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Google Is Not God of the Web

bilge.world

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Re: Google Is Not God of the Web

#281

Post by pwdisswordfish2 »

sergeykish wrote: post #278
pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is sad that Microsoft would never acknowledge that some users might want to run older software on newer computers. IMO, it is easier to see the performance improvements in new hardware when running older software than it is when running "the latest" software. I would have run 3.11 for many years on newer hardware. However the goal of the company and the message pushed to its software users was/is always "upgrade".…

You are not market share Microsoft aiming for. But you are not obliged to use run Microsoft Windows either. Linux runs perfectly on old hardware. 42 MB RAM without graphical system 64 MB RAM with graphical system You may run Windows applications on Wine. Or Windows 3.11 on virtual machine. Netbook I bought in 2008 was underpowered for Windows XP but was perfect for Linux. I still have it around. With up to date Firef…

"Linux runs perfectly on old hardware."

I prefer NetBSD. I do not need graphics. I make custom images that boot from USB or the network.

As for Windows, there was a time, in the 32-bit era, and before the widepsread availability of virtual machines and Windows 3.11 images, when users were compelled to upgrade hardware and Windows versions. It was not made easy for a non-technical user to buy new hardware and use 3.11 if the hardware came with a more recent Windows version pre-installed. Microsoft will not facilitate installing older Windows versions on newer hardware ("metal", not VM) and may actively discourage it. In contrast I can easily install any version of NetBSD I want on new hardware. I am not compelled to install the most recent version. There is user choice.

How easy is it today to run Office in a VM on Linux?

Re: Google Is Not God of the Web

#282

Post by Wowfunhappy »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #281
sergeykish wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not market share Microsoft aiming for. But you are not obliged to use run Microsoft Windows either. Linux runs perfectly on old hardware. 42 MB RAM without graphical system 64 MB RAM with graphical system You may run Windows applications on Wine. Or Windows 3.11 on virtual machine. Netbook I bought in 2008 was underpowered for Windows XP but was perfect for Linux. I still have it around. With up to date Firef…

"Linux runs perfectly on old hardware." I prefer NetBSD. I do not need graphics. I make custom images that boot from USB or the network. As for Windows, there was a time, in the 32-bit era, and before the widepsread availability of virtual machines and Windows 3.11 images, when users were compelled to upgrade hardware and Windows versions. It was not made easy for a non-technical user to buy new hardware and use 3.11…

> Microsoft will not facilitate installing older Windows versions on newer hardware

It usually works though nowadays, unless you go nuts and try to boot Windows XP or something. Are there any processors that flat-out can't run Windows 7 atm?

(Older versions of macOS, on the other hand, absolutely will not run on newer processors.)

Re: Google Is Not God of the Web

#283

Post by gumby »

enonevets wrote: post #261
partdavid wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at one of these companies during this era and yours is an often forgotten fact. It was a very long time before Google search result quality was any good. Their initial popularity was due almost entirely to page load speed, which they included on every page to highlight it. The second was being able to serve a large index with parallelized querying, which was relatively easy for a newcomer company with no use…

The same exact argument could be made for Chrome. Google was extremely late to the browser game and most of the initial switch was on how quick it was in comparison to other browsers at the time.

Can you expand? Chrome seems to be popular but I don’t know the motivation for it.

Re: Google Is Not God of the Web

#284

Post by IndexPointer »

ricree wrote: post #204
gok wrote: post #93

> 22.82 Mbps will reliably download very complex web pages nearly instantaneously. The author may be unaware of how ridiculously huge web pages have gotten. I just loaded Wired.com, scrolled down and let it sit for a few seconds. It downloaded 96.2 MB, requiring over 33 seconds on one of those average connections. On a pay-as-you-go data plan, it would have cost about a dollar just to load that one page. The front pa…

>Web developers have utterly squandered all efficiency gains of the last 30 years, and Loading Wired.com with uBlock and no javascript the page comes in below 1.5MB for me, with most functionality seemingly intact (in that the front page looks mostly normal and I can load articles that appear to have their text completely intact). The bulk of that seems to be fonts and images, which are probably unavoidable for a med…

We all use ad blockers but most people don't.

Re: Google Is Not God of the Web

#285

Post by yongjik »

rawoke083600 wrote: post #234
yongjik wrote: post #203

(Disclaimer: previously worked at Google search) I think some commenters are attributing to Google an ulterior motive, whether ill- or good-intentioned, separate from its core business. But in this case no such motivation is necessary. Basically, Google wants its users to be satisfied - otherwise it will lose to, say, Bing. So it measures user satisfaction - e.g., if a user clicks on a Google result, and immediately…

Good answer... Out of interest (I understand if you can't answer NDA etc). Taking your example of the back-button (I assume it relates to "dwell time" we keep reading about...) My question is, does this feedback mechanism also include "closing the website" ? I seldom back-button(on desktop) i just use new/close tab.

I wasn't in the team that gathered those events, so I don't remember the details (and it's probably covered by NDA, as you say), but I guess Google would be gathering these data if there was a reasonable(?) way for them to get it.

Re: Google Is Not God of the Web

#286

Post by walshemj »

slantyyz wrote: post #271
walshemj wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends maybe Panasonics enterprise SEO game is weak - you should rank your product pages on page one

From the perspective of a search engine's end user, Google should find those product pages and set them at the top of the results whether Panasonic's SEO is good or not, otherwise I'm going to switch to a search engine that can figure that stuff out. The onus is on the search engine to produce good results, because they're the one providing the service. Hell, that's why I started using Google around 2000, they had th…

You have no idea how bad some corporate web presences are

Re: Google Is Not God of the Web

#287

Post by thoraway1010 »

verdverm wrote: post #34
thoraway1010 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mhh___ types this while using chrome (open source) on android (open source), after reading their email in gmail and searching for the latest cat dancing videos on youtube. The sad reality most of the folks who claim never to use google or google never makes something available - almost always hot air. I do remember hotmail and MSN and AOL which preceded gmail, gmail was really pretty great when it came out. I think m…

I'm definitely a M$ convert (as a long time Linux user, first time Microsoft supporter) They have changed tune and I now call them the biggest COSS company. https://coss.media

Interesting - I'd never heard of COSS.

I'd thought they were doomed (ie, no linux cloud offering expected, no multi-platform or open source offerings). Windows Mobile did crash and burn, but Azure actually has linux containers (most common type I think) and their other stuff is sometimes open source / linux friendly now - (SQL Server??) it's whiplash for those of us who were around for the EEE period.

Re: Google Is Not God of the Web

#288

Post by thoraway1010 »

monadic2 wrote: post #68
thoraway1010 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must not remember the web before google and google funded firefox!! This whole "google has never done anything" meme just seems ridiculous on its face. Google took on and basically CRUSHED some major market players and powers (Microsoft basically lost the entire web and handset markets from a monopoly position) as a result of google service offerings. Check out how much money they pumped into firefox as well - th…

Right, well given that they HAVE obviously done a lot of things, I would interpret them to mean “they haven’t done anything I’ve liked or wanted or expected”, which is certainly fine to express. I don’t see why this justifies brushing away google’s decline with “but their products have engagement”. It’s like arguing because people buy an iphone, the iphone is the smartphone people want—in reality it’s just necessary…

Again, I think you don't realize how substantially better the iphone was compared to the competition (which then has worked to copy the iphone).

Re: Google Is Not God of the Web

#289

Post by sergeykish »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #281
sergeykish wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not market share Microsoft aiming for. But you are not obliged to use run Microsoft Windows either. Linux runs perfectly on old hardware. 42 MB RAM without graphical system 64 MB RAM with graphical system You may run Windows applications on Wine. Or Windows 3.11 on virtual machine. Netbook I bought in 2008 was underpowered for Windows XP but was perfect for Linux. I still have it around. With up to date Firef…

"Linux runs perfectly on old hardware." I prefer NetBSD. I do not need graphics. I make custom images that boot from USB or the network. As for Windows, there was a time, in the 32-bit era, and before the widepsread availability of virtual machines and Windows 3.11 images, when users were compelled to upgrade hardware and Windows versions. It was not made easy for a non-technical user to buy new hardware and use 3.11…

Super, Linux was just an example I use.

I am running rolling release distribution on desktop and Ubuntu LTS on server. My choice of secure installations is limited [1]. Looks similar in NetBSD [2]. Microsoft had no interest in support - better if customer buy new version and support have significant cost.

VirtualBox solved running Windows in VM at least ten years ago. Office support in Wine is from platinum to garbage [3], [4], have not tried. I can imagine running outdated versions behind firewall. Running newer versions requires newer hardware. And internet facing applications should be up to date so modern browser support is limited - Firefox ESR at best. I run w3m from console only on emergency.

Speaking of hardware - Moore's law is dead. I do not think 2020 notebook differs much from 2014 notebook. Except better display and battery.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_version_history#Version...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBSD

[3] https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio...

[4] https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio...

Re: Google Is Not God of the Web

#290

Post by freediver »

onemoresoop wrote: post #280
worble wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so... DDG has a number of sources, including it's own bot, although it specifically says Google is not one of them, contrary to the GP.

I was under the impression that google results are also used. I guess I was wrong about it. Does anyone know why google results are not aggregated as well? Technical or legal reason?

Likely to be monetary reasons. DDG is basically (not entirely accurate but close enough) in the business of reselling Bing Search API and monetizing it through Bing ad network revenue (+some affiliate revenue through Amazon and Ebay).

If you also added Google results, your input costs essentially double. Also if so much of your marketing is based on bashing Google, it would be harder to justify such move from a branding perspective.

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