More and more often it will drop words out of my search; import words. I can't help but suspect it's because it has more ads to show me without the most contextually important bits of my search.
Half the first pages are ads. The next few pages may be shopping results even though I'm not searching for something to buy.
Something.. Happened on mobile. The search results now have a bunch of BS "sections" before the actual search results section! WUT.
Seems to be getting harder and harder to craft the right searches to get good results. I miss the days when people would write articles with headlines of "<topic> sucks". Was so much easier to find counter opinions to stuff :/
But I do know that google has gone far downhill. and I think that is partially its fault, and also the fault of the internet as a whole. It's just become such an infested ad machine.
Luckily, for the things I search, ads are not usually a problem.
Just FYI: We don’t collect or share your personal information. The Startpage founders continue to run the company as before and they have control over the privacy components of Startpage. With this investment, we hope to further expand our privacy features & reach new users. You may have already seen some of these new initiatives taking place. 1) Unfiltered News Tab launched in November: https://www.startpage.com/blog/product-updates/launching-unp... 2) Privacy Please! Newsletter launched in last month: https://www.startpage.com/blog/company-updates/welcome-priva... 3) We're pushing out more info via our blog & social than before, giving greater insight into how we make money (https://www.startpage.com/blog/privacy-awareness/advertising...) and how we keep your search private (https://www.startpage.com/blog/privacy-awareness/how-does-st...)
FYI: We're rolling out new privacy features this year. We hope you'll give us another chance. Thanks!
And yes, we announced last year that System1/Privacy One invested in Startpage. Rest assured, the Startpage founders continue to run the company as before and they have control over the privacy components of Startpage. With this investment, we hope to further expand our privacy features & reach new users. More info on the investment: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...
Recommended read: "Detailed tests of search engines: Google, Startpage, Bing, DuckDuckGo, metaGer, Ecosia, Swisscows, Searx, Qwant, Yandex, and Mojeek" [1]
[1] https://libretechtips.gitlab.io/detailed-tests-of-search-eng...