https://www.ecosia.org/, a search engine iirc non-profit that is trying to be as energy-neutral on renewables as possible, while also investing all of their profit into climate action, i.e planting trees. They have transparent budgets and do look pretty trustworthy, although I’ve never really looked into them too much.
noai.duckduckgo.com a version of Duck Duck Go, a pretty well known search engine, that disables the AI summary by default via an easy link.
With Ecosia and noai.DDG right there, I don’t see any reason why would you ever use Google.
I only see it when I open a new browser on a VM or something by accident, and it just sucks and makes me immediately leave.
Most of my search usage is looking up concrete websites because I don’t have history on and am lazy to remember or type the whole URL, and google is the only one where I have to click through a screen blocking dialog then scroll through LLM bullshiting about something before I can get to the link.
I run my own Matrix server and just bridge Whatsapp, Messenger, Discord and Telegram to it. Element (a matrix client I’m using) Works without google services.
The only catch is I have to have a second Play-services enabled profile on the phone, and sign in to whatsapp there every two weeks, so it keeps my Matrix session fresh.
Ah, fuck. Of course.