Web indexing: where is Qwant's independence?

Qwant , the French search engine, is probably the biggest European engine that exists today.

But we often hear that Qwant is actually Microsoft Bing in disguise. How much of this is true?

They have their own crawling tools and algorithms, but they can use Bing's results as a supplement when people search for images or things where Qwant isn't strong enough yet.

They explain it here:

https://betterweb.qwant.com/en/2023/09/18/web-indexing-where-is-qwants-independence/

Recently I've been looking at European search engines. #Qwant and #StartPage seem to be the most popular, the latter having stricter privacy policy.

Which privacy focused engine are you using and why?

A recent study by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism has revealed alarming inconsistencies and inaccuracies in AI search tools, challenging their growing popularity as replacements for traditional search engines.

https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2025/ai/ai-search-engines-plagued-by-inaccuracy

The French search engine Qwant is trying to gain more users by starting a loyalty program.

Qwant has launched a loyalty program that allows users to earn up to €10 per week by conducting daily searches on Qwant.com.

The program works by accumulating points and climbing the ranking, with the top users being rewarded. To participate, users need to create a Qwant account and sign up for the loyalty program.

Once signed up, users can earn points by using Qwant for searches, and these points can be redeemed for money that can be transferred to a user's bank account.

Note:
- you don't need to create an account to use Qwant

- if you join the loyalty programme and receive money, you need to give your bank details (name and IBAN to receive the money)

- they say they don't store your search history, and if you're tempted to try it but don't know if you can trust them, use it wisely. You can use it to search for everyday questions that you don't care if others know about. It shouldn't be a problem to search for beautiful landscapes, but be careful with sensitive information about your health, for example.

Has anyone here tried this? Any comments?

https://www.qwant.com/join/reward
#qwant #searchengine

So, to kick off our interview series, let's dive in with Christian Kroll, the big boss over at Ecosia. This cool German search engine actually plants a tree each time someone uses their search engine.

It's a really nice interview where Kroll chats fluently in German, French and English with Ecosia users and employees, and answers all kinds of questions about the company.

You can also check out the Ecosia channel on YouTube, where you'll find loads of videos of tree-planting all over the world.

It's an incredible project and a very interesting concept. Let's hope they keep innovating... and planting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sJA-gHFCVo

Open a tab and start searching! https://www.ecosia.com
#ecosia #searchengine #europeanalternatives #interview

The European search engines (and competitors) Ecosia and Qwant are joining forces to build their own European search index!

And the best part? It'll be open and available to all of us!

This is great news for other small search engines, start-ups and the AI industry, as they'll now have the chance to use this index instead of the ones offered by Microsoft and Google.

https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/
#ecosia #qwant #searchengine #european #europeanalternatives #germany #france #innovation

Fuck.

#Google #searchengine will soon be completely unusable instead of mostly unusable(paid results).

This is a real problem.

" you can't just scroll down in AI Mode to see organic results. … refine your search or ask follow-up questions."

https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/03/google-is-expanding-ai-overviews-and-testing-ai-only-search-results/

#Algorithmen, die sich selbst auffressen: #Google und #Amazon AI sagen, Hitlers „Mein Kampf“ sei „ein wahres Kunstwerk“. Dabei greift Googles Featured Snippet auf eine Amazon-KI-Zusammenfassung von Adolf Hitlers Nazi-Manifest „Mein Kampf“ zurück. Das ist mega-verf*ckter KI-Mist, der sich leider auch auf die Top-Suchergebnisse auswirkt...

#ki #ai #mist #search #searchengine

https://www.404media.co/google-amazon-ai-search-mein-kampf-reviews/

Well Mullvad's Leta search engine is now free for all. Previously it was only for paid mullvad customers. It works as a proxy for Google and Brave search.
https://leta.mullvad.net
#mullvad #searchengine #google #brave

And Since on the topic of beach cleanup, I have been raised to care about the #environment and I have a distain towards people #littering and just general #pollution . If you want to ambiently help, I may suggest #ecosia as a #searchengine that #PlantTrees with the money it makes, just generally a #CarbonNegative search engine

https://www.ecosia.org/

https://blog.ecosia.org/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2025/03/01/5000-captcha-tests-used-as-infostealer-gateways-do-not-complete-them/
#cybersecurity #LummaStealer #infostealer #malware #searchengine #poisoning #PDFsearches #Windows

#Kagi offering free trials without credit card

https://discuss.techlore.tech/t/kagi-30-days-pro-for-free-without-credit-card/12645

Reading @pluralistic 's article "With great power came no responsibility":

"And that's how we get to the enshittified Google of today, where every query serves back a blob of AI slop, over five paid results tagged with the word AD in 8-point, 10% grey on white type, which is, in turn, over ten spammy links from SEO shovelware sites filled with more AI slop."

I've switched to #Qwant and it's a breath of fresh air. No more AI slop for me, and it makes such a difference! #SearchEngine

As our digital lives in the US become less stable and private, I wanted to figure out how to choose what search engine my browser uses.

I just added a new default search engine option for my Firefox on my MacBook (Mac OS).

1) add an extension to Firefox to allow me to add a different default search engine:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-custom-search-engine/

1/2

#Question: Is there a #FOSS #SelfHosted #SearchEngine which includes it's own web crawlers?

Can we stop and appreciate how awesome modern internet is?

I mean... I just typed "how to build a nixos image with ssh and wlan enabled for raspberry" into my search engine of choice and got to

https://blog.janissary.xyz/posts/nixos-install-custom-image

Which is what I am going to try today I guess. How AWESOME is that we can find these things so fast?

And the article is really good as well. #duckduckgo #nixos #searchengine #awesome

A list of digital service providers outside the jurisdiction of the United States of America.

https://codeberg.org/Linux-Is-Best/Outside_Us_Jurisdiction

This is a group effort so, if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

#UsJurisdiction #Overseas #WebHost #Vpn #Dns #Cdn #PasswordManager #Email #SearchEngine

Fingerprinting: Critics say Google rules put profits over privacy

Changes which come in on Sunday permit so-called "fingerprinting", which allows online advertisers to collect more data about users including their IP addresses and information about their devices.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm21g0052dno