Google changes its search box • Hacker News Board

Re: Google changes its search box

#221

Post by loloquwowndueo » Tue, May 19, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

deaton wrote: post #178

ekidd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which as some running a website raises a fascinating question. If Google is just going to crawl my sites and present information as an AI summary on their site, then what exactly do I gain by allowing Googlebot to crawl my sites?

What you gain? Nothing, but they and other AI companies have decided not to respect your robots.txt

There are other ways to block robots from crawling our sites. I have a robots.txt but place no faith in it, it’s just there because it’s cheap and does stop some of the crawlers.

Re: Google changes its search box

#222

Post by baxtr » Tue, May 19, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

Today is the day the old internet died. RIP.

Re: Google changes its search box

#223

Post by Forgeties79 » Tue, May 19, 2026, 8:03 PM UTC

arionhardison wrote: post #218

I'm old enough to remember when "Google" was something that ended conversations. People — myself included — would literally say "Google it," the facts would be located, and that was that. Now that Google wants to be the conversation, I'm worried there will no longer be a bias-free source of information for the masses. This is all new, so I may be a bit hyperbolic, but the reason OpenAI introducing ads bothers me is t…

>I'm worried there will no longer be a bias-free source of information for the masses.

There was never anything bias-free about google search. It "ranks" information based on all sorts of qualities. At our most generous we can call it somewhat of a "consensus" check. Historically it was a tool for quickly getting you in the vicinity of an answer that most would consider correct.

Remember "google bombing"? Hell SEO alone invalidates any assertion that google search is a valid source of truth and that's be going on for a long time.

Re: Google changes its search box

#224

Post by bossyTeacher » Tue, May 19, 2026, 8:03 PM UTC

I haven't used google search as my default search engine in YEARS. DDG is good enough for 99% of my searches. Same with Google Chrome. Stop giving evil companies your traffic and attention.

Re: Google changes its search box

#225

Post by Hizonner » Tue, May 19, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC

I'm pretty sure I had something very similar A/Bed at me by Bing the other day.

You know what I really miss? Being able to type a literal string in quotes and get pages that had that actual string on them. That's what I really miss.

Re: Google changes its search box

#226

Post by nraleigh » Tue, May 19, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC

I think this is the second time in a week (the first being the "Googlebook") that Google's promotional announcement video showcasing UI is so full of special effects, dramatic pan/zooms, and woosh sounds, that I have no idea how the final-end product actually looks or works.

Re: Google changes its search box

#227

Post by brokencode » Tue, May 19, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC

arionhardison wrote: post #218

I'm old enough to remember when "Google" was something that ended conversations. People — myself included — would literally say "Google it," the facts would be located, and that was that. Now that Google wants to be the conversation, I'm worried there will no longer be a bias-free source of information for the masses. This is all new, so I may be a bit hyperbolic, but the reason OpenAI introducing ads bothers me is t…

With sponsored links and aggressive SEO, “Google it” has been falling apart as a source of facts for a long time.

There is an incredible gap in the search literacy between different users of Google. Some will accept what they find in the top links, no matter how dubious the source.

Re: Google changes its search box

#228

Post by Yokohiii » Tue, May 19, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC

So you can code in search now and create apps. No clue how that in depth works out. For them, the dream could be that everybody has their custom apps hosted by google.

It doesn't seem to be secure. If every google link is one step away from a prompt injection and leaking all your data, then they are worse then npm.

I wonder how many days it takes until they roll it back or put that stuff behind some extra clicks.

Re: Google changes its search box

#229

Post by javawizard » Tue, May 19, 2026, 8:07 PM UTC

nilamo wrote: post #54

nostrademons wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can ask them to cite their sources. It's very good practice to do so, and to check those sources, because I've found that about 30-40% of the time their source doesn't support their answer at all.

If it's wrong 2 out of 5 times, why even waste your time going to it in the first place? That's a massive failure rate.

Because it finds the sources much quicker than I would have been able to on my own, and I can then synthesize them into data I know is correct, as correct as any human-generated data can be of course.

Re: Google changes its search box

#230

Post by teekert » Tue, May 19, 2026, 8:08 PM UTC

This is to Open Claw what Google home is to Home Assistant.

I prefer the Claw like I prefer Linux and FOSS in general.

Since day one Googs’ vision was to make the Star Trek computer. They’re really there now. But I don’t like their how. This computer serves them, not me. My mind-bicycle must serve me, my thoughts are my own. I hope my resistance is not futile.