Live data from Hacker News

Every Google result now looks like an ad

twitter.com

441–450 of 1001 posts

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#441
I've been wondering what it is about Google Search results recently, in that they seem _substantially worse_ than ever before. I hadn't quite noticed what the difference was, but I was really surprised, remembering how Google Search results used to be the very best. Now I know what the difference is: making normal results look the same as Ad results.

"Don't be evil" :)

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#442
post #369
post #26

I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it. I've just become so used to seeing the complete URL in green. The complete URL! If you hover over the results, you'll see that they like to take bits like numeric components or the query string out. This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. Their destructive AMP service confusingly shows you Google…

> I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it Me too. It just looks ugly.

I think half of it is the ugly font they are now using. Ugly is the perfect way to describe it.

Google is really not good at creating beautiful products...

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#445

First time in my life I've ever wanted to stop using google. Anyone have an extension to CSS it back to the way it was?

Google rejected it as "spam" for the Chrome extension store, but it's available for Firefox. It was a quick hack yesterday to make the URLs visible. Pull requests are welcome. It misses a few cases, and the URL should probably be green rather than highlighted.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/search-engine...

https://github.com/codeselfstudy/search_engine_show_me_urls

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#447
post #29

https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/ It's a little confusing to read now, so for context: at the time Google published this, it only put ads in the sidebar to the right of search results. This post was written to criticize the practice of putting ads atop search results, which competitors sometimes formatted almost indistinguishably from organic search results.

Oh wow, the irony.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#448

I've been using duckduckgo and bing for a while now. Google is just a fallback.

I’ve been using DDG for almost three years. Going back to Google is actually frustrating for me. Their results are so badly presented and the number of ads so onerous to scroll through...

I am most frustrated with how almost any url from search or Gmail shows as the url, but actually routes you through a Google url first (so they can track it, of course). That extra hop sometimes takes a second or more.

I don't understand why they don't just track my click with JavaScript. I suspect this new hiding the url thing might have to do with circumventing scripts like I have used before that rewrite the url so that when you click, you go directly to what you clicked on.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#449
post #99
post #29

https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/ It's a little confusing to read now, so for context: at the time Google published this, it only put ads in the sidebar to the right of search results. This post was written to criticize the practice of putting ads atop search results, which competitors sometimes formatted almost indistinguishably from organic search results.

Your link is gold. A historic artifact. Amazing how clear the writing is, how simple the message. That’s, like, totally not the corpspeak Goog emits now on a daily basis. So, let’s do some digging. Earliest version of url dates back 4+ years. https://web.archive.org/web/20151213182805/https://www.googl... Things were a little better than, but not by much. This has to be earlier. Ah, here is: https://books.google.ca/b…

Excellent sleuthing -- makes sense that the message is so old. There's no way they would produce something like this today.

Re: Every Google result now looks like an ad

#450
post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt the same about Google alternatives up until about 3 months ago. Google's results have been declining in quality for a decade, with much more rapid decline over the past year or three. Google's results are uglier and blatantly revenue based. They have now lapsed behind DuckDuckGo in usefulness for me. I fall back to Google a few times per week, with inconsistent results when I need a "second opinion." I'd sugge…

Do you (or anyone else) have any recommendations for an email service? I've cut pretty much everything Google out of my life, minus Gmail, mostly due to not wanting to go through all the trouble of transferring everything over to a service that I end up not liking. I've heard ProtonMail is good, but other than that, I'm not sure.

I've used Fastmail for many years now, and I have nothing but good things to say about the service. In particular, it's insane how well notifications work in Fastmail, especially compared to Gmail (which I use at work). (Honestly, you'd think Fastmail was the giant multi-billion-dollar super-advanced tech company, if you look at the quality of their email experience vs. Gmail.)

However, some folks are a little spooked by the privacy implications of it being ran out of Australia, so be sure to research that if you're interested in Fastmail.

Post reply on HN