I saw in a blog post somewhere about a search engine Kagi Search where you pay $10 a month and it is completely ad free. They offer a free trial version so I signed up to check it out.

I used "1000s of cats" as a test search in Kagi Search, Duck Duck Go, and Google to compare the results. It was very jarring...very jarring.

With Kagi Search, I got a ton of links I've never seen before or haven't seen in a long time. Felt like I was  doing a search on a library computer.

With Duck Duck Go, I got a lot more links I haven't seen before or in a while. Felt like Google of old.

With Google...yeesh. Felt like I was in a shopping mall after searching with the other two. Not a good experience when you compare it to the other two at the same time. It's just missing the random smell of pretzels, cologne/perfume, and some generic dance music.