this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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What search engine is currently showing the most useful results? What other tricks do we have aside of adding "reddit" or whatever internet community to the results?

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[–] [email protected] 122 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't know what is the best but the clearest thing to me is that each day Google is getting worse...

[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Definitely. So many searches lately will return results that only partially match the search terms. What's even the point of searching if you're just going to show a bunch of unrelated results?

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Even exact matches with quotes don’t seem to be as useful these days. Google tries to be helpful by matching on what it thinks I want instead of what I actually want. That plus the ads and all the other junk

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

They're not trying to be helpful, they're trying to guide you towards a product or towards content they control that they think you will be more engaged with. They also give results that will lead to more searches, and therefore more ad exposure for their business.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Plus, I used to set my new tab page to Google, but God, it's so bad. There's always some stupid image for some stupid anniversary like Mary F. Dinklehorn becoming the first trans-gay-librarian in Antarctica or something (not that I'm against any of that) I just want to get some work done and not be distracted by Google desperately clinging to power.

But Drive is nice, I like that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's always some stupid image for some stupid anniversary like Mary F. Dinklehorn becoming the first trans-gay-librarian in Antarctica or something

You owe me a new shirt for the coffee stains I just spat all over mine

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Sure, what shirt do you want?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm using Chrome and added an extension called Empty New Tab Page that makes Chrome open to a blank page. I had to do that because the Google home page got to be so annoying. Also removing the need to fetch content makes the browser and new tabs open faster.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, I have done this on one of my computers and it's working great. I need to bring the rest up to speed.

Actually, what I really need is to find a new browser for web dev. Chrome's dark theme sucks ass.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

But theyre an icon in the librarian community!

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

I hate that so much

Sorry, looks like you searched for stuff that isn't really popular. How about these unrelated Facebook and Pintrest links instead?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

You seem to be misunderstanding the point of your doing your search: they got paid for the results that they delivered, and for the ad traffic of you having received it! Don't you see why this is best for ~~them~~ you? /s

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I actually prefer Google for shopping. Just turn off your adblocker, search for a particular item you want to buy and bam your first 3 to 4 pages are retailers pushing the product with their prices listed (with a touch of scam websites that I presume pay for advertising). Anything else I add 'Reddit' or just watch a few YouTube videos depending on what kind of answers I'm looking for