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

Every Google result now looks like an ad

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#181

Post by irrational »

SquareWheel wrote: post #88
ramraj07 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we're all poorer for it. They have taken a public service and molded into something that makes money for them and only for them. And all the while (maybe gradually) they've masqueraded as some benevolent philanthropy. The day "don't be evil" came off their motto is the day they conceded they are evil. At least as evil as any publicly trading company has to be.

Releasing hundreds of open-source tools and donating protocols to standards bodies is really not what I would consider evil. The web is a thousand times better now than it was ten years ago. And despite the frequent misinformation, "Don't be evil" has never once left their code of conduct.

Were you even born 10 years ago? I'm assuming not if that is what you actually believe. I couldn't disagree more.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#182

Post by pb7 »

solarkraft wrote: post #177
pb7 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DuckDuckGo is mostly Bing.

They have a bunch of own infrastructure and data these days (I have read they don't use Bing at all now). Besides: It's cleaner, faster, has often useful instant answers (random, 10011001 in hex, 1 btc in xmr, 40 stones in kg), bangs (!g for Google, !gh for GitHub, !yt for YouTube, !w for Wikipedia) and actually respects your privacy. I think this feature could be much improved an expanded, but the location context s…

> I have read they don't use Bing at all now

Got a link I can take a look at?

> We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from a variety of partners, including Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) and Bing.[0]

Yahoo is also powered by Bing last I checked.

[0] https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#183

Post by jcoffland »

cptskippy wrote: post #55
pb7 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evil is also subjective.

And yet they felt the need to remove the "don't be evil" clause from their code of conduct.

"Don't be evil" used to be Google's company moto. It was downgraded to being just part of the code of conduct.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#184

Post by gowld »

kerkeslager wrote: post #85
pb7 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evil is also subjective.

Okay, for the sake of argument, let's accept your worldview where good and evil are subjective and therefore irrelevant. The only thing left then is, what do we want? It becomes a question of what do I want, and who can I view as allies in achieving my goals. I want a search tool that serves my needs, not the needs of advertisers. I want privacy and I don't want distractions. So Google is not on my side, they are my…

You missed the context:

> > > They cared not to be evil back then. Now they say they do the right thing, and “right” is subjective.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#185

Post by wtallis »

coldcode wrote: post #115
thrower123 wrote: post #50

It's pretty simple to just use UBlock Origin. Firstly, I don't usually see any of the doubleclick ad results, because they get filtered out, and secondly, if I do click on them, it redirects you to a warning page first. Friends don't let friends use the internet without an adblocker.

Adblockers are mostly useless, companies pay them to whitelist and the browsers manufacturers (other than the little guys) seem more inclined to make it less functional. I try at home to use a hosts file (ie a manual pihole) but it breaks so many websites I can't find some combo that blocks ads but doesn't break functionality (I still can't comment on reddit any more). With Google putting ads inline coming from them…

> Adblockers are mostly useless, companies pay them to whitelist

If your adblocker doesn't offer you an easy way to add your own blocking rules, you're using the wrong adblocker. Relying solely on third-party filter lists is never adequate, and at times using them at all is more trouble than they're worth. Conflating the adblocking software with the third-party filter lists you're subscribed to is always a mistake.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#186

Post by ping_pong »

cytzol wrote: post #26

I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it. I've just become so used to seeing the complete URL in green. The complete URL! If you hover over the results, you'll see that they like to take bits like numeric components or the query string out. This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. Their destructive AMP service confusingly shows you Google…

How is hijacking the domain with Google for AMP not anti-competitive? I'm surprised a class action lawsuit hasn't erupted because of that.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#187

Post by danShumway »

ProAm wrote: post #159
danShumway wrote: post #105

Prefer DuckDuckGo for searching, if possible. If you don't like DuckDuckGo's results and can't tolerate them, then prefer Startpage to Google, which will give you the same algorithm minus tracking/customization. Even post-acquisition, Startpage is still a more privacy-conscious engine than Google, and their ads are better labeled. And while I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, quick reminder that unless you're r…

Startpage is now owned by an advertising company.[Y] [Y] https://www.startpage.com/blog/company-updates/startpage-and...

Correct, but it's still preferable over Google.

Startpage's parent company is (currently) less integrated with Startpage than Google's Advertising department is with Search. Their search results are also better formatted, and ads are more clearly marked. Startpage also doesn't do link wrapping if you turn off Javascript, which is such a huge privacy win over Google Search that I would still tell you to prefer Startpage even if I knew that they were slurping up other data.

On the marketing side, Startpage's parent company also doesn't own the vast majority of the online ecosystem, and distributing power among multiple advertisers is better than consolidating all of the power behind a single company who also owns a dominant web browser. System1, for all of its faults, isn't actively proposing web standards with the goal of deprecating URLs.

If you can't use DuckDuckGo, you should still prefer Startpage to Google. Google Search is also owned by an advertising company, one that openly mines literally every single data point of every single search they do. You can't get worse than that. I see people who are saying they want to break free of Google, but that they can't give up Google's results. I'm not going to tell them to stick with Google if an almost universally better alternative exists.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#188

Post by convFixb »

scumbert wrote: post #117

Unironically switch to Bing

Unironically this.

I switched at work because Google thought our proxy was evil or something, then I switched at home just because, and I honestly haven't missed Google at all.

The only thing that strikes me as obviously worse (maybe?) is that Bing isn't very good at guessing what you mean when you misspell something badly.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#189

Post by mthoms »

bazonker wrote: post #52
saiya-jin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seeing something else than I am? DDG looks lightyears better than current google now, at least on visual clarity side

I think the point is DDG has the exact pattern you are all whining about: the organic results have icons and the ad says "Ad" instead.

>you are all whining about: the organic results have icons and the ad says "Ad" instead.

You're being condescending but appear to have missed the point. The "Ad" text in Google's results is in the exact same position and is effectively the same pixel dimensions as the favicon.

It's cleverly designed and placed to resemble a favicon, to give the over-all layout more uniformity between ads and organic results.

As a user, I want less uniformity between ads and organic results, not more.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#190

Post by texasbigdata »

ping_pong wrote: post #186
cytzol wrote: post #26

I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it. I've just become so used to seeing the complete URL in green. The complete URL! If you hover over the results, you'll see that they like to take bits like numeric components or the query string out. This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. Their destructive AMP service confusingly shows you Google…

How is hijacking the domain with Google for AMP not anti-competitive? I'm surprised a class action lawsuit hasn't erupted because of that.

Also what is the technical benefit? On android it feels like a downgrade
Post reply on HN