Simple Search Is a Browser Extension That Gives You Google Circa 2010 (theverge.com) 54
A group of journalists has built a browser extension, called Simple Search, to show you what Google search would look like without the information panels, shopping boxes, and search ads. The Verge reports: Introducing the extension, Maddy Varner and Sam Morris describe it as a conscious throwback to an earlier version of Google search, before the integration of the Knowledge Graph and its accompanying information boxes. "The extension lets you travel back to a time when online search operated a little differently," they write. "Nowadays, you don't always have to click any of the 'blue links' to get information related to your search -- Google gives you what it thinks is important in info boxes of information pulled from other websites." The extension works on Google and Bing searches and is available for both Firefox and Chrome browsers.
Sounds sketchy (Score:2)
Re:Sounds sketchy (Score:5, Interesting)
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Google's results: LinuxCNC
Bing's results: Stephen Maxwell
DuckDuckGo's results: Stephen Maxwell
Anyone else getting VERBATIM results between Bing and DuckDuckGo?
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No, I get LinuxCNC as the first result on DuckDuckGo
Re:Sounds sketchy (Score:4, Informative)
Hmmm I don't get LinuxCNC anywhere on the first page of results from DuckDuckGo
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Everyone gets different search results based on geolocation, search history if you are logged in or fingerprintable, etc. This is true of all major search engines. If you normally search for x then you'll have a harder time finding y as they will remember that you like a lot of x.
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Same, Google is the undisputed king of search result quality and have been ever since I've been searching. I can find what I need about a topic in a few seconds of Googling, not so for ddg or bing.
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Yes, at least Google shows you it's trying to be smarter than you, it doesn't just fail silently.
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Re:What's the catch? (Score:5, Insightful)
*While I expect this is Sarcasm, in today's day and age it is hard to tell anymore*
This is a sad state on how Slashdot use to be the hub of the FOSS movement. Back in the days when we were younger where we saw Open Source Software as the Future putting the thumb on big software who were greedy about writing software only for money.
We had companies like Google use such free software and even contribute to it because they found out, source code isn't worth too much, especially if your secrete sauce is the data that you have collected and not obliged to share, unless people pay you for it. Then these companies collect so much data that it is nearly impossible for a startup even with all your code to catch up, because they will need billions of dollars just make the infrastructure to handle it.
We have grown so desensitized to these companies making a mockery of the ideals of FOSS, now that someone builds a little trinket extension, we have to wonder how are they going to make money off of it, if they are demonetizing all the data.
I am not a RMS fan, and I find the GPL much to restrictive. However it does show the sign of the times that if someone tries to do something for free without getting some back way to get paid for it, it goes into so much question.
Re:What's the catch? (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the days when we were younger where we saw Open Source Software as the Future putting the thumb on big software who were greedy about writing software only for money.
I think the keyword here is "younger". When I grew up, I found something much more important than "software freedom" - the ability to survive without working too much. In my country (Israel, half third-world half first-world), if you don't work in tech or in politics, you are mostly condemned to a shitty life, wages are not enough, the houses are too expensive, cruel capitalism. For me, tech jobs are the way out of poverty, out of the cruelty. If that means I need to do closed source? to steal data? so be it, fuck idealism, I just don't want to be poor.
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We have grown so desensitized to these companies making a mockery of the ideals of FOSS, now that someone builds a little trinket extension, we have to wonder how are they going to make money off of it, if they are demonetizing all the data.
I am not a RMS fan, and I find the GPL much to restrictive. However it does show the sign of the times that if someone tries to do something for free without getting some back way to get paid for it, it goes into so much question.
If we acted any differently, we'd be naive.
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We have grown so desensitized to these companies making a mockery of the ideals of FOSS
Ideals of FOSS? Only Free Software necessarily has ideals. Open Source software long predates the OSI, and it originally meant only that you could see the sources. And to most of us, that's still all it means, because anything less than a Free Software license is half-assed. Which is why I blame the OSI.
You can point at Free Software and say that it is fundamentally different from Open Source. But with people claiming that OSS is the same, it dilutes the apparent importance of Free Software. It is important
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Courts ruled they can't stop them. Once a document reaches a computer, it's that person's right to do what they want to it.
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> Once a document reaches a computer, it's that person's right to do what they want to it.
What? No. DMCA forbids breaking digital rights management, patents and copyrights restrict republication, and various civil legislation prevents inserting biologically founded gender pronouns or historically accurate but socially unwelcome historical analyses.
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What? Yes.
I'm talking about the context of modifying the document. The rights of the visually impaired to make a document high contrast is a simple example of modification. While the DCMA forbids breaking DRM, you can modify the contents it's displaying for personal use.
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Certainly. Those rights, however, are not unlimited. The limitations on those rights are why the GPL was created, to help ensure that software users and developers are ensured the right to modify or republish the software with modifications.
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You're conflating software with documents.
Once the code is run, the document is fixed. It does not modify the software, it modifies the fixed document.
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Conflating? I think not, the law handles the duplication of software and computer data primarily under copyright law. The DMCA and
> Once the code is run, the document is fixed. It does not modify the software, it modifies the fixed document.
You seem to have a very strange understanding of copyright law, not based on regulation or precedent. A "fixed document" such as a movie file may have digital rights management or watermarks incorporated. Modifying those can violate the DMCA, and republishing that doc
Bet this lasts two seconds (Score:2)
before google takes it down. Can't see them wanting anyone to change their product, especially if it's not downloading ad content.
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Or you can use https://duckduckgo.com/ [duckduckgo.com]
I only go-to Goooogle once in a while when I'm having trouble finding something.
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I use yahoo, but It's also been overrun by ads. I might give duck duck go a shot
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Same here. Switched all the familys devices to use duckduckgo some time ago for privacy reasons. Haven't looked back since.
Next step is to switch the family entirely to protonmail instead of gmail.
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go further back (Score:3)
Re:go further back (Score:4, Insightful)
While you're at it, I'd like my 90s emo bands back and also a time when getting a blowjob from an intern in the White House was the worst thing a president could do.
Ah, for a more innocent time...
Re: go further back (Score:2)
Mosaic was terribly slow. Netscape Navigator with its pulsing N introduced concurrent downloads and speeded things up immensely. Back then web content was so simple that Lynx was usable and a great alternative to Mosaic
No, thanks (Score:3)
Because it can't revert the search operators to what they were before Google dumbed them all the way down.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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That and having videos at the top of the results. Fuck all that.
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Well it's usually OK to return the results for synonyms for general search terms. The problem is that the specialized terms or phrases are the ones that are important and that Google often drops.
Re:No, thanks (Score:4, Informative)
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Google switched its search tools from precise matches to "fuzzy matches", which served most people well enough and was easier on the back end search tools and databases.
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So very true.
If you're on Firefox, the addon "Must Include" (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-search-must-include/) solves this issue. It makes for some ugly search strings, but it removes the fuzziness and gets you the exact results again.
At first I was happy (Score:3)
Then I read the link and their extension is an overlay box on top of googles shitty layout. Its a proof of concept and not a usable thing. I don’t want videos in the results and I don’t want their stupid expanded first hit.
Found my search results on the 1st page also!!! (Score:2)
This is an awesome concept!
I long forgot that what you were supposed to find what you were looking for on the 1st page without the unwanted information panels, shopping suggestions, advertisements and unrelated Youtube content.
I use DuckDuckGo now (Score:4, Interesting)
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Even DuckDuckGo started to add shit to the search page.
I use https://start.duckduckgo.com/ [duckduckgo.com] now to avoid the extra parts.
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I wished DDG showed better search results like GOOG's. :(
If Google could just... (Score:4, Interesting)
For all the worry and angst everyone put forward when it seemed like Microsoft was poised to control the incoming future infrastructure planning for the internet, that worry seems to be desperately lacking in regards to Google. At least when I go to Bing or DDG, I can get the damn link directly from the search results. Sure, that may seem like a silly thing to regular users of the internet but if you are someone who does research and builds collections of bookmarks, it sure can be a helleva lot easier just being able to save a direct link without someone trying to stand in your damn way.
Google can fuck off with their AMP bullshit and they can fuck off with their URL-jacking that theyve been doing for years and they can fuck off with their Chrome and they can fuck off with the consistent rot they inject into Mozilla.
There was once a time when I happily looked to Google for my search results. Now I see them as a place like Walmart - occasionally and unfortunately unavoidable.
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I've been using an extension called searchlinkfix in Firefox for a couple years and it's worked great. Grabs the direct URL and avoids sending clicks back to the mothership. Obviously searchable in extensions but here's the github link back to the source: https://github.com/palant/sear... [github.com]
startpage.com (Score:1)
Hasn't startpage.com been doing this for over a decade? Why do I need an extension?
Mint + Firefox + uBlock Origin + startpage
Google is already WAY too "simple"! (Score:2)
I mean that condescending, limiting "simple", that deliberately comes at the expense of power and freedom, and forces you into the dumbest common denominator until you've damn well become that.
E.g. when they removed parentheses for grouping terms, and basically ignored you when you asked for "literally these exact words please", it stopped being a complete search engine. Let alone even dreaming of searching for anything that's not alphanumeric!