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Ask HN: How to do literal web searches after Google destroyed the “ ” feature?

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Re: Ask HN: How to do literal web searches after Google destroyed the “ ” feature?

#201

Post by felurx »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #195
cwoolfe wrote: post #13

When this happened to me, I found better results on https://duckduckgo.com/

DDG has started injecting completely untreated recent news stories to the results of a search with few hits. Like searching for a programming error with specific class names will give you several articles about the woes of the Democratic Party in recent days!!

Same for me, but with location-related stuff. I often see random Wikipedia articles or tourism websites for stuff near the city my IP address is from... Worst of all, sometimes there's a block of filler results between actual results, so I sometimes give up and don't see some of the results that might've been what I was looking for.

Re: Ask HN: How to do literal web searches after Google destroyed the “ ” feature?

#202

Post by helboi4 »

zulban wrote: post #28
sneak wrote: post #14

You have to use a special "verbatim" search product from Google, it isn't the main search box anymore. Look under Advanced or something.

I thought this was a joke.

What it is like anti-user design. Why take away a decades long precedent to hide it in a menu?

Re: Ask HN: How to do literal web searches after Google destroyed the “ ” feature?

#203

Post by cassianoleal »

inductive_magic wrote: post #168
cassianoleal wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with DDG and local searches? I find it exceedingly good, especially with the country selector being so up and front. It's very easy to search for those kinds of things in other places, for example to plan a trip. Kagi for me is a no-no. I mostly browse on temporary containers, and also have Firefox delete cookies on close. A search engine that requires me to be signed in would be a massive pain to use.

>What's wrong with DDG and local searches Maybe its different in the US or just not optimised in Germany, but the quality of search results isn't comparable. Query: "All you can eat Kiel" Google: 1. a map with the top three restaurants for this context in the foreground 2: a list of restaurants, sortable by price/date/hours 3 to end of page: links to homepages of the top restaurants DDG: 1. a completely random assort…

I'm not in the US. :)

When I try your query I only get a bunch of local German stuff (including a map with restaurants).

I admit, I don't even know what Kiel is so I can't validate the results but despite them being in Germany (and my search having had the country selector set to UK), it looks pretty good.

If I search something more generic like "all you can eat sushi" I get a neat map with a few restaurants that do that, plus a bunch of TripAdvisor and other directory and blog posts exactly about that, all local.

If I try your query again, setting the country to Germany, I get https://yummy-kiel.de/ as the first result, a map with top-three restaurants as the second, and again, a bunch of directories and blogs with all you can eat Kiel.

Seems pretty good to me.

Re: Ask HN: How to do literal web searches after Google destroyed the “ ” feature?

#204

Post by tremon »

felurx wrote: post #201
ComputerGuru wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG has started injecting completely untreated recent news stories to the results of a search with few hits. Like searching for a programming error with specific class names will give you several articles about the woes of the Democratic Party in recent days!!

Same for me, but with location-related stuff. I often see random Wikipedia articles or tourism websites for stuff near the city my IP address is from... Worst of all, sometimes there's a block of filler results between actual results, so I sometimes give up and don't see some of the results that might've been what I was looking for.

Same here, yesterday I searched for a very specific error message (don't remember exactly), and even on the first page there were local news stories. This was on Metager, which also uses Bing as one of its backends.

I think it's Tay v2.0 injecting itself into the conversation.

Re: Ask HN: How to do literal web searches after Google destroyed the “ ” feature?

#205

Post by [deleted] »

cassianoleal wrote: post #203
inductive_magic wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What's wrong with DDG and local searches Maybe its different in the US or just not optimised in Germany, but the quality of search results isn't comparable. Query: "All you can eat Kiel" Google: 1. a map with the top three restaurants for this context in the foreground 2: a list of restaurants, sortable by price/date/hours 3 to end of page: links to homepages of the top restaurants DDG: 1. a completely random assort…

I'm not in the US. :) When I try your query I only get a bunch of local German stuff (including a map with restaurants). I admit, I don't even know what Kiel is so I can't validate the results but despite them being in Germany (and my search having had the country selector set to UK), it looks pretty good. If I search something more generic like "all you can eat sushi" I get a neat map with a few restaurants that do…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to do literal web searches after Google destroyed the “ ” feature?

#207

Post by ChoGGi »

nostrademons wrote: post #169
ryandrake wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's almost worse than removing it completely! They recognize that people still need to do this, but deliberately make it more difficult in the UI.

(I worked on the team that added the tbs= parameter, 14 years ago.) There's nothing nefarious here. The integration of &tbs= is deeply tied into GWS; it's written into the C++ substrate, while most of the rest of the server has been rewritten in Java + a bunch of custom languages. Most likely they simply can't remove it - it's permanent technical debt that nobody has the expertise to touch anymore. Changing the UI is…

> (I worked on the team that added the tbs= parameter, 14 years ago.)

Thank you

Re: Ask HN: How to do literal web searches after Google destroyed the “ ” feature?

#208

Post by EA-3167 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #183
EA-3167 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not searching for anything terrifyingly illegal, and for the rest Google and MS already scrape and compile every byte of data I've ever generated. Why would it suddenly be a problem when a more reliable and less vicious company is doing a fraction of that? You have to understand that most of us aren't fighting some battle for "perfect privacy," I just want a search engine that works for me, rather than advertiser…

What is counted as "terrifyingly illegal" changes without a moments notice on the whims of your rulers. So even if you're not googling on how to bomb the government, there are hundreds of other subjects and opinions that could in the future make the majority of your neighbours, family and workmates think you deserve to be shunned, fired, in prison, or worse. That is why people want to protect their privacy.

Ok, but again Google and a hundred data brokers already scrape every detail of my life no matter what I do. Even if I become a hermit in the woods the existence of my friends and family who don't take those precautions would make my efforts worthless. Meanwhile we're talking about Google/Bing vs. Kagi... not "Super Secret Perfect Privacy Magic" vs Kagi.

So while I understand your overall concern, that ship has sailed for search engines and the internet. We're living in a world full of networked cameras that people voluntarily and happily install, of people broadcasting their lives 24/7. The idea of perfect privacy is getting downright mystical/religious.

Re: Ask HN: How to do literal web searches after Google destroyed the “ ” feature?

#209

Post by carlosjobim »

EA-3167 wrote: post #208
carlosjobim wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is counted as "terrifyingly illegal" changes without a moments notice on the whims of your rulers. So even if you're not googling on how to bomb the government, there are hundreds of other subjects and opinions that could in the future make the majority of your neighbours, family and workmates think you deserve to be shunned, fired, in prison, or worse. That is why people want to protect their privacy.

Ok, but again Google and a hundred data brokers already scrape every detail of my life no matter what I do. Even if I become a hermit in the woods the existence of my friends and family who don't take those precautions would make my efforts worthless. Meanwhile we're talking about Google/Bing vs. Kagi... not "Super Secret Perfect Privacy Magic" vs Kagi. So while I understand your overall concern, that ship has sailed…

Sure, and for what it's worth I trust Kagi. But I can understand those who are more strict with their privacy.

In the end I think we have to accept in some way that everything we say, write and do is subject to surveillance, and that the government might want to kill you for any reason that you'd have no chance of preventing.

Re: Ask HN: How to do literal web searches after Google destroyed the “ ” feature?

#210

Post by AndrewKemendo »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #194
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve already put maximum financial and personal time inputs into my particular project, which is unfortunately insufficient to get started in earnest. I need 200k to actually start what I want and currently have 5k in my bank account and a lot of mandatory overhead (kids etc). If you’re legit interested I’ll tell you all the details 1:1

Sure we can talk, DM me on twitter.

I actually can’t…Twitter charges for DMs now apparently

Email me from the one in my profile

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