[PLUG-TALK] Is there an alternative to Google?

[John Jason Jordan]

I recently posted about my annoyance with Google's search results page.
Keith pointed me to Greasemonkey, which I installed, and one of its
scripts "Google Update Script," which I also installed. This script
keeps Google from displaying the useless left panel, and also makes it
display the location (in green) at the bottom of each search result
instead of in the middle where it's harder to find.

Today I noticed that the script is no longer working. Apparently Google
has figured out how to get around it so I am forced to see their useless
left panel that takes up space that I could use for other things.

While figuring this out I noticed that there is supposedly a way to
stop Google from directing you to websites based on your location.
(Google gets your location mainly from your IP address.) In Firefox you
can go into about:config and set geo:enabled to false. I did so,
restarted Firefox, and Google still displays my location as Portland,
Oregon.

I am getting really fed up with Google. This is really Gatesian
behavior. I tried Yahoo! but I didn't think it gave me very complete
results. I note that in Firefox I can set the default search engine.
Does anyone use a different search engine? Does anyone know which
search engines are better than others, like ratings?