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Every Google result now looks like an ad

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Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#941

Post by benibela »

daemin wrote: post #865
benibela wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother opens every webpage by typing the URL into google

Because web browsers default "home screen" has a large text box by default. People think that's where the address goes, but not really, that's actually a web page which does search. Shame on us for designing it that way. But on another note, it will be the day when your mother (or anyone else for that matter) types in 'www.walmart.com' and actually goes to 'www.target.com' (names taken from other examples that I've s…

That is already happening

I made a new webpage for my father, and my mother cannot open it, since google does not know about that and there are no links to it.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#942

Post by hiram112 »

tripzilch wrote: post #870
userbinator wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proxomitron.

wow does that ... still exist? is it maintained? (I thought the creator stopped 15+ years ago?) does the user interface still look weird and green? :)

Haha I just took a look, expecting a cool Github project page.

Nope - its green, and hasn't been updated since June... of 2003. I have no idea how it is able to be effective against the modern web, considering in 2003 the biggest issue was annoying pop-up Flash ads which no longer exist. Maybe there are updated plugins or something.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#943

Post by satyrnein »

raz32dust wrote: post #253

Funny thing is, this probably did not happen because some PM decided that ads should look like regular results. It is probably an organic result of A/B testing over time, coupled with revenue being an important metric. Small changes that increase revenue get prioritized and over time, it just evolves into this eventually.

Yeah, it could have just been designers wanting to put in favicons for their own sake (which is not intrinsically bad, remember the dark ages before browser tabs had favicons?) and product managers saying, well, the revenue looks good...

New Theory of Software Evolution:

Designers = random mutations

Product Managers = fitness function

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#944

Post by bananabreakfast »

tripzilch wrote: post #860
rpastuszak wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the tip. Most of the people here would fix that somehow, e.g. by tweaking browser settings, finding and following comments like yours. But, why does someone who doesn't deal with tech have to think about that, and will they, should they? I find their UX approach to SEO more concerning than, say, scoring. For example, AMP pages will receive the same score as equally performant non-AMP content. However, they…

> Internet feels more hostile than it used to. It's not Internet, it's software. You can really feel it when switching from Android to LineageOS, or from Windows to Linux. It's the difference between software where "you are the product" and software that has been created to serve the user , to be the best tool it can be. I'm not talking about UX in the sense that open source software can sometimes feel clunky and unf…

I think you're definitely misunderstanding what Instagram is. I'm not saying it isn't user hostile and full of ads, because it definitely is, but you're complaining about all the wrong things. All of those things you're complaining about are conscious design choices and have been from the very beginning.

Instagram is not some generic photo sharing software that tries to be open and modular and integrate with everything and proliferate arbitrary visual media with a rich tightly coupled messaging system. It was never that and won't ever be that.

Instagram from the start was just about taking low res pictures with your phone camera, putting a filter on them so they look less terrible and then sharing them with your friends. Every other feature was begrudgingly added to increase accessibility and hence DAUs. So you were never supposed to be able to interact with anything outside of the app. You can't cross-post your posts to facebook or twitter, you can't post from your computer, you can't spam links in your photo descriptions. All of this is literally the point of Instagram. It was like this before it and slightly after it got acquired and people loved it, not in spite of the restrictions, but because of them.

Then Zuck crammed it full of ads and a terrible glommed on messaging system and ruined it.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#945

Post by karinakarina »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #851
leokennis wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just FYI, Startpage was recently acquired by a shady company.

Wow. Did not know that, time to move along then. DDG here we go. That said, their privacy policy still looks pretty strong: https://www.startpage.com/en/search/privacy-policy.html ...and at the end of the day, who is actually better out there, and that can prove that no data is leaking? Maybe running your own searx is the only option? ( http://asciimoo.github.io/searx/ )

Startpage person here ️. Maybe I can shed some light on this. Last year, Startpage announced an investment in Startpage by System1 through Privacy One Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of System1. With this investment, we hope to further expand our privacy features & reach new users. Rest assured, the Startpage founders have control over the privacy components of Startpage (https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...).

Also, a couple of things that set Startpage apart from DDG: 1) We're HQ'ed in the Netherlands, ensuring all our users are protected by stringent Dutch & EU privacy laws, 2) we give you Google results without tracking, 3) with Anonymous View you can visit results in full privacy.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#946

Post by spurgu »

tjoff wrote: post #822
nikofeyn wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google amp is a plague on the internet and should have been shutdown by regulators. it is definitely anti-competitive. i am sick and tired of our government completely slaving to the big tech companies when it comes to regulations and anti-competitive behavior. google amp on mobile overrides behavior on mobile, even on android, so instead of web links opening up in the respective and selected default app, it opens up…

Unless I misunderstood, that is something you disable in each (google)app that has that "feature". In Gmail for instance: settings: General settings: Open links in gmail. Turn on for "faster" browsing. Default is on. Tip: Use firefox focus instead as the default browser to open all links. If the link warrants further look copy the url to your main browser. The above has nothing to do with amp. But to not detract, amp…

> Tip: Use firefox focus instead as the default browser to open all links.

Unfortunately iOS doesn't support this nearly as well as Android does. On Android you can enforce this pretty much everywhere whereas on iOS a bunch of apps still open links in Safari no matter what you do.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#947

Post by hrktb »

ddalex wrote: post #910
GeorgeWBasic wrote: post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't typically complain, but when asked, it's common knowledge among all the programmers at work and all the ones I know. Google can't be counted on. Furthermore, it's tech types who make the decision to use GCP or not, not average Joes who use their other services, so you'd want to look more at places like this for the prevailing opinions.

> it's tech types who make the decision to use GCP or not Perhaps at startups. At big companies, the call is made by directors and VPs that are well fined by sales people - and that's where the real money is.

There is the old "nobody is ever fired for choosing IBM", and I think Google actually succeeded in forging a "shouldn't we avoid Google ?" mentality.

I saw it real time with Maps changing its pricing model, where an international company reworked all their maps display. It was a lot of money, and it's not something you brush under the rug explaining the contracts are otherwise marvellous.

Then there was the whole google chat -> hangouts -> meets transitions with every variations in-between, and messaging applications are one of the most sensible tool to change in an enterprise environment. In particular the bigger it is the worse these changes will be perceived.

When came time to choose between AWS and GCP, the choice was clearly political, more than the technical merits.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#948

Post by userbinator »

tripzilch wrote: post #870
userbinator wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proxomitron.

wow does that ... still exist? is it maintained? (I thought the creator stopped 15+ years ago?) does the user interface still look weird and green? :)

The creator died 16 years ago... but the (rather small) community has made a lot of patches and continues to work on filters. Given that it's basically the equivalent of running all the sites you visit through sed, with a syntax that's more suited for filtering HTML than plaintext, the strength lies in its flexibility and generality.

Yes, the UI is still skinnable, and the default skin is rather... psychedelic.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#949

Post by ringzero »

cmonnow wrote: post #657
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…

> I still hate it I left a strongly worded feedback on their form

It's funny to think that, of all the products Google kills on the regular, the one thing most everyone wants them to be done with (AMP) is probably gonna stick around forever.
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