If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it? • Hacker News Board

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#241

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 5:05 AM UTC

pinky1417 wrote: post #167

LeoPanthera wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google had a "search only forums" filter. I was devastated when they took it away. You can fake it by searching one forum at a time with "site:whatever.com", but you have to do one at a time and that doesn't help if there are forums you don't know about. Google could double its usefulness overnight just by bringing this back.

Shouldn't there be a way to only search multiple forums through some userscript? Only found out about userscript after messing around with an iOS app called HyperWeb. At least in my limited understanding of userscript's capabilities, you'd still need to explicitly specify the forums you want to search, but I imagine that would solve lots of use cases for search filters.

[deleted]

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#242

Post by aww_dang » Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 5:07 AM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #70

kauguste281 wrote: post #65

Google sucks compared to Google from years ago. It's still vastly superior to the modern alternatives. It doesn't help that almost all alternatives out there are just Bing with different window dressing, so going through alternatives is just annoying as they have all the same holes in the search results. Another big issue is that everybody just tries to copy Google. I don't need Google in less good, I want to see som…

Google had a "search only forums" filter. I was devastated when they took it away. You can fake it by searching one forum at a time with "site:whatever.com", but you have to do one at a time and that doesn't help if there are forums you don't know about. Google could double its usefulness overnight just by bringing this back.

Forums were somewhat decentralized. Without attributing motive, platforms are interested in moving in the opposite direction.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#243

Post by aww_dang » Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 5:07 AM UTC

srcreigh wrote: post #135

LeoPanthera wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google had a "search only forums" filter. I was devastated when they took it away. You can fake it by searching one forum at a time with "site:whatever.com", but you have to do one at a time and that doesn't help if there are forums you don't know about. Google could double its usefulness overnight just by bringing this back.

But do those forums run Google ads?

Yes

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#244

Post by ornornor » Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 5:10 AM UTC

mrjin wrote: post #187

dlsa wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going backwards and standing still often look the same. I think its both in this case to varying degrees. Google is competing against itself, obvious competitors but also obvious refinements that appear so regardless of actually being implemented. The no-login filter is a refinement that would be useful to many. There are so many obvious improvements that could be made to gmail but there's no real way to do them as a…

Googles priorities have been long shifted from products to money. They are now deliberately doing evil things for more money. It is like taking small dose of drugs for fun, for sure it won't kill you immediately but it eventually will as people can hardly resist the temptation. Google has been came such a monster, even we know it's dying, but its momentum will keep it going for a very long time. And if it can correct…

> It is like taking small dose of drugs for fun, for sure it won't kill you immediately but it eventually will as people can hardly resist the temptation.

Very debatable.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#245

Post by darinf » Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

phendrenad2 wrote: post #220

asimpletune wrote: post #132

I would gladly pay for a really good search engine if anyone is listening.

Me too. There's https://neeva.com/ , but their selling point is slightly different (I don't really care about ads per se, or privacy, I just want to get good search results (without paid promoted results or weird interstitial results modals, looking at you "people also clicked on" Google box!) and maybe be able to do advanced queries (search by file type, date, booleans, etc. I would also like to be able to ban sites…

With Neeva you can set preferred providers, more of this, less of that. See Site Preferences in Settings.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#246

Post by Guest19023892 » Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 5:20 AM UTC

I'll toss out a crazy idea to compete with Google.

1. You buy StackOverflow for $2 billion and Reddit for $10 billion.

2. You block Google from indexing the sites.

3. You start a new search engine that only searches StackOverflow and Reddit.

4. As the new search engine gains traction, you invite other high quality sites to join your vision and search engine. One requirement is they must block Google. You can guarantee them decent traffic because they'll only be competing against a dozen sites on your search engine, instead of millions on Google.

5. A large number of respectable sites leave Google and are only available on your search engine. Businesses start becoming eager to join your exclusive network and ask to join your mission.

6. Google is left with blog and affiliate SEO spam, and you become the hero of the search engine world.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#247

Post by windex » Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 5:23 AM UTC

Guest19023892 wrote: post #246

I'll toss out a crazy idea to compete with Google. 1. You buy StackOverflow for $2 billion and Reddit for $10 billion. 2. You block Google from indexing the sites. 3. You start a new search engine that only searches StackOverflow and Reddit. 4. As the new search engine gains traction, you invite other high quality sites to join your vision and search engine. One requirement is they must block Google. You can guarante…

Doesn't google have something called the Google CSE where you specify which sites you will exclusively include in search results?

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#248

Post by mrjin » Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 5:24 AM UTC

irrational wrote: post #236

kauguste281 wrote: post #65

Google sucks compared to Google from years ago. It's still vastly superior to the modern alternatives. It doesn't help that almost all alternatives out there are just Bing with different window dressing, so going through alternatives is just annoying as they have all the same holes in the search results. Another big issue is that everybody just tries to copy Google. I don't need Google in less good, I want to see som…

> I want to see something that organize the Internet in a more useful way than just plain text search (e.g. what about Youtube-style recommendations for websites, old-school Yahoo-style dictionaries, AI categorization, Dejanews-style search for webforums, a button to filter out everything that requires a login or whatever). Yes, I would love this. I was recently looking for reviews of a certain woodworking tool. The…

I really missed those days that I could write URLs I visited frequently on notebook. Unfortunately, we might never be no way back to the good old days. There is literally way too much info on the internet, and thus impossible to index contents manually.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#249

Post by ornornor » Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 5:26 AM UTC

moistly wrote: post #214

Program_Install wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search is their main gateway to the advertising dollars. "Google it" is synonymous with any search regardless of the engine being used.

They serve ads regardless how you get to the site you’re viewing.

They serve more ads if they steer you towards the low value SEO website filled with Adsense.

Re: If Google sucks then why is everyone still using it?

#250

Post by gnicholas » Sat, Mar 19, 2022, 5:33 AM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #148

142 comments so far and no one is has mentioned the actual punchline of the OP: the Hypersearch chrome extension the author is pitching. Personally, I find the pitch compelling, but am very interested to hear from anyone who has used it. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hypersearch/feojag... Note: This extension "can read and change all your data on all websites". Perhaps that's necessary for what they are o…

I can't speak to Hypersearch, but I've used their Hyperweb mobile extension and Insight Browser mobile app. They're great! I've even had the chance to chat/work with Abhinav a bit, and he's a nice and sincere guy.

I also like this concept — I once toyed with the idea of a search engine/extension that would run a search in one engine by default and then notify you if other search engines would have returned significantly different search results. I'm excited to try this out!

I agree that it's hard to trust an extension that runs on any website, and I guess one way you could work around this would be to manually limit it only to run on the domain where you do your primary web searching. It wouldn't have the full functionality, but it would provide the bulk of the functionality — without most of the risk.