Now you just gotta go past the AI overview, the sponsored results which aren’t relevant, go through a few menus to get their website…
I remember my doctor showing me google and its “no nonsense” search when I was younger and it was brand new. Man how the mighty have fallen.
Google web search still exists, add &udm=14 to query something like: https://www.google.com/search?q=whatever&udm=14
It exists but it still sucks terribly.
If I search on “Burger King locations near me” I get a list of KFCs. And one Burger King approximately a thousand kilometres away.
The correct answer is that there’s two Burger Kings within walking distance of me, and that KFC isn’t Burger King.
The old web search didn’t do that. They didn’t even have your location data, so how would they be able to know which locations were near to you? I think that was something added when they added google maps. You used to have to go to burger king’s location page and put in a postal code on their site to figure out locations.
So it doesn’t seem like it’s a problem with google adding things to the search results, it’s just they recently added something you don’t like. And yeah the results aren’t as good as they used to be, but that’s a separate problem.
They really should just give an option to disable gemini in the results. It really should’ve been added as a separate tab like images and maps.
I just use Google Maps for that.
I switched to DuckDuckGo as my default last year, and after about a month, I got used to the slight changes. All that stuff you listed above is either not there or removable. Never going back.
I’ve had several funny AI results in my searches lately:
I really feel like if they wanted to avoid bankruptcy, they could make Femboy Hooters a real thing and start making a profit again. But they’re too horribly straight to even consider it. 😔
And its source is Fandom
I love how it’s not even a prompt. It’s literally two unrelated words and the things just runs with it. Amazing.
Dark Idea: Theme restaurants that change their theme based on the most popular nonsense hallucination in that area that week.
AI keeping those locations secret. smh.
- You: Define recursion
- Google: See “recursion”
This is pretty great. It has strong letmegooglethat.com / lmgtfy.com vibes.
Smarmy little LLM squatting in search results being like wow yeah you should have asked a search engine buddy, get a load of this maroon.
If they used an LLM to create a Waldorf and Stadtler style heckler to make fun of my searches that would be a real value-add. Instead they did it by accident and the joke is on them.
I would pay so many GPU cycles for that
That seems like a great suggestion. Have you tried it? \s
Yelp could be useful for finding things un real life but its annoying me with “download our app” and i still need the rest of my storage for memes
Wait till chatbot data are rolled in and you’ll get suggestions like “you can ask a chatbot”.
AI is not useless. At least it provides this community a supply of funny stuff like this.
I loathe the ongoing hype around AI, but there are a selected few AI-powered stuff that proved extremely helpful to me.
The Shoved Google AI made me stop using Google (and because its not private)
what really needs an all-you-can-eat buffet is OP’s phone battery.
So fucking glad I use SearXNG. This looks like a shit show.
There’s also LibreY, which has torrent searching as well, works without JS, and suppports redirecting to privacy-friendly proxies…
Is this an ad
SearXNG is free, open-source software so I’m not entirely sure how advertising would be beneficial for them (at least in the financial sense).
Of course. Everything Google does is an ad.
I had started using SearXNG a while back and it was working nicely but it occasionally would just stop working and even after trying a few different instances i would be unable to use it. I’m gonna give it another try, I’m really tired of Google et Al 🫠
Same
Great. This time don’t crop out the results just below the AI Overview lol.
Technically correct.
I’m going to give the AI a high five on this one. It’s the hidden mind’s only way of subtly telling the person staring at the screen that they are an idiot. Use the proper program (like one of the dozen MAP apps!) for the proper purpose.
Except it didn’t recommend a map application, it recommended to use Google search…
Okay, fair, but I’m imagining it as reeeeally subtle.
Gemini: STFW
Google search: ATFA (Ask The Fucking AI)
Worked fine when I tried. Must know my location and not yours?
Have me a list with locations, stars, reviews, and provided a source of Yelp "top all you can eat in [my city]
I then told it that I’d like to hit them all in one day. It gave me some pacing strategies, an itinerary, and complemented my bold endeavor. It recommended that I research menus so I can focus on quality over quantity. I may have it do that for me, too.
I threw up in my mouth a bit.
I think that was one of the pacing strategies
