Gregory's Server
OpenAI, Mircosoft, and Google together kill the open web. Thousands of independent blogs and forums are now nowhere in search engines or pushed back to page two to support their AI and partnerships with Reddit, StackOverflow, and more. Many humans contributed to these sites hoping to build a knowledge base for humanity, but now greedy people like Sama and OpenAI are taking over everything.
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58 comments
@fury999io @Pajo_16 Thanks! I wanted to recommend this, but realized I didn't bookmark it and forgot the url.  @marcusdeh @Pajo_16 @nixCraft Even that seems shaky these days - I'll try putting date restrictions on searches and regularly get stuff that the results page says is a week old, but actually dates from 2011. (Or vice versa.) I'm not sure if they're just not respecting search syntax, something's breaking on the search engines' side of things, or if people are figuring out ways to make pages appear to be a different age than they actually are.  @ChristianKrebel @Pajo_16 @nixCraft isn't Kagi in on the AI bullshit? I wouldn't trust them not to screw everyone over once they get popular enough. @p4 @Pajo_16 @nixCraft well they have integrated AI, but more on action. Most of the time you will have to trigger an AI feature yourself. Also, they have an assistant where you can choose the models you want to use (APIs are more anonymous) and the answers will have sources from their index which is the best of both worlds IMHO. If you're looking for blogs and other personal sites I recommend bookmarking these search engines: Would also recommend checking out this very excellent piece as well for alternative search options: https://seirdy.one/posts/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-indexes/   Happy to be mentioned! ;) Clew is very beta at the moment but I've just started my summer break so I should have some good time for dedicated work on it. :) @ErictheCerise @Pajo_16 @nixCraft I, uh, didn't actually graduate college. I just finished my sophomore year. XD @ErictheCerise @Pajo_16 @nixCraft Hahaha, no worries, this is a continuation of a long, long trend of people overestimating my age online; you're actually closer than most. The usual guess is that I'm in my 30s. XD Working on a Communications degree with a Professional Writing minor. :)  Maybe add https://search.marginalia.nu/ to the list? Their focus is on finding small, old and obscure websites. 😎 And I'll have to look at the ones in your list that are new to me! @5ciFiGirl @ErictheCerise @Pajo_16 @nixCraft Yeah, Marginalia 1000% deserves the spot more than me. I took a ton of inspiration from their work and they've actually been around for significantly longer than this recent wave of launches. :)  @amin @5ciFiGirl @ErictheCerise @Pajo_16 @nixCraft You down rank pages with ads and trackers? If only this was more common... @azonenberg @5ciFiGirl @ErictheCerise @Pajo_16 @nixCraft Right??? XD But all the mainstream search engines are mostly by companies that sell advertising and tracking services so it's not likely in them. I've found it really effective at fighting SEO, though; if people are trying to hack the system to get you on their site, they probably have ads or tracking. ;)  No 'maybe' about it, that's an awesome one, and new for me. Check out his 'About' page ( https://www.marginalia.nu/marginalia-search/about/ ) ... I want to have his babies. @5ciFiGirl @ErictheCerise @Pajo_16 @nixCraft A ton of people link to his "The Small Website Discoverability Crisis" when justifying their own search engines (which is great) but I also find it kinda hilarious that they often don't seem to realize he has his own search engine too. XD Blogrolls are a great option. :) Mine's here if you want a good starting place: https://benjaminhollon.com/blogroll/ Then many of those sites have their own blogrolls; and so on and so on and so on. > Is there any way to find these sites? One alternative, independent search engine is #Mojeek that has its own index, using that you may be able to find things that Google/Microsoft decided to remove from their search results: https://www.mojeek.com/  @nixCraft so... renting a garage and building a new search engine from second hand pc's? @dilettante I remember a time where search engines where good and provided you with answers to the most obscure problems which you'd never expect on ShitOverflow. I want that back. @nixCraft  @funbaker @dilettante @nixCraft At this point we should just try anew, throw away the whole browser-based web shit and fork Gopher. @Natanox HTTP is not that bad, we just need to throw away Javascript. But ofc every idea is welcome.  @Natanox @funbaker @dilettante @nixCraft Is this the right time for me to be That Person and mention how cool and fun Gemini protocol is? I know only very little about Gemini. But it wasn't my impression thus far that Gemini solves the problem to find stuff on certain subject matters one happens to be interested in. I.e., the search engine problem. Is that wrong? Do I need to learn something? @dj3ei There are gemini search engines out there now, which definitely helps (one that I particularly like is the Kennedy search engine on gemini://gemi.dev) and gemini constellations which are like web rings, and some capsules that have recommended capsules based on subject a la web directory. It's definitely not on parity with all the things on the web, but it's very fun imo and I love how it's small, light and aggressively indie  @Natanox @funbaker @dilettante @nixCraft It's funny I was too thinking about gopher the other day 😆   @funbaker make sure it’s your parents garage and that the rent is actually just doing chores and getting good grades. @borlax Oh I'm doing a lot of chores, but I'm way behind living in my parent's house.  @nixCraft Just we need to quit the search engine. Presearch, Brave many more decentralized ones to come in few years. https://iambrainstorming.github.io/chapters/what-do-we-need-to-decentralize-in-the-coming-years.html @nixCraft this is honestly why I’ve lost interest in #tech, #computers and the #internet as a whole. It’s sad, I used to find it all so intriguing to learn and I used to even make videos about it. I really just don’t care anymore, it feels impossible to find anything organic these days.  Tech corporations are strip-mining the commons in every possible way. It's despicable 😡 What will they do when they've finished this process? What will be left? It's unsustainable in the long term. |
@nixCraft Is there any way to find these sites? You are correct in that they disappeared but there must be a way to find them. Hopefully 🤞