• AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    19 hours ago

    I hope this is a joke, because it’s the most useful search engine I have ever used in the past decade.

    Cannot speak for anyone else, but I have been having problems with my preferred SearXNG instances returning garbage results that have nothing to do with what I searched. Before anyone asks, no I am unable to self-host my own personal instance and don’t feel like changing settings every time I close and reopen my browser.

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    37
    ·
    22 hours ago

    The search industry continues to undergo big changes. Leta will not be able to follow and will likely become less useful over time.

    None of the “Big changes” of late have improved the user experience, absolutely nobody who’d use Leta would complain that it doesn’t have AI summaries or whatever other bullshit.

    Does this feel like a big cop out to anyone else? How weird…

    • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 hour ago

      I doubt they’re referring to feature parity WRT machine learning summaries and the like. “Less useful over time” is more likely a gentle way of saying ungraceful performance degradation.

      Escalation in the SEO wars is accelerating. Various culprits but obviously generative NLP technologies designed specifically to sound human are nukes in this metaphor.

      Any index developer that isn’t willing or can’t afford to continue fighting the war must choose:

      1. host a legacy product that rapidly enshittifies
      2. pull the plug now while it still works

      If the index is the developer’s only product, the only real risk of option 1 is damaging their street cred.

      In OP’s case, the index was not even their core product, so option 2 was the wiser decision.

  • scytale@piefed.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    23 hours ago

    No way! Is that why it’s been timing out a lot lately? Oh man, I like Leta. I’ve been using it for several months now. Sigh, I guess it’s back to startpage (and ddg).

    • cardfire@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      20 hours ago

      I just need a search engine the will also give calculator and unit conversation results. Everything else sounds be search results.

      At this point, it’s been too many years that I will just query “76 f in c” or “2500*12/3” from my url bar, so this I appreciate the most modest “intelligence” from my web browser.

      Literally everything else makes my experience worse, though.

      So I’m taking recommendations for more search engines to try out. I don’t know why I start page bothers me so much, but it feels like the results my ISP would give me through DNS capture a decade and two ago.

    • JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 hour ago

      I’m adding this to the list of things that I would have used if not for learning about it from a shutdown announcement.

  • net00@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    24 hours ago

    I was just starting to use it, damn. I wonder if google has tried to take them down for using their search results…

    I was thinking of setting up my own searxng instance, but I know they do have problems with google results now.

  • artyom@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    23 hours ago

    Similar privacy can be achieved through the combination of a VPN and a privacy-focused browser. We have therefore decided to discontinue Leta and continue to advance the development of state-of-the-art of VPNs and browser privacy