I suspect that this is the direct result of AI generated content just overwhelming any real content.
I tried ddg, google, bing, quant, and none of them really help me find information I want these days.
Perplexity seems to work but I don’t like the idea of AI giving me “facts” since they are mostly based on other AI posts
ETA: someone suggested SearXNG and after using it a bit it seems to be much better compared to ddg and the rest.
Never heard any issues with Privacy, but I’ve heard issues about them using Brave search Results as part of their results.
If i remember right, it wasn’t just using brave, but including a referral id in brave searches. It wasn’t intended, and they fixed it, so all good with me.