sharing that my last completed book was the apprentice's quest. i swear i do read real books just not right now

🎥Last Movie: mystic pizza! i did not think it was very good but it was fun

🍜Sweet/Spicy/Savory: tough to say but i think mostly sweet. i've been cursed with the taste of a 9 year old lately

💕Relationship Status: single amen

🌐Last thing I googled: so the unfortunate thing is that i use duckduckgo and religiously do not keep tabs open so i actually do not know. i THINK it was probably some warriors character or another. skywatcher probably. sorry to be embarrassing on main. my problem is that im chronically nosy so every time they name a new character in this book im perusing their entire wiki page. as if it's my fault

💓Current obsession: been really into setting up context clues lately

🔮Looking forward to: seeing friends on tuesday :)

tagging @outllawrun @6thofapril1917 @calenhads but no pressure yippee woohoo

[arcanesword]

Thanks for tagging me @woodlandeelf !!

Rules: tag 10 people you want to get to know better!

Last Song: All The Rage Back Home by Interpol El Pintor has basically lived on my record player for a few months now...

Last Movie: Nosferatu (2024 film) It's the last movie that I saw in the theaters and it was so good. It's oddly romantic and sexy (and I mean that in the best possible way) and it's also chilling and suspenseful and beautiful in it's bleakness. I loved it.

Last Book: Honestly, I've mostly only read fanfics lately, but the last published book I read was A Room with a View by E.M. Forster. I have loved the 1985 film for about forever and decided to actually read the book and it was worth it.

Last TV Show: Currently watching Abbott Elementary on Hulu and Poirot on Britbox and both are delightful.

Sweet/savoury/spicy: Sweet and savory, I like them both equally. I can't do spicy anymore, although I used to really enjoy spicy until my stomach decided that that had to end.

Relationship Status: Married for literal decades to my emotional-support husband and best friend.

Last Thing I Googled: I DuckDuckGo and Firefox because I like to have at least a small bit of privacy, but I digress. My last search was for "mending clothes with embroidery" because I have stuff that needs mending.

Looking Forward to: Summer. I usually don't look forward to summer but my husband and I got kayaks a few years ago and we now live in a place with a lot of boating options. We started going out on the water regularly last summer and I'm looking forward to starting that up again.

Current Obsession(s): Dragon Age: The Veilguard and all previous DA games, Stranger Things (specifically writing Hellcheer fics), making ramen at home, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (specifically reading Spuffy fics), and hanging out with our judgemental cats that are sick of our shit😆

Frankly, tagging 10 people seems like a lot, so I'm only tagging 5 mutuals. @achilleanenjolras @1lostsoul0fishbowl @o-cm-draw-o @hangon-silvergirl @grexigone get the tag since you all were the last five mutuals to reblog or like something I posted.😍

Feel free to participate or not!!!

[dullahandyke]

squints. briefly set my duckduckgo location to the US and i googled 'throwing myself into the ocean' and All the results were bible verses and when i switched back to ireland they were mostly like articles and shit. wh

[eyesonjupiter]

'10 people I'd like to know better challenge'

Many thanks to @buildmeaboy for tagging me :) a first for me :)

So, let's see

Last song:

- I finally listened to the Death to the Mechanisms Album (I saved it for a bit) so it's "Drunk Space Pirate"

- also listened to a lot of Epic the Musical

Last Book:

- Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times.

- also started reading TJ Klune, Somewhere beyond the Sea. I loved The House in the Cerulean Sea and hope it's as good!

Last movie:

- I don't watch a lot of movies at the moment, so I had to think a while about that one. But it was Terminator 2.

- and before that Spirited Away, I love the Ghibli Movies. So soothing!

Last TV show:

Babylon 5! I'm so happy that I get to watch it with some of my favourite people!! Still loving it, it's just sooo good!

Last thing I googled:

I use duckduckgo :) but it was lyrics to a mechanisms song

Favourite color:

I always used to think it was blue. And I still love it. But I'm wearing mostly black with the occasional red top, so there's that

Sweet/savoury/spicy:

Sweet!! (And then salty. And then back to sweet)

Relationship status:

Happily married

Looking forward to:

- A week of holiday all by myself! Just myself to take care of :)

- after that back to watching Babylon 5, yay!

Current obsessions:

- I have been listening to a *lot* of Epic the Musical lately

- crocheting

- podcasts. Old and new ones. (I usually do not like 'educational' podcasts, where 2 people talk to each other. But there is this one, in german, where two scientists tell each other stuff from their fields or just stuff they find interesting. And it's so much fun because they are so passionate about everything. I just love it!)

- anything to get my mind of the worlds current events

Tags: I don't really interact with a lot of people here (you're all great it's just not something I'm good at), but if you want, I'd like to tag @darlingsunshineprince @50spirate @moneyfor-nothing @misterhappines @tim-aeus @just-an-enby-lemon

no pressure of course, and anyone else would also be welcome!

[boreal-sea]

De-Googling my life, the Update

So idk when, months or maybe weeks or maybe a year ago, I made a post about wanting to de-Google my life. I have, happily, made some steps forward on this.

I use DuckDuckGo now for 99% of my search needs and it works pretty well for most things, but every once in a while I search for something and I'm just not finding results I know should be there, and I have to cave in and use Google.

For driving, I use a mix of Apple Maps and Waze, though Waze is unfortunately owned by Google these days so it's not really much of a jump.

I've moved most of my personal email correspondence over to to Outlook and iCloud. I still have some google email accounts because my mother will never in a million years remember a new email for me. Plus, I have some throwaway accounts on Google, too. Then again now that I have iCloud, I could create some aliases and vastly simplify my email life. You can create aliases with Outlook as well.

Moving away from a certain email address takes serious effort, if you intend to actually fully close down that address. If you just want to just set up mail forwarding and then never log back in, that works too, though I've been trying to actually close them down for security reasons. Whenever I have the stamina I've been going through my individual Google emails and figuring out which ones are being used for important services (like my taxes, or FAFSA, or my bank, etc) and trying to reset my email on all those websites to my new email. It takes AGES. Again, just setting up mail forwarding is definitely the easier solution.

I have an iPhone now and the only Google app I have is Google Home because, well, I have a Google Home speaker. It was pricey and I don't want to create e-waste by throwing it away, so right now I'm not sure what to do with it. I do actually still use it, but mostly as a timer. I like that it has a screen, which a lot of smart speakers don't have. Anyway, it's more of a waste to throw it away than to keep it at the moment, so for now I'm stuck with it.