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Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

arstechnica.com

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Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#111

Post by rnmkr »

Phrenzy wrote: post #69
dahdum wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I need to add "reddit" or "stackoverflow" to half my searches these days It feels truly absurd how many queries I need to append "reddit" to get something useful. The web has changed but Google isn't keeping up.

YouTube search is even worse. They could do so much to filter the results. But they don't. They don't even give you a full page of results. The give you half a dozen and go "Meh. Search is hard. Here is some completely unrelated videos you might like."

I fucking hate YouTube now. 3 or 4 results at best, rest of the page is completely unrelated junk wtf.

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#112

Post by dvngnt_ »

pessimizer wrote: post #60
solarkraft wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bing used to be a joke, but nowadays they actually do a decent job for cases in which Google fails.

Watch them sneak in and steal search. Over the years, Google lost any sort of moral moat that put them above Microsoft. Does anybody think that Microsoft is more intrusive and user-aggressive than Google any more? It's six of one and a half dozen of the other, and if I use Linux or a Mac at home, Microsoft doesn't seem overly interested in me at all aside from trying to sell me Office. Google's probably trying to fig…

yeah. windows is crazy with ads embedded in the OS. they even install tiktok by default

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#113

Post by BizarreByte »

rom-antics wrote: post #9
tedivm wrote: post #7

The malvertisement thing has become real bad. The other day I had a problem so I used chrome, where I unfortunately hadn't installed an add blocker yet. I searched for my bank (I know, I should have put the URL in directly, but I was being lazy since it was a new chrome install and I didn't have the url in my history yet). I hit the first link, logged in (my password manager would have saved me here, but again it was…

This is why the appeal-to-ethics argument against adblocking holds no weight with me. Yes, maybe I stole $0.0001 from the publisher by not looking at an advert. But I also didn't have my bank password stolen and my files cryptolockered. It's a small price to pay for security.

You shouldn’t feel bad, advertisements online are user hostile and a security threat. It’s not like a billboard that is at most annoying as you avert your gaze, despite what online ad supporters want you to believe.

The ad companies could cleanup the business and actually enforce security/safety standards, but that would cost money and god forbid they lose some.

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#114

Post by pixl97 »

Alupis wrote: post #89
dahdum wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I need to add "reddit" or "stackoverflow" to half my searches these days It feels truly absurd how many queries I need to append "reddit" to get something useful. The web has changed but Google isn't keeping up.

This makes me laugh - I've found myself appending "reddit" to my search queries more and more frequently when looking for product or service reviews. The regular google results are filled with affiliate-link-driven ads disguised as product reviews. If you want to really know what people think about products, you have to go digging these days.

>I've found myself appending "reddit" to my search queries

So what you're saying is I should create dedicated subreddits about my products that only allow my multitude of bot accounts to post to it, but look like real conversations?

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#115

Post by bcrl »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #86

Back in the early 2000s I helped create policy and procedures at Google to stop this kind of thing. Google's early anti-malware policies, extended to ads, and internal procedures to make sure we effectively stopped malware ads. That was a long time ago though and it's sad and frustrating to read it's not working so well now. In particular the article points out several big red flags about how malware scanners are aut…

It's sad that Google finds it more important to take profits from ads linking to malware downloads than to protect users from harms. I guess the only way that's going to happen is if governments step up and make Google liable for harm caused by ads.

I've seen it happen myself with my father. He gets served malware and phishing ads at the top of searches on his iPad for completely innocuous searches like "Apple Canada support", while I get completely different results in the same house from my own devices. There's no way to report these incidents either.

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#116

Post by csdvrx »

Xelbair wrote: post #71
Phrenzy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube search is even worse. They could do so much to filter the results. But they don't. They don't even give you a full page of results. The give you half a dozen and go "Meh. Search is hard. Here is some completely unrelated videos you might like."

to properly search youtube, you have to use google with "site:youtube.com"....

But how long until youtube comments and reddit posts are filled with plausible content made by SEO spammers using ChatGPT?

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#117

Post by prh8 »

Loughla wrote: post #31
GavinAnderegg wrote: post #2

Google's search product has become a shadow of its former self. Every year it seems harder to find what I'm looking for. The top half of the first search result page is now (potentially malicious) ads, and what follows is likely SEO spam. I need to add "reddit" or "stackoverflow" to half my searches these days so I'm not served nearly useless results. It's a sad decline from 10+ years ago when I'd type a half-formed…

Every google search has to have either "+reddit" or "+stackoverflow" depending on what I'm trying to accomplish. And EVERY search for products needs to say "-pinterest".

Not sure if you've read about Kagi on here, but one of its features is that you can weight/pin/hide certain sites in results. It works well for programming (although default search is well tuned for programming). There is also a feature called lenses which is a more fine tuned way of doing it. I think there's one for programming, one for shopping. I haven't personally used lenses though.

Re: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software

#118

Post by jrockway »

dahdum wrote: post #26
GavinAnderegg wrote: post #2

Google's search product has become a shadow of its former self. Every year it seems harder to find what I'm looking for. The top half of the first search result page is now (potentially malicious) ads, and what follows is likely SEO spam. I need to add "reddit" or "stackoverflow" to half my searches these days so I'm not served nearly useless results. It's a sad decline from 10+ years ago when I'd type a half-formed…

> I need to add "reddit" or "stackoverflow" to half my searches these days It feels truly absurd how many queries I need to append "reddit" to get something useful. The web has changed but Google isn't keeping up.

I keep hearing about adding reddit to one's search queries, but what sort of things are y'all searching for where reddit's opinion is relevant?

Reddit is kind of like that effect that people say about popular journalism; for the things that you're an expert on, they always get it wrong, but for things you know nothing about, they have a way of sounding right. Reddit is very much like that for me; if I know nothing about something, I love the comments. If I know a lot about something, it's all too crazy to even read. (I stopped reading programming subreddits like 15 years ago. A lot of very mean wrong people hanging out there.)

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