Ecosia as search engine because I want to support their tree planting.
I don’t have favorite browser. I use Firefox balance of convenience and primary. It gets the job done.
For now, Brave. As for search engines, most of the time I’ve been using DDG (IIRC it’s the default search engine on Brave) but sometimes I prepend “:g” to use Google for searching things that DDG cannot (yet). As a plus, sometimes I also use Marginalia (I set Brave to use Marginalia when I prepend a “:mgn”) in order to search for (g)old content (such as blogosphere content, BBS List archives and so on). If I need to search something deeply, I use Ahmia.
I’m using Firefox browser, but might try out Zen Browser, it looks pretty promising and it’s non chromium
A shame it’s not on Android tho (Only PC)
Safari. Use DDG in browser, but primarily use Perplexity for searches via its app.
Firefox and Brave Search
idk about “favourite”, but the ones I use, which are all perfectly adequate for my needs: LibreWolf on desktop, Mull and/or Vanadium on mobile, DDG
Vivaldi on desktop and mobile. DDG.
Librewolf on desktop, mull on mobile. Currently using brave search but hoping to eventually switch to searxng
Waterfox. Firefox-based, great theme/userChrome customizations and has the Betterfox config, which is where most of Librewolf’s sane defaults come from.
Kagi and Orion
I quite liked Kahi when I tried it, but it lacked several Google features that truly make is easier to use. For example on google I can search for a restaurant, and even if it has a common name, it will find the one that is the most relevant to me, and it will also show me a phone number, reviews and pictures etc. I also found that mixed language results are kinda bad, like when searching for something in a language, and then something else in another language, it really prefers having a single language set in the settings. For that, I felt it was a bit expensive for also taking a feature cut. So I went back to google. Luckily in Canada we don’t have the AI search summary bullshit yet so there’s that.
For example on google I can search for a restaurant, and even if it has a common name, it will find the one that is the most relevant to me,
This is what tracking helps with. Google knows roughly where you live (or exactly where you live if you have your home saved in Google Maps) and uses this data as part of Google search.
One of the main benefits of other search engines is that they don’t track you, but as a result, the results aren’t customized for you.
Librewolf, Zen & Mullvad browser ( not be confused w Mull)
Firefox + Kagi
Librewolf / Ungoogled Chromium
Search: SearXNG, DDG
Brave+self-hosted SearXNG