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Every Google result now looks like an ad
711–720 of 1001 posts
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#712I'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…
>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. I posted the solution below, which I found a few days ago. The script will work with greasemonkey and tampermonkey, it will provide you with results similar to the ones before the change. If you also use uMatrix, there will be no ads. https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google
> I posted the solution below,
Sorry to be "that guy" but for me the solution is to use DuckDuckGo.
It's not perfect, but neither is trying to play arms race with Google's JavaScript.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#713At this point GOOG is just another legacy company ready to be disrupted
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#714I don't get it. They say "Ad" on them don't they?
The picture of the search results doesn't even show any ads in it.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#715It's funny, because if you run AdSense on your website, Google has very strict guidelines about not misleading users and making a clear distinction between advertisements and your content. However, when Google shows ads on their site, they don't need to follow those rules, they blend them in as closely as possible. Also, what's the deal with showing an advertisement for the same result that's number one? See the belo…
This amounts to racketeering. Given Google’s power. If you want to find a particular brand name, that brand name has to pay up for the ad space or their competitors will take it, and either way, Google makes money.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#716Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, Wikipedia has been relegated lower and lower in search results. So much so that I now specifically use their search tool rather than go through google just in case some interesting thing pops up.
Having to search for “xxxxxxx wiki” more and more now. No I don’t want Healthline and Medicinenet links above the Wikipedia entry, thank you Google. I wish by each search result there was a button that said “banish this domain to oblivion, I never want to see it again.” You could improve search really fast that way if you still cared about things like that.
I do the same thing when looking for product reviews or useful discussion- generally put "xxxx forum" or "xxxx reddit" etc.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#717A little while back I started experimenting with changing the user agent string and found that there are actually many different variations of Google’s search UI that are currently accessible. For example, I was surprised to find that by setting the user agent string to Netscape Navigator 4, I could get a lightweight, no-JS version of Google that looked like it was from the early 2000’s. By using a user agent string…
I just realized that most of these UIs unfortunately redirect to a simplified mobile UI. Thanks to those who pointed this out in the comments; after Google had left the UIs in-place for 15+ years, I wasn’t expecting them to remove in the few months since I put together this extension. I’ll look into seeing if there are any user agent strings that still work in the future.
I did a little testing, and found that Google Images still uses the old UI with these user agent strings.
I also found another, even simpler mobile UI available with this user agent string, though results seem to be sent through a mobile-formatting proxy operated by Google:
Mozilla/5.0 (PlayBook; U; RIM Tablet OS 2.1.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/536.2+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.2.1.0 Safari/536.2+
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#718Reminder that almost every Google search bashing thread on HN is most probably injected by DDG. They have been doing that for years and years and it proved to be very effective. It's a amazing that such a mediocre search engine like DDG can be popular only based on rants and accusations on the big guy. But it seems really to be a very effective marketing technique.
It breaks the site guidelines to post insinuations of astroturfing like this. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here. Reams of previous explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... if anyone wants it.
but it's the truth and if you're seriously unaware of it you have a big problem; DDG, Brave Inc and some other companies have been doing this on a regular basis for a long time. You guys should start charging them and at least make some money off allowing these organized shilling parties.
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#719Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. I posted the solution below, which I found a few days ago. The script will work with greasemonkey and tampermonkey, it will provide you with results similar to the ones before the change. If you also use uMatrix, there will be no ads. https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google
> I posted the solution below, Sorry to be "that guy" but for me the solution is to use DuckDuckGo. It's not perfect, but neither is trying to play arms race with Google's JavaScript.
I use DDG as much as I can but when I need to find something very specific, or find a solution to a bug Ive encountered, it takes 2x as long on DDG vs Google
Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad
#720Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. I posted the solution below, which I found a few days ago. The script will work with greasemonkey and tampermonkey, it will provide you with results similar to the ones before the change. If you also use uMatrix, there will be no ads. https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google
> I posted the solution below, Sorry to be "that guy" but for me the solution is to use DuckDuckGo. It's not perfect, but neither is trying to play arms race with Google's JavaScript.
I agree. The moment I saw this was the moment I configured my browser to use DuckDuckGo instead of Google. Good riddance.