Live data from Hacker News

google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

autom.dev

161–170 of 545 posts

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#161

As much as I am sad that Google died like 15 years ago, I am past the mourning phase. That was when they announced they were shifting from returning websites to "returning answers" and it has been a long slide into shittification I do enjoy using their free AI. For actual web search I actually like using Yandex. It reminds me of old Google, returning reasonable results and much less "shaping results to please our cor…

surprising to see how much they have stripped from our view

Don't forget cached pages.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#162
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but you can click the link and reveal the information. what is being hidden? from who?

Like the OP says, it's being hidden form scrapers. Like you I don't see a reason for normal users to be concerned.

Why are you defending the ruination of one of the basic principles of hypertext?

Why are Google apologists flagging my other comments?

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#163
post #157

So why are we angry about that ? I mean the end result for the users are exactly the same, it matters only for bots. Google have such a (justified) bad reputation that whatever they do, people assume it’s entishification. I don’t believed it is on that matter.

Privacy-wise, it enables them to track the result you click on. Also, though more niche, it would make archived search result pages (e.g. on the Wayback Machine) less useful.

I think they always knew what link you clicked on (when most of the web has a ga4 tag on the other side of the link)

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#164
post #87
post #33

I've been using DuckDuckGo for years now, ever since it became noticeable that two different people searching for the same search term would get two different results back from Google. Meaning they were no longer completely reliable: they might show one person a result that they hide from the other person by burying it on page 3 where few people ever look. DDG's search results have been poorer recently than they used…

I’ve been using DDG for a long time now. Results are getting more and more spammy. Way too many AI-generated / scraped websites nowadays.

Try Brave.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#165
post #33

I've been using DuckDuckGo for years now, ever since it became noticeable that two different people searching for the same search term would get two different results back from Google. Meaning they were no longer completely reliable: they might show one person a result that they hide from the other person by burying it on page 3 where few people ever look. DDG's search results have been poorer recently than they used…

Speaking of page 3, Google's been asking me to sign in if I try to go beyond page 2 of search results. What a wonderful modern WWW we live in.

Don't know how modern this is, but I remember being disappointed that despite Google claiming it had billions of results, you could only see a few pages' worth.

Looking now, I've just noticed they no longer give a count of results.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#167
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any proof of that? I’ve always found Yandex to be substandard but never for reasons of censorship.

Yep, plenty, and tbf it's entirely logical. The people working at Yandex do not want find themselves dying of a nerve agent or polonium, which is a real and acute danger for people who displease the ruling regime. https://hal.science/hal-03217497 https://euvsdisinfo.eu/yandex-from-tech-innovation-to-inform... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10130930/ https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/a-story-of-n…

If it's true just link to a first party example on the yandex site

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#168

So why are we angry about that ? I mean the end result for the users are exactly the same, it matters only for bots. Google have such a (justified) bad reputation that whatever they do, people assume it’s entishification. I don’t believed it is on that matter.

It's rather frustrating that after they crawled my website to use for their AI without my consent, and using that AI to slowly strangle my traffic, they're not happy that _other people_ are doing the same to them.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#169

As much as I am sad that Google died like 15 years ago, I am past the mourning phase. That was when they announced they were shifting from returning websites to "returning answers" and it has been a long slide into shittification I do enjoy using their free AI. For actual web search I actually like using Yandex. It reminds me of old Google, returning reasonable results and much less "shaping results to please our cor…

>I do enjoy using their free AI It's really not free. You're paying with your data.

Plus soon we'll be paying based on secret parasocial influencing agendas.

It's now possible to put a complex spin/bias on whatever the system shows (or whatever it chooses to bury) in a really easy and scalable way.

Ex: Dairy Association pays, and suddenly results about bones are just a bit more likely to show something about the importance of calcium that many people get from milk. Fraternal Order of Police gets involved, and now "shot by police" everywhere gradually morphs into "was in an officer-involved shooting".

... And of course "Google making it harder to see URLs" becomes "Google taking bold steps against evil scrapers."

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#170

As much as I am sad that Google died like 15 years ago, I am past the mourning phase. That was when they announced they were shifting from returning websites to "returning answers" and it has been a long slide into shittification I do enjoy using their free AI. For actual web search I actually like using Yandex. It reminds me of old Google, returning reasonable results and much less "shaping results to please our cor…

surprising to see how much they have stripped from our view Don't forget cached pages.

Which being public wealth, should be publicly available.

Data that were sourced from the public, should be public. We need this legislated, or wealth inequality and fiefdoms will keep growing with the historically known outcomes.

Post reply on HN