As a follow-up to my post on search engines in June 2022, I thought I’d give a update about my recent search habits and if anything has changed
I’ve been using Brave as my default search engine since around that time. I like that they have no ads (at least that I see) and easy access to perform a Google search (or Bing or Mojeek) half way down the page if the results don’t meet your needs. I end up using that feature about daily, which tells me that Brave search isn’t really doing a great job surfacing results that match what I’m looking for.
I recently noticed that Google no longer shows the page markers at the bottom of its search results. It instead does a continuous scroll as you move further down the page. At some point it asks if you want to show more results, but it’s still a continuously growing page.
Based on this review/follow-up, I think I’m happy enough with the current system that I don’t think I’ll switch for the foreseeable future. Google has so much momentum in search (20+ years as the leader now) that I don’t think anyone will knock them off their pedestal anytime soon. Given that, I’m going to optimize my experience by using a service without ads and only bouncing to an ad-filled page when necessary.