do you feel in last year to now that google sloppified their search engine?

[astyle]

I like it for all the wrong reasons.

View attachment 27681

Yeah, same ill-conceived AI hallucination fantasies as the very idea of George Washington being black... Instead of properly learning the historical facts, learning to line them up, and being able to tell fantasy/fiction from reality.

Truth is often stranger than fiction - like would it blow your mind that one of Google's founders, Sergei Brin, is from Moscow, Russia? He'll probably give a very hard eye-roll at the historically inaccurate fantasies that average American joes have.

 

[atax1a]

can't find anything anymore and the slop summary is full of pernicious lies. that it churns out plausible garbage is a bad thing, actually

 

[Alain De Vos]

yes now you get hallucinating ai nonsense. Any better options as search engine ?

 

[astyle]

can't find anything anymore and the slop summary is full of pernicious lies. that it churns out plausible garbage is a bad thing, actually

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. 2+2 is still 4, last time I checked.

It's like asking, "What does it take to become famous". Does the name Al Gore readily come to mind because he basically gifted the humanity with Internet? not really. The name Adolf Hitler comes to mind much more readily because of the crimes the Nazi apparatus (which he headed) committed against humanity. When you mix in the fact that people tend to be unable to properly distinguish fantasy from reality, wishful thinking from cold hard facts, that's when search for solid info becomes difficult.

No amount of mathematically correct hits by a search engine can reform someone who wouldn't know the correct answer even if it hit them on the nose.

 

[Alain De Vos]

Even when you ask an exact simple full url very correctly it answers by http://www.mywebsite.com why ? Its statistical brain tells it thats the right answer. But he is getting better.

 

[astyle]

Even when you ask an exact simple full url very correctly it answers by http://www.mywebsite.com why ? Its statistical brain tells it thats the right answer. But he is getting better.

Guess what that URL redirected ME to:

 

[Alain De Vos]

birdy,birdy,lol

 

[astyle]

Hey, how about a contest, to see who gets the funniest redirection from that URL?

 

[scottro]

I just tried it and got

uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading:

       
https://wegic-ai.pxf.io/Jkv6Je?Subid1=d80c1166-a220-4b4c-b2b9-257848399308&Subid2=3302
   
This happened because of the following filter:

   
||pxf.io^

       The filter has been found in:                Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list

 

[fernandel]

I got the same as scottro

 

[Alain De Vos]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEkkASSO-gS/

 

[DanielBowman]

Even when you ask an exact simple full url very correctly it answers by http://www.mywebsite.com why ? Its statistical brain tells it thats the right answer. But he is getting better.

Youtube was always bad like this. It drives me nuts. You put the exact name of the video in search field and it churns out nonsense.
Gemini on the other hand can find a video just by describing the content of it and speaker. It takes several iterations but it found me even quite obscure snippets.

Ai was originally developed to serve us ads and content. I have to say it failed miserably. Youtube even discarded recommended section.
Why is it so hard? Just serve me chicks, guns and unix content.

 

[DanielBowman]

Hey, how about a contest, to see who gets the funniest redirection from that URL?

I never have shopped on Aliexpress ever.

 

[atax1a]

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. 2+2 is still 4, last time I checked.

It's like asking, "What does it take to become famous". Does the name Al Gore readily come to mind because he basically gifted the humanity with Internet? not really. The name Adolf Hitler comes to mind much more readily because of the crimes the Nazi apparatus (which he headed) committed against humanity. When you mix in the fact that people tend to be unable to properly distinguish fantasy from reality, wishful thinking from cold hard facts, that's when search for solid info becomes difficult.

No amount of mathematically correct hits by a search engine can reform someone who wouldn't know the correct answer even if it hit them on the nose.

this is a breathtakingly complete nonsequitur that appears to not take into account the fact that the thing under discussion is not a "mathematically correct hit" generator, it is a literal regression-to-the-mean device. but we see from your other posts that you have surrendered your cognition to slop, so i guess that tracks. did you have claude write your reply here?

 

[Espionage724]

I never have shopped on Aliexpress ever.

I can vouch for em (built game controllers with buttons from there, SOIC clip and breadboard wires for BIOS modding, even a $8 drone free-ship in under a week)

---

If that URL is redirecting, presumably DNS isn't filtered? I'm on 1.1.1.2 with malware block and Firefox says server not found

 

[astyle]

this is a breathtakingly complete nonsequitur that appears to not take into account the fact that the thing under discussion is not a "mathematically correct hit" generator, it is a literal regression-to-the-mean device. but we see from your other posts that you have surrendered your cognition to slop, so i guess that tracks. did you have claude write your reply here?

There's kind of a difference between a mathematically correct hit and a hit that merely agrees with a user's opinion.

It seems like more and more users will insist that 2+2 is anything but 4, and will argue to infinity and back that if Google keeps returning '4', Google is incorrect, and therefore the users will need to find a more agreeable alternative AI that will say, "OK, don''t cry, here is your favorite 2+2=5, let's ignore the big bad Google that cannot provide an answer you like".

Next thing I know, DuckDuckGo will start sponsoring a free money generator app that makes everyone fabulously rich. And then all other community-built search engine alternatives will try to copy that.

And, you know that Claude is a model of Kohler toilets? I bet the Claude AI service is not aware of THAT. And DuckDuckGo is probably in the same boat.

 

[Usagi]

The last year? Where have you been? Google's search engine has been horrible for over 15 years now.

 

[NapoleonWils0n]

I use searxng

GitHub - searxng/searxng: SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from various search services and databases. Users are neither tracked nor profiled.

SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from various search services and databases. Users are neither tracked nor profiled. - searxng/searxng

github.com

SearXNG Documentation (2026.10.25+54ca1d9cf)

no ai, ads, clean urls

GitHub - NapoleonWils0n/freebsd-nixpkgs: Nixpkgs Podman containers on Freebsd with home-manager and flakes

Nixpkgs Podman containers on Freebsd with home-manager and flakes - NapoleonWils0n/freebsd-nixpkgs

github.com

there is a freebsd package for it but i prefer to use searxng in a podman container


i also use mcp-searxng-enhanced

GitHub - NapoleonWils0n/mcp-searxng-enhanced: Freebsd version of enhanced MCP server for SearXNG: category-aware web-search, web-scraping, and date/time retrieval.

Freebsd version of enhanced MCP server for SearXNG: category-aware web-search, web-scraping, and date/time retrieval. - NapoleonWils0n/mcp-searxng-enhanced

github.com

which is a mcp server for searxng that you can use with your local models
which gives the llm web access

i use qwen3.5:4b which has a 256k context window
which can handle large amounts of text

i use emacs with gptel as a front end

freebsd-dotfiles-xps/.config/emacs/init.el at master · NapoleonWils0n/freebsd-dotfiles-xps

freebsd dotfiles dell xps 15 2019. Contribute to NapoleonWils0n/freebsd-dotfiles-xps development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

GitHub - NapoleonWils0n/freebsd-dotfiles-xps: freebsd dotfiles dell xps 15 2019

freebsd dotfiles dell xps 15 2019. Contribute to NapoleonWils0n/freebsd-dotfiles-xps development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[cracauer@]

i use emacs with gptel as a front end

How is gptel working out for you, generally?

 

[NapoleonWils0n]

gptel is fantastic

using a org file which headings you can search through
is so much better than using Gemini which is impossible to scroll back and see the chat history

create custom system prompts, use tools
select the model, change the temperature, turn off thinking

you can use gptel-org-set-topic on a heading to create a new topic

 

[hrsetrdr]

I use DuckDuckGo on my phone, is annoying and cumbersome, but I shun the built-in Google browser because they are already too deep in my business.

 

[Alain De Vos]

I see duckduckgo uses gemma4 31B. I use better

 

[astyle]

Y'know, being able to search locally is good - it's one of the reasons I like textproc/obsidian so much. For Obsidian, the alternative stuff works great. But when it comes to being generally informed, everyone will praise their own little, limited, one-pony show of a carefully curated library that is close to home.

The difference between an independent search engine (that can look through a collection of info that you curate) and a public service (that covers a MUCH wider area):

It's like the difference between asking your kid [to find a usable brand of rice] (and there may be just 10 brands at most in your local grocery store anyway!) and asking an importer (who travels far and wide to select a type of rice that is suitable for local markets, and has to choose from literally hundreds of options for rice!)

Asking your kid to look in town for rice - you know the options are kind of limited. Trying to use DuckDuckGo is the same. The importer likely knows a LOT more about rice than you do, and knows what it takes to get the good rice.

If you don't like what the importer brings into town, are you gonna book a ticket to Thailand to get to a farm that you like so that you get the rice you're after? Same with Google, you gotta be able to replicate their infrastructure instead of leeching off it. If you don't like what Google returns to you, for free - go to your local library, collect your own outdated information that was printed on a piece of paper. Oh, these days, you may need to remember to set up print/cups from scratch at the library, for a fee.

The last year? Where have you been? Google's search engine has been horrible for over 15 years now.

yeah, how so? What was so good about Google, and how did that change into something that you find disagreeable now? Specific examples, please, and references to court cases that ordered Google to drastically change their direction in order to comply with law and protect the public. Otherwise, this commentary is nothing more than worthless political drivel. And I wonder if this comment gets read all the way to the end and understood by someone with a level head.

 

[Usagi]

yeah, how so? What was so good about Google, and how did that change into something that you find disagreeable now? Specific examples, please, and references to court cases that ordered Google to drastically change their direction in order to comply with law and protect the public. Otherwise, this commentary is nothing more than worthless political drivel. And I wonder if this comment gets read all the way to the end and understood by someone with a level head.

Ah yes the old "I'm going to accuse you of having the wrong politics so I don't have to engage with you" gambit. Gotta love the internet in 2026.

It was a good search engine for a few years. Then people learned how to game it with SEO. Then google started letting you pay to game it. Then they started to censor results based on the companies internal politics (whatever those are this week). Then they took off the "don't be evil" mask over a decade ago now and blatantly rubbed their censorship in everyone's nose and dared them to do anything about it.

So yeah. It has been terrible for 15 years. Actually more like 20 years now. But I'm getting old so it doesn't feel like over two decades ago.

I'm not citing sources. Which are not hard to find anyway since most of the "alternative search engines" are simply google's results with a different coat of paint. This isn't a paper. If you know you know. If you don't then you aren't worth paying attention to. If you do know and you're running damage control for what's happened to the web then you're actively malicious and again not worth paying attention to.

It isn't exactly hard to see the blatant censorship. Just go to youtube and type in anything considered a "conspiracy theory" into the search box. Behold the same handful of "approved sources" spreading lies polluting the search results while videos with millions of views are hidden (and often regularly have their view count reset). Even over relatively harmless stupid jokes.

It was bad 15 years ago. It was unusable 10 years ago. Now it mostly serves as a portal for stupid people that don't want to think for themselves to have a bot parrot their own opinion back to them. Most of which can't even type these days.

It's a search engine designed for people that actually think the reporting on the nightly news is fair and unbiased. The type of people that do not know what the Smith-Mundt Modernization act of 2013 is or why it allows their own Government to lie to them. Some of us require a search engine that can do more than answer search queries like: "They be pretending it ain't but it do why they hatin?".

 

[astyle]

Smith-Mundt Modernization act of 2013

First I learned of this, just now. And it's pretty outrageous/ridiculous that US taxpayers were paying for TV that is not even accessible within US borders. All that act did is make that same TV broadcast accessible stateside, domestically, upon request. That basically means you still gotta use Freedom of Information Act to even figure out WTF Uncle Sam is saying while invading foreign lands. And the stuff he's saying - of course he doesn't want anyone inside Land of the Free, Home of the Brave to know - he still remembers the debacle of the Vietnam war and the widespread domestic antiwar sentiment back then.

It's a search engine designed for people that actually think the reporting on the nightly news is fair and unbiased.

I disagree with that assessment. I never thought that nightly news is fair and unbiased. In fact, Google is an excellent place to research informed counterpoints to the stuff on nightly news TV.

It isn't exactly hard to see the blatant censorship. Just go to youtube and type in anything considered a "conspiracy theory" into the search box. Behold the same handful of "approved sources" spreading lies polluting the search results while videos with millions of views are hidden (and often regularly have their view count reset). Even over relatively harmless stupid jokes.

Imagine that you're the one with the metal and expertise, providing a public service. Stuff that is considered "conspiracy theory" is hardly for the benefit of the public. You gotta provide solid information that reflects reality, not somebody's unrealistic fantasy. Gotta be able to tell between reality and fiction.

And yeah, I was never a fan of SEO.