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I noticed today that UDM mode for Google is displaying sponsored results now, too…
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Submitted 1 year ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Xanza@lemm.ee 1 year ago
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
www.google.com/search?q=drp&udm=14 still works for me…
Xanza@lemm.ee 1 year ago
It’s never not worked, but they’re running sponsored links now. I’ve hit them 3 times today out of maybe 50 searches. But they’re there.
moe90@feddit.nl 1 year ago
yeah udm14 getting pretty bad lately. That is why I moved to startpage which is same Google services without AI and sponsored contents
MyOpinion@lemm.ee 1 year ago
The future is coming and it sure looks like garbage. I have long since left Google behind.
balder1991@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s been a long time I use DuckDuckGo for common searches (which let’s be honest, more than 80% is just a simple query to find a certain area of some website, like “Firefox download Windows”). If I want to search something more related to my own language or recent events in my county, Google is a must, but that’s like 10% of all my search engine usage. I don’t really need Google to know about the other 90%.
spacesatan@leminal.space 1 year ago
I had to ditch ddg when they started injecting my vpn’s geoip as a search term in almost every search. It was to the point where I could literally be including an actual city and state as a search term and I would mostly get results for the vpn’s location. Naturally there is no option to disable this behavior.
Startpage is nice though.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Yeah I think most of my searches start with the name of the site I want results from.
Lemjukes@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I am no longer feeling lucky
Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Oh wow sounds great, can I get in line now to not use it?
XenoK@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I don’t really get Google’s angle since it’s pretty obvious that their AI search sucks. Maybe it’s just to impress shareholders?
ToiletFlushShowerScream@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This makes sense to me. All other reasons presented sound like wishful thinking that google is still the same company from 2005
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 year ago
I mean, they’re ruining their search anyways. It’s almost unusable at this point, it’s like asking for relevant ads and two year old Reddit posts
Is it censorship? Did they decide to just straight up sell SEO? Are websites locking down and blocking their crawlers to stop AI training crawlers?
I legitimately find Bing to be better at this point, but whatever they’re doing it’s maddening. Even better AI assisted web searches kinda suck because the data fed into them is more of the same
But solid chance they’re trying to boost Gemini, which has been a shockingly bad llm for a company that basically wrote the book on AI not too long ago
balder1991@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There’s also the problem that there’s much more noise in the web nowadays. It becomes more difficult to filter out that’s good and what’s bad. Be too strict and you risk missing valuable but less polished information. Be too lenient, and you drown in low-quality, SEO-optimized content that prioritizes visibility over usefulness.
blazeknave@lemmy.world 1 year ago
And we still pay the vig to AdWords or does all my money go to LinkedIn now?
static_radio@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Is there any escape from shitty AI slop in my search results?
What search engines are there that I can use that arent a proxy for one of the big ones? And yes I know about Kagi, I’d prefer open source if possible.
asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 1 year ago
There’s a new beta one which only uses its own index: stract.com
balder1991@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Maybe something to use only for fun, but check out Marginalia. It’s open source and as far as I know, runs in the guy’s computer at his house. It deprioritizes commercial websites and boosts small blogs instead.
RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
There’s not really a strong player in the open source search space.
Mwmnl exists, but per their own readme:
The quality is a long way’s off from matching the commercial engines at the moment
Kagi provides the source code for many of their services, but is not truly open source, especially because at its core, it relies on applying its own rankings to other’s indexes.
That said, search is a space where the old adage rings true:
If you’re not paying for it; you are the product!
For what it’s worth, I find value in my Kagi subscription.
IMALlama@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Moving from enshitified closed source to a different closed source that’s trying to position itself as user first isn’t necessarily bad.
letsgo@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Do people still use google? I haven’t touched it for yonks now. Except GRIS, that still works well.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Not the search but I’m still stuck with the email. :/
xia@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
Of all the sources of truth, why pick auto-complete?
NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 1 year ago
(´ཀ`」 ∠)
cyd@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Google search results are so terrible that at this point it’s a mercy.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Alphabet/Google needs to fire their CEO. He’s an obvious idiot, not good with employees, not good with investors, and not good at lobbying. That’s like 99% of a CEO’s job. Just get rid of him and Google’s stock price will probably jump 20%.
peregrin5@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I noticed Edge would only show me corporate/authority friendly results recently as well oddly cutting down the number of results I see to a very unnaturally short amount of results.
Deleting it and moving to DuckDuckGo which while the corporate friendly things were still at the top, it at least showed me some opposition results.
RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Guessing Edge by default sent you to Bing, no surprise the DDG results look similar, given that they use Bing under he hood. They shuffle rankings slightly, but it’s the same index.
hellerphant@lemmy.cafe 1 year ago
I’m so glad I switched to Kagi. The writing was on the wall once they started rolling out the AI suggestions wide.
knighthawk0811@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
i haven’t used Google for search in years. duck duck go ftw
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The model uses “advanced reasoning, thinking, and multimodal capabilities”…
Well, LLM’s are incapable of actually doing the first two, so we’re already off to a great start.
I don’t think it’s much in the way of hyperbole to say that if they make this the default or worse, only search output option that this will be the thing that literally destroys the company.
No one except idiotic boardroom denizens actually wants this. Google failing to provide actual search results is the singular one and only thing that could actually get users to switch away from using it and not just talk. And if no one is searching on Google then nobody is seeing ads on Google, which means Google will not be selling adds.
I will laugh so hard if this happens.
Grangle1@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Sadly, I’ve seen how much the average non-tech enthusiast LOVES all this AI stuff. Like, people’s parents/grandparents who only occasionally use a computer when they have to. The types of folks who will call tech support and actually need the answer, “Is your computer powered on?” And there are far more people out there like that than many tech folks think. That’s the market that keeps powering this stuff.
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 1 year ago
Somehow, a huge amount of people hate thinking. Like it’s painful or like exertion or something. Anything that can just give them what they want is better.
It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong. They just want an answer. They don’t want to know why, or how, they want to know now.
It’s the shortcut to knowledge all the ancient parables warned us about. Instead of physically destroying your mind, it stops it from working at all.
Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
Considering how often Google’s AI hallucinates some garbage for an answer this is going to be terrible
singletona@lemmy.world 1 year ago
When I use a web search tool I want to look at the websites themselves. Not having to go through Gemini (the AI not the protocol) telling me what IT thinks I want…
Assuming AGI ever develops and bothers to sift through data. I’ve no problem with AI as a tool (that is, Dumb AI like we currently have.)
When I’m doing a web search rather than actually calling up Gemini (The AI not the Protocol) I want a WEB SEARCH… that means I am not looking to use AI. I’m wanting to use OI (Organic Intelligence.)
Thistlewick@lemmynsfw.com 1 year ago
Is DuckDuckGo still the best alternative at this point, or has Bing been toiling away in the dark to improve itself?
RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
In terms of result quality? In my opinion, based on my particular search habits:
Kagi > SearXNG > Brave > Startpage/Google > DDG/Ecosia/Bing
Everyone is going to have their own opinions on each of those companies, but from a results lens, that’s go what I find to be most/least effective.
vivi@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
DDG uses Bing under the hood for the main results, so it doesn’t really matter too much in terms of results.
RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
You can also use Ecosia, if your prefer a different shade of lipstick on your ~pig~ search results.
octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Does EVERY axis in the world have to be fucked up at the same time?
Can we have one thing that is just doing ok?
Government - fucked.
Education - fucked.
Healthcare - fucked.
Environment - fucked.
Societal and Social Cohesion - fucked.
Wealth Inequality - fucked.
Personal Technological Autonomy - fucked, and under continuous attack.
Technological Enshittification - Running like gangbusters. So really - fucked.
Damn, someone give me some kind of ladder to climb out of this pit of despair.
Empricorn@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Don’t forget about housing! Can’t even have shelter from the elements without paying through the nose to some rent-raising billionaire or giant corporation…
octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Updated! :)
Shanmugha@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Time to turn inside. Whatever around you gets fucked, essentially no one can order you “be miserable”. If this one thing gets fixed a hundred percent your way, the rest is just a question of what you can do and how much of that you are willing to do
But does it seem a very long road to become fully in control of own interiority.
I did not come up with this on my own, just picked if uo from someone else, but can’t argue with it
Petter1@lemm.ee 1 year ago
And yet, resistance seems very weak…
negativeone@lemmy.world 1 year ago
People need hope to fight. We’ve become so black-pilled about everything that many people think it’s impossible for anything to improve.
It’s a reminder about why we need balance. Yes, there are a lot of problems. But not everything is fucked. There’s still a propose to fighting for a better future.
mhague@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s weird – we water our soil with nutrients like “there’s no point in voting”, “they’re all out to get us”, “politicians are shit”, “nothing changes”, “governments are bad”.
I wonder why people haven’t been motivated to fight. Whenever they express faith in our leaders, or institutions, or have any positivity, we’re quick to shut them down. But still.
(Why would people motivated to fight hang out online where everyone has a reason why trying is pointless?)
TheBat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m from India so two more things to add to the list
Air - fucked.
Cleanliness - megafucked.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Does EVERY axis in life have to be fucked up at the same time?
Yes. There are many texts written on this since start of writing, some are written down from what was carried in word before that since start of speaking.
shalafi@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Every civilization rises and falls. We’re on the down slope ATM. Sorry. The 80s and 90s were pretty nice in America!
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 year ago
That feel when the Matrix actually called it
Feyd@programming.dev 1 year ago
Every single one of these flows from wealth inequality.
xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
(and reinforces it)
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 year ago
No.
grue@lemmy.world 1 year ago
They also flow from corruption (regulatory capture/failure to enforce anti-trust law). It’s hard to say whether that is itself a cause or result of wealth inequality, though.
octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Excellent point!
singletona@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The ladder has been privatized.
You get the greased pole.
I know it isn’t much, but services like mastodon, lemmy, kbin, friendica, Peertube, etc have shown me there is connected pushback.
Tilde communities have given me something smaller scale to focus on.
slumberlust@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Problems exist, but there’s never been a safer time to be a homosapien on Earth. A book called Abundance helped me gain a little perspective in these gloomy days.
balder1991@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Also Homo Deus.
octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Thanks, I’ll check it out, though it’s going to take more than motivational books to pull the US out of the current nosedive…
knighthawk0811@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
safety because more people are alive? but also most dangerous because more people die daily than at any other time
Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
I hate this.
Albbi@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
DuckDuckGo is pretty easy to switch to. You can go to settings and disable AI chat in it.
EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Ew, it is still on by default :( Unless you set your browser to save site data for thos site, you would still see the AI :( Fortunately, the Javascriptless version has no such pest.
Delta_V@lemmy.world 1 year ago
this sounds like what Google wanted to be since its inception: ask a question, get an answer
somewhere along the journey, the reality of needing to make money drove the enshitification of search results: ask a question, get offers to sell you an answer
this seems like a step in a better direction
baggins@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Right because when I search for factual information what I really want is an LLM to tell me “sorry Dave I can’t answer that question right now.” (See: any election related information. As in it doesn’t just kick you back to the web search results it just straight up refuses to give you the answer.)
Thistlewick@lemmynsfw.com 1 year ago
It baffles me how wholly some people are just accepting the complete erosion of the internet. I have lecturers at university, so theoretically educated people, who tell us point blank to plug any questions we have about weekly topics into ChatGPT. The respect I have for these teachers and their content is less than zero at this point.
Majorllama@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Would this be the same AI that spits out incorrect summarys or just flat out gets data incorrect constantly? What could possibly go wrong by making that the ONLY way to look for things going forward. Fucking morons.
Artyom@lemm.ee 1 year ago
No, this will be the AI that ignores your content and just spits out sponsored content. AI doesn’t really have to be involved much, but if it is, Google doesn’t have to pay up when you file a class action lawsuit for misleading content because they can say “It’s not our fault, thr AI did it.”
wjrii@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I recently had a dream that involved a suburb of Green Bay, Wisconsin. I have never been to Green Bay Wisconsin. I know it as a rather small city that is the home to the Green Bay Packers, an administratively anachronistic NFL team that draws a large plurality of its fan base from the greater Milwaukee area. Off the top of my head, I don’t know if Green Bay has “suburbs” in the usual American sense at all.
I googled the name of this completely nonexistent community, along with the words “Green Bay,” and the AI very confidently hallucinated it into existence, describing it as a lovely shopping and residential area just over the bridge of the same name.
Majorllama@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yup. No problem though. In the future AI can just add the now very real town to you AR eyeballs brought to you by Chipotle Exxon and T mobile.
i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Hmm, in theory I don’t have a problem with an AI telling me the answer to my question or whatever I’m searching for - but this isn’t a web search. If I’m actually searching for a particular page or context, then I want to be able to do that.
These are two entirely different things, and if Google goes down this route they aren’t a search engine anymore - they are an LLM provider.
voytrekk@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
Couldn’t agree more. I use both tools as they have their place, but when I want a search engine, I don’t want to get an AI answer for the result. Like if I’m searching for documentation on something, what benefit would the AI provide me over just giving the link?
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yes, the problem is that the place for LLM “search results” is the garbage can.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I didn’t expect this. You mean it doesn’t have ads? All I tend to get for hits on Google are paid search results anyway. Surely they’ll soon bring some ad links into these results.
RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Like all Google products, they will still make a halfhearted attempt to make it as useful as they can before absolutely destroying it with ads
slaacaa@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Sounds cool, can’t wait!
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