What I find more worrying are all the anecdotes of people trying to blacklist Google and then not being able to browse the Web because of Captcha, login, and other weird tracking.
Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?
261–270 of 337 posts
Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?
#262This is a purely anti-user move. No user gains anything by it, this actually helps phishing sites. Oh, and it happens to help Google's AMP effort, which can now pretend to be the original site even more effectively. Time to get everyone to use Duck Duck Go, and to get rid of those Google CAPTCHAs which are an even bigger data harvesting operation than search.
Side note: For those who tried DDG in the past and were unimpressed I suggest giving it a whirl again. I kind of wrote it off a few years ago and then tried it recently and its pretty good. You may have to modify some search habits. If you enable location tracking they do anonymous localized results (can read about it here: https://help.duckduckgo.com/privacy/anonymous-localized-resu... ) Usually good if you're used…
I found that DDG is okay for two types of queries: common everyday topics and technical queries. For many other niche topic, it’s not good at all.
I use DDG as the default and have been doing so for many years. I still have to add !g every time I search for violin related questions. The results are often just not relevant at all.
I think DDG still has a long way to grow to be a 100% replacement for Google outside the tech and science community.
Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?
#263I've noticed that if you change your user-agent to something really old and turn off JS, you can still get more "normal" looking results, complete with the option to view the cached page right there, but I'm not sure how long that will last... Also don't forget that not too long ago, Google decided to start hiding pieces of URLs and convincing the web standards groups to make that a standard: https://www.bleepingcomp…
That's a little different. You often don't see the full URL on a phone because the text box isn't big enough, so it gets cut off. When the browser doesn't have space to show the whole thing, displaying the most security-relevant part (the domain name) makes more sense than blindly truncating the end off it, even though doing it the dumb way is how we're used to text fields working. Designing for small screens is tric…
The article talks about the desktop version specifically. A phone is a little different, I agree.
Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was trying to find the URL of Crate and Barrel Canada yesterday on Mobile on Google and I found myself dropped into some google clickbait hell... I ended up in their google maps product on mobile and was clicking around between their reviews, their location on google maps, the opinions of other google users about what they thought crate and barrel was good at, pictures of crate and barrel stores, etc... But I could…
But I couldn't help but think that Google really doesn't want me even going to the actual URL. I've stated this before, but it bears repeating: Google does not make money from you finding what you're looking for. Google only makes money from you hunting for what you're looking for.
Right, but if you're not finding what you're looking for, you may not look for it using the same tool in the future.
Repeating problematic incentives is fine. Ignoring counteracting incentives is misleading but popular in all debates.
Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?
#265So, $AAPL AND RE-Branded $YHOO IS USING $IBM’s WATSON FOR M2M2BM2M and you’re letting them drink down on your suction-economies data every minute of the day if you run any app I.WEATHER.
Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
The consumers of Google are advertisers and they have other choices. Users also can easily go to another search engine. Why sue Google because users decide not to go anywhere else?
US anti-trust actions have historically been triggered by abuse of market dominance (e.g. leveraging market dominance in other markets; anti-competitive behavior in a dominated market) which is not coupled to the ease of using a different service. Ease-of-switching puts the onus on the user to recognize corporate violations of anti-trust law rather than upon the company violating anti-trust regulation. It doesn't rea…
I keep seeing that “companies shouldn’t use their dominance in one area to get into another area”.
So does that mean that Netflix shouldn’t have used its dominance in DVD rentals to get into streaming and just die when another company did? Should Apple not have been allowed to use its dominance in the music/media player business to get into the smart phone business?
Antitrust was traditionally used when a company kept other competitors out. How is Google stopping another competitor from creating a search engine? The fact is that no one is forced to use Google. People can just as easily type bing.com in their browser as google.com.
In fact, the dominant desktop OS, doesn’t have Google as the default search engine and thanks to a consent decree - at least in the EU - Google cant force manufacturers of Android devices to make it the default search engine.
If Microsoft wanted to outbid Google to be the default search engine on iOS devices it could.
Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?
#267Remember AOL, anyone? And so, we've come full circle.
In my tech circle, almost everyone has switched to another search engine (ddg mostly, startpage, bing), which is quite telling. I noticed as I spot them in a search result page while together, not because they told me. This was an eye opener. I initially _had_ to because the search itself became unreliable for me (finding technical terms is now a frustration in quoting and checking for "missing from the page: term"),…
Where do you live? In my tech circle, pretty much everybody uses Google I haven't seen anyone DDG-ing or even mentioning switching away from google. I've seen some FF users though :)
Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?
#268First of all, I hope this is just an tiny experiment or better a hoax, and won't be widely adopted. Google deserves constant critique, but they also deserve credit as a company that often promotes the open way first (for example, schema.org as a way anyone can describe their information, which can be ready by anyone). But if it's not an experiment, I'd start putting my energy into moving away from Google. In the Alta…
I think it's more "test with users but keep programmers/power users happy". Old accounts (or maybe accounts they deem to be 'power users'?) still see the green http/s links, and my search for "mortgages" doesn't show the favicons like the reddit suggests. https://i.judge.sh/rare/Spoon/chrome_EVGYE1pF7H.png This happened with the little icons next to the "all/news/images" tabs at the top a few months ago, I didn't see…
I tried the same search in both and got the same results (links displayed in both). Maybe you just happened to get into a different A/B bucket when you opened incognito
Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not worth it. Just use DuckDuckGo or Searx.
I switched to DuckDuckGo a while ago, took a little while to get used but as it's my default search engine I've got used to it. The funny thing for me is now google's search results look strange to me as I've not kept up with all their "tweaks/changes". I think best thing is switch default search to a new engine to get used to it, takes a little adjusting but worthwhile.
It's the same for me. I tried DDG maybe a year ago..and couldn't stand it, I found it too lousy. But now I'm trying again and this time it's slowly sticking in. Idk if it for better or my tolerance against Google decreased.
Re: Google are removing URLs entirely from search results?
#270From the standpoint of Google this is passing the 'grandma test'. They are catering to billions of users, of whom only tiny minority care about the full URL displayed; for most it's unnecessary information. The results look cleaner this way. It also slightly compresses the results so they can probably fit one more above the fold. The Google way is to reduce complexity for the user as much as possible. This may be in…
It also shows the favicons, which help people recognize what site they're looking at if they're familiar with them much more quickly than a url can.