Been watching the antitrust case against Google in the US, while building up my own anti-use case against Google while travelling. It used to be I’d default to el Goog on the road, especially Google Maps, because it was just better. But I’ve found this last month that, while not unusable, it’s not nearly as much use as it could or should be. Especially Maps.
Thanks for that nudge! I've signed up to the free trial: we'll see how they go. Bit of reading that I've done makes me really want to like them (e.g., https://blog.kagi.com/age-pagerank-over) but we'll just have to see.
Bing?! Please hand in your internet badge to the nearest authorities. Next you'll be telling us you use Edge.
What don't you like about DDG? You can use the ! bangs to jump directly to all manner of things, including Google Maps. It won't help with the bullshite, but maybe that's a settings problem.
I read an article a while back (Sam Kriss, All the nerds are dead: https://samkriss.substack.com/p/all-the-nerds-are-dead) that made a plausible argument that the apparent goodness of search engine results was a the result of a felicitous confluence of a good idea, appropriate database technology and (importantly) the correct amount of data (text). In earlier times, search engines weren't as necessary because there wasn't enough text to be confused by: libraries did a decent job of collating it. In the fourteenth century a well-educated person of sufficient diligence could still claim to have read *everything* ever written. Around the turn of the millennium that had grown to around 50 exabytes of data, from Mesopotamian tablets to Shreck. Today, twenty-something years later it's reckoned to be 65 Zettabytes: more than a thousand times more. Most of it is stuff no-one would ever want to read or see. Much of it has been published exactly for the purpose of gaming the search engines, as they're perceived to be the gatekeepers of information (and therefore business).
Which is the long way of saying that I agree that search results have been getting worse for a while. Slowly at first, but faster recently. I'm not sure that any of the others are really going to do much better over the longer term: needles and haystacks. Perhaps the LLMs will do OK, but my guess is that they'll just become increasingly "insane" as the zone is filled with more "AI-generated" self-referential nonsense. We're probably doomed. Human curation, like Wikipedia, might hold out for a while: the slow road.
same with me, in the last few months moving default browser from chrome, changing my primary search tool. It certainly feels like google has in the last few months gone to a more, "... does it really matter if our stuff gets shittier .." I am afraid the answer for me is yes.
So I can’t help but wonder which pasta the Chef uses . Speaking of Boyardee of course. Have you had a chance to find out where he lives? Do they give tours? Anyway helpful info there.
UPDATE. I found a new search engine called Kagi and it rocks!
Thanks for that nudge! I've signed up to the free trial: we'll see how they go. Bit of reading that I've done makes me really want to like them (e.g., https://blog.kagi.com/age-pagerank-over) but we'll just have to see.
bookmarking this for investigation later
Bing?! Please hand in your internet badge to the nearest authorities. Next you'll be telling us you use Edge.
What don't you like about DDG? You can use the ! bangs to jump directly to all manner of things, including Google Maps. It won't help with the bullshite, but maybe that's a settings problem.
Bing Chat is solid (and mostly just uses GPT) and Edge is Chrome with better enterprise features ;-)
Now I just want to make pasta. It's 8am and I'm hungover, and I want pasta.
Not a fan of Google products
I went to use Bing, but the "news" feed as you scroll down was listing Sky News (Aus version of Fox) and Z-Live News (Russian propaganda site). :(
I read an article a while back (Sam Kriss, All the nerds are dead: https://samkriss.substack.com/p/all-the-nerds-are-dead) that made a plausible argument that the apparent goodness of search engine results was a the result of a felicitous confluence of a good idea, appropriate database technology and (importantly) the correct amount of data (text). In earlier times, search engines weren't as necessary because there wasn't enough text to be confused by: libraries did a decent job of collating it. In the fourteenth century a well-educated person of sufficient diligence could still claim to have read *everything* ever written. Around the turn of the millennium that had grown to around 50 exabytes of data, from Mesopotamian tablets to Shreck. Today, twenty-something years later it's reckoned to be 65 Zettabytes: more than a thousand times more. Most of it is stuff no-one would ever want to read or see. Much of it has been published exactly for the purpose of gaming the search engines, as they're perceived to be the gatekeepers of information (and therefore business).
Which is the long way of saying that I agree that search results have been getting worse for a while. Slowly at first, but faster recently. I'm not sure that any of the others are really going to do much better over the longer term: needles and haystacks. Perhaps the LLMs will do OK, but my guess is that they'll just become increasingly "insane" as the zone is filled with more "AI-generated" self-referential nonsense. We're probably doomed. Human curation, like Wikipedia, might hold out for a while: the slow road.
"I switched my default search engine to Bing."
😱
same with me, in the last few months moving default browser from chrome, changing my primary search tool. It certainly feels like google has in the last few months gone to a more, "... does it really matter if our stuff gets shittier .." I am afraid the answer for me is yes.
So I can’t help but wonder which pasta the Chef uses . Speaking of Boyardee of course. Have you had a chance to find out where he lives? Do they give tours? Anyway helpful info there.
Because I use a VPN Google is acting like a certain social media platform and driving me away. Currently trying Bing