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Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

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Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#701

Post by gmokki »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #591
jobigoud wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the interface to view and manage the apps I have installed on the system Why do you go to the play store to view and manage installed apps? If you swipe up from home screen you should get to the app drawer. Or Settings > Apps.

If you want to do manual updates you do it in play store rather than the OS settings utility. That is buried under your account settings which isn't logically related.

I have bookmarked the play store update view as separate icon by long pressing the play store icon, then long pressing/dragging the my apps section to an own "app".

That way I can skip the store garbage and directly go click update all apps button.

I just tried on apple device s few weeks ago and it took me many minutes to find the listing where I can update installed apps and it was missing the update all button...

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#702

Post by harshhpareek »

arcbyte wrote: post #592
xg15 wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user, I'm still baffled that the interface to view and manage the apps I have installed on the system - which is 90 out of 100 times why I'm opening the play store - is tucked away in some obscure corner of the app. The other 10 times, it's because I want to install some specific app that I already know and I just want to get to the page of that exact app - either through a direct link or through the store's sea…

I actually do open the app store specifically to find a cool new app to install. I do this maybe a couple times a year. It never works. The apps it suggests are all ad farming garbage. I have found maybe one fun game doing this over the years, but mostly its been repeated frustration. I keep doing it occasionally in hopes that I find another diamond in the rough but I think Google has just trashed this whole thing up…

Games are the exception here. The category has real creative churn and relies less on name recognition. Discovery still feels too shallow though. Reddit is still the best source for game recommendations.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#703

Post by Gander5739 »

homebrewer wrote: post #46
irrational wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just searched "Firefox" in the app store. The top result is Google Chrome with an Ad indicator (Google paid for higher placement). Second is Firefox.

Sometimes it's good to live in a region that no one cares about. I just searched for Firefox in the Android Play Store application, there were no ads, and the first result was Firefox. I also don't get any ads in American and UK podcasts for the same reason (except for those read by the host, but there are few of those and they're easy to ignore).

For me the first result was firefox, but it was a sponsored result, the second result was also firefox.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#704

Post by int_19h »

milch wrote: post #438
gibspaulding wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just opened the App Store to check. There’s an ad for chrome on the home screen. I click search and before I start typing search suggestions pop up. The first one is for chrome. I type Firefox and click search. The first result is chrome.

At least it's always only one ad, but on the other hand it takes up half the screen. Plus the title is the name of the app, not "Firefox". Really, the bar is not very high for ads

The worst thing about it is that it looks exactly like a regular app listing, too. The only indication that it's an ad is a tiny "ad" icon - a pale blue square with slightly paler blue text. And that icon isn't even next to the (large and visible) app name, it's next to the (small and greyed out) tagline.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#705

Post by int_19h »

xp84 wrote: post #171
leakycap wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mac App Store is such a wasteland. I don't know why Apple doesn't provide it a budget and some real human curation. The average person searching for Microsoft Word, which is on the App Store, gets screens of templates and junky overpriced apps.

I don't know if curation is really the problem. Nearly every other platform has a search that when you search for "Mr Beast" on YouTube or "Elon Musk" on X they know you mean the popular one and not some 2-bit dork's fan page or parody that happens to have those words in the title/keywords. I think they just (A) have no idea what they're doing when it comes to search and (B) the scamware that fills all their App Stor…

> Nearly every other platform has a search that when you search for "Mr Beast" on YouTube or "Elon Musk" on X they know you mean the popular one and not some 2-bit dork's fan page or parody that happens to have those words in the title/keywords.

Have you seen the Microsoft app store?

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#706

Post by int_19h »

spogbiper wrote: post #641
Cheetah26 wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learned that App Store does this too during a recent MFA rollout. What really surprised me was that when instructed to install Google Authenticator, a significant portion of people (I'd estimate close to 50%) would search the exact name and then proceed to reach to install the sponsored top result with a completely different name until I stopped them.

A lot of the MFA apps that Apple allows to appear above the official apps do work, but they have a $10/month subscription fee. The MS Authenticator clones have very similar icons and names

I rather suspect that this kind of thing constitutes the majority of shovelware on all the app stores, rather than outright malware. The latter gets you quickly ejected, but if your app is technically within the rules, it's just a steady trickle of $$$ from people who install it by mistake or because they just don't know better.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#707

Post by int_19h »

willtemperley wrote: post #485
alanh wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? Google is dog caca now. Myself and everyone I know keep getting sent to AI-written garbage nonsense slop websites, or for some reason, to the Hindustan Times

I don't disagree - yet their share price hit ATH this month.

That's how you know that our economy is not really working to the benefit of most of us - because all the numerous ways to profit by fucking people up, from dark patterns to mass layoffs, are rewarded financially.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#708

Post by int_19h »

zeroq wrote: post #373

One of my "sales pitches" is "I can find answers online, I know kung-fu". I've been using internet since '98, and I somehow developed this elusive skill of knowing how to navigate all these ads, seo farms, paid content, murky websites, and getting straight to the answer, no matter what the question was. For a long time I didn't thought of that as a special power. I thought it was natural, like driving a car, or speak…

It's not just Perplexity, it's any of the "deep research" offerings on the market really. And the reason why they work so well isn't because of any kind of secret sauce, it's because they have infinite patience to wade through all the bullshit and can thus brute force this without necessarily knowing the shortcuts. It's basically more of the same: https://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/altoids-by-the-fistfu...

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#709

Post by int_19h »

vunderba wrote: post #243
tokioyoyo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most web-usage is happening on mobile, and ad-blockers are less common there. So, younger generation is pretty much living through the ads constantly.

Yup. For reference, on Android your best bet is to install Firefox + uBlock Origin. On iOS, I believe Kagi's Orion has built-in content blockers but you can also install uBlock Origin [1]. [1] https://help.kagi.com/orion/browser-extensions/ublock-origin...

On iOS, Safari has some basic ad blocking capabilities, and beyond that there's AdGuard.

As far as alternative browsers go, Vivaldi also has an integrated ad blocker.

Re: Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image

#710

Post by int_19h »

balder1991 wrote: post #145
nicce wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very valuable service for its price. Also translate.kagi.com is much better than Google’s one.

For translation, a good one is DeepL.

For translation, just pick your chatbot of choice. LLMs fail at many things, but as translators they are very good.
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