My experiment with Qwant search engine is ending early. On July 20th, 2018 I started using it as my default search engine for a month long test. Today, August 7th, I am terminating further testing.
The test terminated when I got yet another captcha because they detected unusual activity from me and thought I was a robot. That never happens to me. I just don’t type that fast. When I’m trying to find something I do keep refining my search query. I guess that is too much for Qwant. They apparently only want dilettantes doing an occasional search. This is not a robust search engine for somebody who seriously works and searches.
The truth is, I was already getting irritated with Qwant. Not for the quality of it’s search results, but because the search results page was taking too long to load. The page is pretty but slow. I’d want lean and fast results. The actual search results were pretty darn good.
But I can’t use a search engine that craps out on me right in the middle of a project.
Pros:
Trying to build their own unique index.
Decent search results.
Privacy
Cons:
Slow
Not robust. Can’t handle multiple searches typed by a slow human typist.
