For most use cases, web search engines are fine. But I am wondering if there are alternative ways to finding information. There is also the enshittification of google and tbh most(free) search engines just give google search result
Obviously, the straight is just asking other people, can be in person or online, in general forums or specialised communities
Libraries are good source but for those that don’t have access to physical libraries, there free online public libraries(I will post the links for those that I found below)
Books in general, a lot of them have reference to outside materials.
So, I been experimenting with an AI chat bot(Le chat), partially as life coach of sorts and partially as a fine tuned web search engine. To cut to the chase, its bad. I when its not just listing google top results it list tools that long gone or just makes shit up. I was hoping it to be fine tuned search engine, cuz the google works, if what you want is not the top 10 websites, your on your own.
So yeah, that all I can think. Those are all the routes I can think of for finding information and probably all there is but maybe I miss another route.
I have been really enjoying Kagi, unfortunately it’s a paid service. Kagi allows you to specify the source of your search results. For example, I can limit my search to the Fediverse or Usenet, etc.
That’s not unfortunate to be honest. It’s how they can make a search engine that is both good and doesn’t harvest user data or rely on ads.