The power of URL parameters lets you unofficially turn off Google’s AI Overview.
  • TotalCasual@lemmy.worldEnglish
    531·
    2 days ago

    Google search engine is much worse than it used to be and seems to be getting worse.

    udm=14 doesn’t seem to improve Google search results by a significant margin.

    Bing and DuckDuckGo seem to perform better than Google at present.

    Google itself is failing. I’m not going to speculate why.

    uBlacklist is my current extension for removing spam results.

    • zingo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      24·
      3 days ago

      I stopped using Whoogle (Privacy engine using Google search) because of the bad search results. Google’s fault of course.

      Trying SearxNG now.

      • Mwa@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        Same with startpage because google indexing becoming horrible.
        But I have some cons. with searxng, earch quality becomes horrible when adding too much sources, and I decided to go with ddg.

      • Marthirial@lemmy.worldEnglish
        101·
        2 days ago

        I started paying for Kagi. Works like Google in 2019. Fast, useful and customizable. One of the best features is hiding results from shit sites like Reddit, which blocks me for using a VPN. $10 well spent just to have that option.

        • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          1 day ago

          why would you block reddit results? it’s often useful (at least when related to tech, possibly other topics too). I would recommend to install libredirect instead, which redirects reddit to a libreddit/redlib frontend

        • boatswain@infosec.pubEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          I’ve found the $5 a month tier to be just about right. There have been a few months I’ve gone over, but they make that super easy to deal with: they just change the subscription renewal date and you start your next month a few days early.

        • joonazan@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          3·
          2 days ago

          It is the best on the market but unfortunately they just use Google underneath plus their own blog index. And at least to me it seems it isn’t going in a better direction.

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          One of the best features is hiding results from shit sites

          I do that with the Firefox plugin “Block or Highlight Search Engine Results” from pistom (on github).
          Upside: I can see what was hidden in case I need that and it really helps with visibility.

        • zingo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          112·
          3 days ago

          I don’t know if Bing’s search results are better than Google’s.

          They all suck.

          • pyre@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            1 day ago

            for me it’s much better. I don’t think they directly use Bing search by the way, just their index. the algorithm should be theirs if I’m not wrong.

          • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 day ago

            Using duck duck go is pretty good for me, if I go to bing.com, My results are horrible. Of course it’s the same result set, but I expect I’m getting less algorithmic shuffling on DuckDuckGo.

        • majestictechie@lemmy.fosshost.comEnglish
          151·
          3 days ago

          Gotta say, Kagi has been great. It’s helped me a lot in work just by Being able to prioritise search Results and rank certain sites higher

        • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
          122·
          3 days ago

          Kagi has an AI search option which IIRC is on by default – or at least was at one point – where it’ll try to also synthesize an answer and stick it in a box with the results, but you can just turn it off in your preferences. I have it off.

          There may be a day when we have AI assistants that are so good that their summaries are better than looking at the original source, but I’d put a high bar on that, and think that we’ve got a way to go.

          • oktoberpaard@feddit.nlEnglish
            7·
            3 days ago

            It’s off by default, but activated when you end your search query with a question mark. That option can be turned off.

        • shadowfax13@lemmy.mlEnglish
          22·
          2 days ago

          so much this. its summary option also lets me avoid any ad infested page. also great for searching videos and relevant stack overflow results.

    • cmhe@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      3 days ago

      Which other trustworthy search engines are there? And I don’t mean some different frontend or a meta search engine like ddg, sp, kagi, searx(ng), etc… that mostly just use googles, bings or even yandex and beidu results?

      Ages ago I configured and hosted yacy for myself, but that was a different time… Are there any real alternatives? With mayor internet companies like cloudflare, social media sites and many others restricting the access to the net and information, searching becomes more and more impossible if you aren’t a huge corporation…

      • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 day ago

        Searx is fancy about it though, It queries everybody and gives you the results that came back from multiple places. This effectively eliminates ads, AI, and unless they all missed it, spam.

        • cmhe@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          24 hours ago

          I have nothing against any meta search engine, they are very useful, and I use them primarily as well.

          However, they are not a true alternative, because they depend on third-party services. The same as Invidious is a very useful, but also not an alternative to YouTube itself, just a different user interface.

      • TheTechnician27@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        3 days ago

        The two criteria I suggested were “not saturated with ads and AI trash” (technically just the latter would satisfy OP’s problem), and DDG meets both of those with no problem. Its AI “assistant” and its ads can both be trivially disabled. I use DuckDuckGo because I love its frontend and because it gives me fewer problems than Google did. I’ve only ever used alternative search engines that piggyback off the major ones (as you listed: DDG, Startpage, and SearX), so someone else would have to answer that for you.

        • cmhe@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          3 days ago

          Well, you and I just have a different understanding of “search engine” then. For me a search engine is something that doesn’t forward queries to third parties.

  • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    491·
    3 days ago

    To add it to Firefox search, open about:config and add a boolean value browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh set to true. This will allow you to manually add search engines. Then open the search settings and click add. Set the URL to https://www.google.com/search?udm=14&q=%s, give it a name and click “Add Engine”.

    • TK420@lemmy.worldEnglish
      29·
      3 days ago

      I still like the idea of not using google search as my defacto standard, however once a month I may do an actual google search and this is a nice backup.

      Thank you for your work

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
    291·
    3 days ago

    Lots of talk about which search engine to use; surprisingly little talk about extensions.

    Block or Highlight Search Engine Results is my personal recommendation. Whichever SE you use, when you see a result that’s AI slop or a garbage website like Forbes, just add bullshit.com to the filter, set to hide, and you’ll never see that trash in a search result ever again.

    Be diligent about it for a good week or so, and your search result quality will absolutely explode, whether your using Google, DDG, or several others.

  • db2@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    3 days ago

    Anyone know how to add it to mobile Chrome?

    Edit: go to the udm14 site, then open settings/search engine, it’ll be in there. I’m not sure if you have to do a search through the site first for it to show up.

      • Virkkunen@fedia.io
        6·
        3 days ago

        And it’s probably India which has the most English speakers in the world (counting it as native, second or third language)

      • palordrolap@fedia.io
        53·
        3 days ago

        Is it just me or is this response the wrong response? I would have expected:

        not everyone speaks bri’ish english

        (that missing “r” in “ameican” inspires the use of the “improper” option here). It’s American English that uses “tire”, after all, and the rest of the Anglosphere that has “tyre”.