Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results

torrentfreak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 261 posts

Re: Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results

#51

Post by raverbashing »

pcr0 wrote: post #15
cup-of-tea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make DuckDuckGo your default search engine now. Just do it. You won't miss Google.

As much as I'd like that to be true, I end up having to use !g in half my searches. It does okay at keyword matching, but can't infer what I'm actually looking for, falls short at finding obscure/niche topics and its pageload speeds are frustrating compared to Google.

Weird things that DDG does:

- No geo prioritization. If I'm searching for things in (city I'm current in) I don't care for sites from companies located in (city in the US/Canada with the same name).

- You write "X in Y" (generic example) and autocomplete tries to "fix it with "Z in Y" thanks but I really mean "X in Y". Or sometimes it tries to fix it with even more unrelated things (though sometimes it makes sense).

Re: Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results

#52

Post by bitL »

ddebernardy wrote: post #13
cup-of-tea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make DuckDuckGo your default search engine now. Just do it. You won't miss Google.

Has DDG become any better for programming-related searches? Asking, because last time I tried using it for more than a handful of queries, I ended up jumping back to using Google because searching for obscure programming error messages seldom led anywhere useful.

It used to be better ~6 months ago. Now it's as bad as Google or even worse :(

Re: Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results

#53

Post by PostOnce »

raverbashing wrote: post #51
pcr0 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I'd like that to be true, I end up having to use !g in half my searches. It does okay at keyword matching, but can't infer what I'm actually looking for, falls short at finding obscure/niche topics and its pageload speeds are frustrating compared to Google.

Weird things that DDG does: - No geo prioritization. If I'm searching for things in (city I'm current in) I don't care for sites from companies located in (city in the US/Canada with the same name). - You write "X in Y" (generic example) and autocomplete tries to "fix it with "Z in Y" thanks but I really mean "X in Y". Or sometimes it tries to fix it with even more unrelated things (though sometimes it makes sense).

They specifically advertise that they don't lock you into a filter bubble.

A geo-bubble is a filter bubble.

Re: Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results

#54

Post by AlecSchueler »

cpmouter wrote: post #20
Rjevski wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you call them proper owners when all the research is funded by public money?

So change the law or whatever, but as it is, they own the copyright, whether you like it or not. Saying otherwise is at the same level of discourse as using the word "Micro$oft" and similar puerile rubbish.

You can't scam anyone unless you're breaking the law? Or you can't scam someone while funded by public money?

Re: Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results

#55

Post by raverbashing »

PostOnce wrote: post #53
raverbashing wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird things that DDG does: - No geo prioritization. If I'm searching for things in (city I'm current in) I don't care for sites from companies located in (city in the US/Canada with the same name). - You write "X in Y" (generic example) and autocomplete tries to "fix it with "Z in Y" thanks but I really mean "X in Y". Or sometimes it tries to fix it with even more unrelated things (though sometimes it makes sense).

They specifically advertise that they don't lock you into a filter bubble. A geo-bubble is a filter bubble.

Not necessarily

A filter bubble is building a story of previous searches to get more relevant results.

So the first time you search 'Python' on Google with no history it might prioritize snakes or the computer language, but after some clicks it will know better how to prioritize

Now, DDG correctly detects the country I'm in, but even with that set the results are weird and not always relevant.

Re: Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results

#56

Post by nasredin »

chii wrote: post #46
AngryData wrote: post #7

Google has been trash for pirate content for awhile now. 9/10 sites it does show are fake and straight up malicious with like 50 different things trying to hijack your browser and make you install shit. Not that real pirate sites are exactly safe, but at least they actually provide what people are looking for.

do you have a recommended list of good piracy sites?

RARBG

It's Romanian IIRC.

Re: Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results

#57

Post by zdkl »

ikt wrote: post #34
cpmouter wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG is super super bad. I don't know why people recommend it at all. Now that you mentioned !g I remembered all my DDG experiments... 1) change my default search engine to DDG, 2) use it for some time, 3) use !g in half of my searches, 4) use !g in all of my searches, 5) say "fuck it" and switch back to google

I switched very early on and had the same issue however it has improved a lot for me lately. I use Google for maybe 1 out of 100 searches I do now, a lot of those 1 in 100 are maps related. I'd recommend giving it another try if you haven't recently.

!osm for OpenStreetMaps is amazing if you're just looking for a dumb map without the "reviewed businesses" and streetview hoo-ha.

Re: Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results

#58

Post by weavie »

pcr0 wrote: post #15
cup-of-tea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make DuckDuckGo your default search engine now. Just do it. You won't miss Google.

As much as I'd like that to be true, I end up having to use !g in half my searches. It does okay at keyword matching, but can't infer what I'm actually looking for, falls short at finding obscure/niche topics and its pageload speeds are frustrating compared to Google.

I hardly ever find I need to use !g. I wonder what we are doing/searching for differently.

Re: Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results

#59

Post by Kliment »

raverbashing wrote: post #51
pcr0 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I'd like that to be true, I end up having to use !g in half my searches. It does okay at keyword matching, but can't infer what I'm actually looking for, falls short at finding obscure/niche topics and its pageload speeds are frustrating compared to Google.

Weird things that DDG does: - No geo prioritization. If I'm searching for things in (city I'm current in) I don't care for sites from companies located in (city in the US/Canada with the same name). - You write "X in Y" (generic example) and autocomplete tries to "fix it with "Z in Y" thanks but I really mean "X in Y". Or sometimes it tries to fix it with even more unrelated things (though sometimes it makes sense).

You can set your filter bubble to your country! It's right under the search bar when you start a search.
Post reply on HN