I know it’s been getting worse over time, but I could still find what I needed after some digging.
Recently it’s been like 10 minutes of adjusting search terms, still getting completely useless or irrelevant results, and me just giving up afterwards. Other search engines seem just as bad.
I shed a tear when quoted strings stopped working
YEAH WHAT THE FUCK
You mean when plused strings stopped? Because that was tragic as hell
I didn’t realize. I’m horrified.
What are quoted strings?
A string is just a collection of characters, in programmer speak. When you use quotation marks in your search to find exactly what you want. If your search was:
dog “fast drive”
Google used to show results that only had both the word “dog” and the joined phrase “fast drive” in the same result. Or tell you there were no results.
Now it feels like Google uses that as a suggestion, giving you “dog” and any combination of “fast drive”, “fast driver”, “fast driving”, or whatever else Google thinks you want, instead of what you asked for. Or if they don’t find it, they serve you up whatever they want, with a small message about there being no matching results.
*years? Yes. It used to be the bleeding edge of search and now it’s just profit driven enshittification like the rest of ai-ridden garbage tech wallstreet bullshit.
Don’t forget your glue on your pizza! Can’t have a pizza without glue…
It’s not just glue it‘s Elmer‘s Glue. They still have some standard.
It has definitely been getting worse over years, but I specifically meant the last couple of weeks. I could still find what I needed between all the garbage… now I can’t even find it after adjusting the search multiple times.
The other day I asked google what season we were in. The AI got it wrong, and that’s like the simplest question ever.
If we could roll back the internet 10-15 years, everything would be much better.
Google makes money on ads. They make $300-$400 annually per user by displaying ads.
They are motivated to tarpit you in order to show you more ads.
Giving you your results quickly and efficiently costs them revenue.
Use kagi, or another search engine.
I remember Google saying like 2 decades ago that it was actually their goal to get you off of their website as quickly as possible. If you clicked on a link, and then clicked back in less than 30 seconds, then Google would consider that search result to be not what you were looking for.
The people who said that are long gone.
Golden parachuted away
More to it then that. tl;dr The engineers in charge at google were pushed to the side by the ads people.
Oh wow. Thanks for the added details
Is it sorta built similar to google? I keep switching search engines but Im SOOOOO used to google that its hard for me to adjust. I need something that kinda looks like google, but I can both Customize it more and just isnt google.
aHHH NAHHH i just tried it. It’s everything I want BUT THEY MAKE ME PAY TO SEARCH??! fuck no- I’m not about to fork over cash for a Subscriptions to USE THE INTERNET. Sounds really really nice but I’d much rather not. They aught to have it so you can pay for extra perks but paying JUST to search??? I’m good-
If you use Firefox you can add a Search Engine that removes the google cruft.
In about:config browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh Boolean, hit the plus sign to add. Exit out of that screen. Then go to Search engines in Settings and “Add” [ whatever name you want to call it ] as a new search engine. And paste this URL and save it. https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
You will see that it deletes everything but search when you use it. You can also just use the url but you must replace the %s with your search term, like red+espresso. Example: https://www.google.com/search?q=red+espresso&udm=14
I’m sure this works for other browsers, I just use Firefox.
I love you.
I’ve already added a new search engine like this, but what does the about:config setting do?
Returns the add custom search engine button. Which for some reason, has been hidden by default.
Oh my god, thank you for this. You solved a year long sufferfest for this internet stranger because of that greyed out button. Every god-damned guide online points you towards that button and I could not find the solution for it. What the fuck Mozilla
You can right click the URL bar for sites that support the OpenSearch XML standard. Which I guess is what they wanted to replace it with. But I don’t really know why they removed the button to a about: config setting. Could at least be a checkbox or something to enable.
Ooo I haven’t heard of this, thank you! The amount of garbage they’ve added is absurd.
I have tried many times to do exactly what you said, and I still am not getting the option to add a custom search engine.
Any advice you have is appreciated.
This is correct (your screen). Now go to your Firefox Settings, click on Search on the left side, scroll down to the Search Shortcuts section and below that box is a button labeled Add. You will get a box to add a search engine, the Alias field is optional. Make sure after you add it, there is a blue check in front of it on the list in the box or it’s invisible.
I used to a hater of Kagi but honestly its a damn good alternative search engine. They are doing some actual innovation and are very transparent. I still prefer a good searXNG instance but searxng is more for technical people who understand decentralized meta search instances. Here’s my simple guide on search engine alternatives to help you get away from google best you can.
Google is finally collapsing under the weight of its own greed and lack of innovation. Now other companies are showing up to steal their lunch especial with the big monopoly case going on right now.
You might be interested in learning how opaque Kagi really is…
Thank you both, Smokeydope and LucidNightmare. That was an interesting read! I gave SearXNG (paulgo.io) a try and it was a refreshing experience, I’m going to start using it regularly to see how well it does.
Thank you for actually reading what was provided! SearXNG is pretty good, and I kinda want to give self hosting it a try! Good luck on the hunt!
I am glad to have helped you out! @angrystego I hope you enjoy searxng and it bcomes a useful tool in your life. Paulgo is an excellent first instance choice. It was my daily driver when I wrote up that guide and seems to still hold up well today.
Now I use search.inetol.net and can recommend that as a good alternative in case paulgo isnt quite what you’re looking for or has too many timeout api errors. As always its a good idea to visit searx.space and try out some of the top instances with highest response time.
Thanks again for even more useful tips! I will definitely try it all out, it looks really good.
An article full of inaccuracies, but the most interesting bit is, all these conversations are possible because they clearly explain their views, which are publicly available on their website (for example, the philosophy behind the use of AI - which BTW is opt-in).
How is that an example of being opaque is beyond me.
Might want to go through and click the hyperlinks. Otherwise, I got nothing else to tell ya homie. It’s all right there.
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reddit has been 10x more useful than google and this fact alone bothers me to high fucking hell because im STILL BANNED.
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The internet has gotten worse in general, and it’s accelerating.
The vast majority of online content is now AI-generated.HAHAHAHAHAH no. Google Search has gotten so much worse in the last couple of YEARS more like.
The reason behind this is not a bug but a feature. Google wants the trip from search to result to take longer as they can show you more ads that way.
I was honestly getting so frustrated the other day at work when searching for something very specific and coming up empty handed. Tried DuckDuckGo and even fucking Bing and found what I needed in a matter of seconds. Google search is trash now. I have to go to the second page or further just to find something that isn’t an ad, AI response, or reddit. None of which are helpful.
DuckDuckGo is just Bing with a duck on it.
Regardless, I still got better results than Google.
I’ve been swapping around search engines too, but they still seem bad. I always end up back at Google just because I know how to manipulate the search terms better.
Try finding old band photos. Basically impossible
SEO became too well known and is now filled with bullshit.
I’ve been using Kagi since ~February and it’s changed my views on Search. Beforehand, if use a combination of Google, Bing, DDG, and Brave and rarely find what I needed in satisfactory time. Now I’m typically finding it in the top 5 without all the cruft + have access to a handful of LLM assistants to choose from for other tasks (when needed).
I’ve also heard good things about SearXNG.
Might want to give this a read on ol’ Kagi…
I’m aware.
I hope you don’t pay for it then, since Vlad himself said,
Is this how you live your life? Going around telling people how to live theirs?
Jesus christ dude. I said I’m aware.
I have specific use cases that Kagi, and nothing else that I’ve found but feel free to try me, satisfies to a T with speed and value.
Unlike you, I’m aware enough to realize I’m not the average consumer and that not everyone might fall into my bucket, so it was merely a suggestion ALONG WITH ANOTHER SUGGESTION (SearXNG). I’ll leave it up to the reader to do their own tests and see if it suits their needs.
I guarantee something you eat came from Nestle somehow and that something you own or wear was made on the backs of a sweatshop of some sort. Quit with your holier-than-thou bullshit.
LOL
Chill the fuck out, homie. It’s not that fucking serious. I guarantee you will live a lot longer by getting rid of some of that anger in a healthy manner. Hope your day gets better, asshole. :)
As a basic bitch that hasn’t gone to page 2 of a google search in years I don’t really notice a difference.
The ai answers, related questions, and ad results are not especially helpful but at the end of the day I will find what I’m looking for.
I recommend Kagi, I’ve been using it for about six months now and results - especially small web results like blogs - are so much better. I also have a pretty good time image searching compared to when I was on Google.
Yes it’s paid, but that to me is the price of resisting enshittification. Find a company that isn’t a publicly traded for-profit world-burner and pay them for their service. Is the idea of paying for email and search an alien concept to me? Yes. But I’m either paying Google whatever €120 a year in eyeballs on ads and an increasingly worse experience, or I’m paying €80 a year and getting a markedly better experience.
Now it’s up to Kagi and Proton to not turn into shitty companies while other competitors catch up and we have a thriving ecosystem again.
Kagi is amazing. I absolutely love its’ filtering features and I use that forums toggle all the time. It feels like such a more relevant experience for me. I tried it out with the 300 searches limit, but that wasn’t even close to enough, turns out I easily use 4 times that in a month and even though it’s not cheap it feels like it’s worth it.
I second kagi. Have been using it for almost a year now and I will stick with it. I switched from google to ddg some years ago to ddg before, but kagi is simply better.
A colleague also uses it and is also very satisfied with it.
Got some bad news about Kagi…
I’ve read it, I read the discussion around it, idk man. One guy’s thoughts on a company and it’s founder isn’t enough to move me off of something without better proof, better alternatives, and worse crimes than maybe having a bad long term vision.
Hopefully every company outgrows it’s founder and becomes a system. We’ll have to see, right now I’m satisfied and that gets me off Google and signals to others I’m willing to pay.
It’s okay if you don’t care, that’s on you and the others who don’t care.
I was about to pay for the thing, and stumbled upon that website that provides quite a bit of substantial “what the fuck?” Reactions from me.
Just throwing the knowledge out there for people like me who do care. :)
That article is quite dense with inaccurate information (e.g. they own a T-shirt factory), and a lot of guesses. There is no need to listen to a random guy idea about kagi’s AI approach when they have that documented on their site.
Also, the “blase attitude to privacy” is because of a technicality of GDPR? (Not having the ability to download a file with your email address) I am a big fan of GDPR, and their privacy policy is the best I have seen (I read the pp of every product I use and I often choose products also based on it), so really I don’t care about the technical compliance to GDPR (I am not an auditor), but the substantial compliance.
All-in-all, the article raises some good points, but it is a very random opinion from a random person without any particular competencies in the matter. I would take it for what it is tbh
EDIT: To add a few more:
- They achieved profitability (BTW, 2 years of operation and being profitable with 30k users, they really don’t know what they are doing /s)
- Their price changed twice. It was raised once, and the change was reverted later on, with unlimited searches. For me that is a great sign, especially considering the transparency of telling exactly how much each search costs for them.
Source: see https://blog.kagi.com/what-is-next-for-kagi (published ~1 month after the linked post).
Inaccurate about the factory, even though it was posted on their own blog…?
I understand the sunk cost fallacy, but standing up for a corporation that says no one but a few deserves privacy, is a little whacky to me.
They don’t own the T-shirt factory. It is a simple sentence, they used a small Serbian (I think) company. The business entity is to import goods.
It’s a formal difference but shows how sloppy that post is.
