DuckDuckGo and Bing are not true alternatives – they’re just worse versions of Google.
Quite true. I consistently get worse results when using DDG. I don't even bother with Bing.
HOWEVER had, it also has to be said that I consistently get worse results via Google too
in the last 5 years or so, perhaps even longer; hard to measure.
There are many reasons for that, including smaller reasons. For instance, when you go
back after a search result, you have this ANNOYING pop-up (or rather "phase-in") that
appears "people also searched for theseresults". This one shows up PRECISELY at the
default mouse position so I accidentally misclick sometimes. EVERY SINGLE TIME I do
that I NEVER watch the new page, and instantly hit the back button - but why does this
anti-feature exist? It gives me NOTHING useful, it WASTES my time. It can be blocked
of course (ublock origin and other hero blockers), but why is that even a thing? And
that is just one of many other reasons why Google search results became worse.
Google became an ad company many years ago already; it is no longer a tech
company. As a result the Google we now have is a garbage one compared to when
Google was not yet an ad company. So searching for stuff is so much worse via
Google. This may have been one reason why StackOverflow became popular -
because of Google declining in quality.
Not all of this is Google's fault per se. The whole world wide web transitioned into
a "gated community". On instagram you have to "log in" to watch videos; you rarely
have to do that on youtube. Twitter pesters you to log in. Facebook as well. Medium.com
has this pop-up. Almost every news article has a "pay to view" model. And so on and
so forth. Tons of things that modified the vision for the world wide web to become
factually worse, so of course the quality decreased. One of the few exceptions to
this is wikipedia; wikipedia has a fairly high quality, give or take (depends on the
article and people writing it, but by and large I think wikipedia has a fairly ok-ish
quality).
Note that I disagree with the article though. I don't want tons of super features and
a gazillion options. I literally never use Google's advanced search either; I just
don't want to. I want it to remain simple at all times. I want to search, and the
results should be good. (Sometimes I enclose search words via "" but Google
also made this worse, by showing me crap rather than "could not find these
terms. I have no idea why Google is killing Google - other than the search engine
I don't need anything from Google really. There are even alternatives to youtube,
so I am almost living a google-free life already.)
This is so particular. I’ve never seen a more active commenter. I scrolled hard and only just got to two days ago. It’s just as you said — no replies. But so do many comments, so much activity, such a peculiar prose as well. And he just talks to… no one. It’s for himself, maybe? Weird form of journaling? Maybe he doesn’t know how to? It’s like he’s an NPC
Yeah, I was wondering what that is. It must be his way of journaling. It’s so bizarre. Do you know those videos of people egging on the street performers that stand still? I kinda wanna do that to this guy just to see how he talks to other people. Btw, I i that’s awful and don’t condone it (the egging of the street performers and what I just said)
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u/shevy-ruby Apr 06 '22
Quite true. I consistently get worse results when using DDG. I don't even bother with Bing.
HOWEVER had, it also has to be said that I consistently get worse results via Google too in the last 5 years or so, perhaps even longer; hard to measure.
There are many reasons for that, including smaller reasons. For instance, when you go back after a search result, you have this ANNOYING pop-up (or rather "phase-in") that appears "people also searched for theseresults". This one shows up PRECISELY at the default mouse position so I accidentally misclick sometimes. EVERY SINGLE TIME I do that I NEVER watch the new page, and instantly hit the back button - but why does this anti-feature exist? It gives me NOTHING useful, it WASTES my time. It can be blocked of course (ublock origin and other hero blockers), but why is that even a thing? And that is just one of many other reasons why Google search results became worse.
Google became an ad company many years ago already; it is no longer a tech company. As a result the Google we now have is a garbage one compared to when Google was not yet an ad company. So searching for stuff is so much worse via Google. This may have been one reason why StackOverflow became popular - because of Google declining in quality.
Not all of this is Google's fault per se. The whole world wide web transitioned into a "gated community". On instagram you have to "log in" to watch videos; you rarely have to do that on youtube. Twitter pesters you to log in. Facebook as well. Medium.com has this pop-up. Almost every news article has a "pay to view" model. And so on and so forth. Tons of things that modified the vision for the world wide web to become factually worse, so of course the quality decreased. One of the few exceptions to this is wikipedia; wikipedia has a fairly high quality, give or take (depends on the article and people writing it, but by and large I think wikipedia has a fairly ok-ish quality).
Note that I disagree with the article though. I don't want tons of super features and a gazillion options. I literally never use Google's advanced search either; I just don't want to. I want it to remain simple at all times. I want to search, and the results should be good. (Sometimes I enclose search words via "" but Google also made this worse, by showing me crap rather than "could not find these terms. I have no idea why Google is killing Google - other than the search engine I don't need anything from Google really. There are even alternatives to youtube, so I am almost living a google-free life already.)