ChatGPT can be used as default Safari search engine with new extension

loudmax 1 year ago |

I use LLMs all day and they've replaced a lot of what I'd previously searched for. Even so, I don't think I'm ready yet for an LLM as default search engine. LLMs are useful for generating information based on what they know about. For example, generating useful commands for tools like `ffmpeg` or `jq`. They're not better than a search engine for finding factual information, like "What is the population of Canada?" LLM hallucination is still a thing.

LLMs replace some of the work we'd previously had to rely on search engines for. They're not a replacement for everything, and they shouldn't be used as such.

_fs 1 year ago | |

I prefer kagi's approach. If I add a "?" to the end of my search query, I get a LLM response at the top of my search results. Any LLM response includes source links to quickly verify the information presented. So, if I am using search engine to quickly check a fact, say "What year did Tremors come out?" I get the following at the top of the results:

Quick Answer

  The movie Tremors was released in 1990 12. It is an American monster horror film starring Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward 12.

 References

  r/movies on Reddit: Tremors (for those who saw it when it came out www.reddit.com

  Tremors (1990 film) - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org

currymj 1 year ago | |

this feature is one where ChatGPT will actually do a Bing search (sometimes rewriting your search query), and then show you a summary of the content of the links.

so "hallucinations" are more rare, although the model may be very gullible with respect to the content of the search results, which is similar.

soulofmischief 1 year ago | | |

It's just going to regurgitate the first few things it sees without applying critical reasoning. These models aren't quite there yet for search reliability.

daft_pink 1 year ago |

Will this still send your information to Google because the redirect sometimes happens after the search has already been sent? I’m curious because I use a similar Kagi extension and I feel like it’s definitely sending my information to DuckDuckGo which sucks. I wish apple would allow more search options.

whatsthatabout 1 year ago | |

Depends on how the extension works probably. Had the issue with some extension but the Qwant extension for example doesn't leak - you can check yourself when capturing the http(s) traffic with something like proxyman.

lapcat 1 year ago | | |

All the Safari search engine extensions work the same: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/2/2.html

whatsthatabout 1 year ago | | |

Interesting, something must have changed then - the qwant search extension definitely does not leak the search to the default search engine - I checked myself with Proxyman.

lapcat 1 year ago | | |

I just tested with Little Snitch and saw leakage to Google.

It's a race condition, so you might not always see it.

whatsthatabout 1 year ago | | |

I don't know your setup but in my opinion something like proxyman / mitmproxy or even Wireshark would be the better way to analyse this. I tested quite often and never saw the leak with Qwant.

Alifatisk 1 year ago |

I've been a Perplexity user for about a year now, why would anyone pick ChatGPT search over Perplexity?

TriangleEdge 1 year ago |

Cool. I'd use ChatGPT as my default search in Firefox. I'm not going to start using Safari for this however.

testmasterflex 1 year ago |

ChatGPTs search is still slow and has low overview.

thatgerhard 1 year ago |

Currently apoenai feels dead in the water

system7rocks 1 year ago |

But the bigger question is - at what cost?