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Ask Slashdot: Are There Any Search Engines Left That Don't Try To Think For Me?
An anonymous reader writes: As a programmer especially, I'm becoming increasingly unhappy with Google searches. They try very hard to present me with what they think I'm searching for instead of what I'm actually searching for. This issue mostly shows up when searching error messages, obscure type and function names and stuff like that. What I think though, is that I only notice the issue when searching for stuff I know a lot about, namely programming, but my queries get distorted when I'm searching for just about anything, I just don't know enough about the subject to notice. Are there any alternative search engines left that don't think they know better than me what I'm looking for and just search for my phrase, like in the 2000s?
Searching for exact strings is an option with Google, but what search engines are the most hands-off to start with?
I've had the very same problem for years now. I get exclusively results that other people got, who searched something vaguely similar.
First, you have to enclose every fucking word between quotes or you get only Taylor Swift and Kardashian search results.
Second, even _if_ you do that, it ignores all the punctuations I enter. I _really_ want only the results where there are exactly the period or comma on exactly the place where I put it, how hard can that be?
If I search for carbuncles, I don't need to see cars of somebody's uncle.
And don't even mention if you use a VPN, then you'll get Estonian or Russian results even when you enter only English words.
Google has become useless other than for clueless teens.
Why can't they just have a checkbox that you can select:
Check this box if you can spell and really mean what you type.
Try enclosing your error output in quotation marks. That tells Google that you're looking for that phrase, not just that combination of words.
Did you mean: "Are there any search engines left that try to think for me?" Try one of the following:
https://google.com
https://bing.com
https://duckduckgo.com
https://dogpile.com
https://duckduckgo.com/
When the results are displayed go to Search Tools and change All Results to Verbatim
Use incognito or some sort of privacy mode. Google wouldn't have a prior search history so it'll not "distort" the results.
If you're looking for a Linux command ... throw the word Linux in.
Sometimes it takes a little coaxing to tell Google what the hell you're searching for, that doesn't mean it's not there, it means you're not giving enough context.
And, sometimes, what you're looking for is so damned specific there's almost nothing on the internet for it.
I've always found a couple of keywords and some quoted strings can go a long way to coaxing out what you're looking for.
Maybe your problem isn't that the search engine is thinking too much, it's that you're not thinking enough and blaming it for trying to help. If it's just common words, you'll get the most common matches.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Tell me about it!
Search for something like NSTableView, it give you back results for UITableView (since it thinks that because there's more links with 'UITableView', then golly gee, you therefore must really mean that, don't you?)
AC comments get piped to
Your google-fu is weak!
You must learn the way of the plus and the minus, the quote is not enough.
That's what I WANT Google! Free stuff! Stop it!
SourceForge hijacks Firefox project
startpage.com works reasonably well and doesn't try to outsmart you too much; I find it works well for error messages. They also don't track you, so that's nice.
There are proxies for google like startpage that wouldn't be able to think for you, because they wouldn't see you at all.
http://www.atlasify.com/
Atlas at least thinks differently. As I understand it, rather than feed you a zillion links to the same data, it attempts to find your data, and related data. I'm not real sure how good, or how bad that is, but it's different.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Specifically for error messages, put double quotes around the string for more accurate results. Adjust to avoid including local information. Example: (a made up) error message "An application on your machine rudolph process number 28433 for user barbie_doll has caused an inexcusable memory management error." would be searched as:
"An application on your machine" "process number" "for user" "has caused an inexcusable memory management error".
As someone else said, if it's a linux machine, make the first word "linux". Or the flavor of linux, or if windows, include that and the version, or if appropriate the name of the application.
"Windows 2008" IIS "401 unauthorized" "access list"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
There's a niche biz for ya: GeekSearch
Table-ized A.I.
If you are a woman that wants to learn how to wrestle from other women, just forget about google. Not going to help.
I would love a search platform that categories searches as functionally identical. Similar to the Web vs Image vs News categories. I would love a search engine that can say, search for a picture of a man dodging a car but have the option of NOT showing any pictures of Dodge (as in Chrysler) cars.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
No, results are still distorted due to geolocation, language and other unknown techniques. I encounter this issue in a very painful way when I travel.
At home I search for widgets and get a listing of widgets. Good or bad, it is a listing that I get every time I search for widgets when within my home town.
When I travel to a foreign country, I CANNOT reproduce those same results, even if I specify the location as being my home city. In some cases these searches will provide not a single similar widget link to those that appear on the first three pages at home. It's HUGELY frustrating.
But, it also gives me pause about what results I am missing out on when I'm at home. My results(incognito even) are so targeted that I don't see any results outside my sphere. I'm sure that there are probably significant developments in widgets in Brazil, or Italy, or Japan. But, even if I use google.jp to search when I am in my hometown, my results are still mostly the same as searching google.com, just in Kanji.
For a few years now, Google has been getting increasingly less useful due to its "increased intelligence". I want information on widgets. I don;t need that information curated because of where I am or because my neighbor searched for J-Lo.
Google (and all other search engines) try their best to return the results the user has asked for. It's never going to be perfect at doing this, if only because people use the same phrases in different ways from time to time. If Google (or the search engine of your choice) is returning results that aren't what you want, then your best option is to make the query more specific. Either add relevant keywords, search for a phrase instead of individual words (using quotes), or exclude some other keywords (in Google, prepend - to the beginning of the word you want to exclude...other search engines are probably similar).
Also, if Google is returning crappy results for some query or other, feel free to send feedback (link is at the bottom of the page). I'm sure other search engines have similar functionality.
problem solved.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Most people want search engines to understand synonyms, misspellings and contextual relevancy and return results that one had in mind rather than string matches. This only becomes more important with mobile/voice search.
You may have better luck with internal search of sites like stackoverflow.
If you can't find what you're looking for with the advanced search controls available on any search engine, then I question your claim to be a programer and can't help but wonder if you're just Google bashing.
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
You want a search engine that knows what you meant by "2000s" and doesn't just return simple string matches, but you don't want that same engine to "think" for you. How would that look to you for any arbitrary search?
How is the search engine supposed to have any context of what you want without more information?
"Peanut butter" What do you want back, places that make it, sell it, grow the peanuts, ship it, recipes, allergies, how to make it stick to people's skin, using it to get pills down your dog's throat? Is there band called peanut butter, an album, song, artist, patinting, place?
There's no "simple" search you could use that wound't require the search engine to "think" for you. A full an complete set of search parameters is needed to get to what YOU want.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I think that as good as it sounds on paper, bringing back the days of super-literal, highly gameable Netscape-style search behavior probably isn't what you really want. I think that the search engine you're really looking for is probably just Google's from 10 years ago, or Google's now, but while logged-in so you can disable some of the more annoying new features; Like the one where it tries to auto-predict every search text to match the most popular celebrity wardrobe malfunction incident in current news headlines.
http://symbolhound.com/
Keeps symbols in the search, especially nice for searches using programming operators.
Google has enabled search operators
https://sites.google.com/site/gwebsearcheducation/advanced-operators
There is also an advanced search form available.
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
Using these features combined, I don't have any issues finding anything I need in Google's database.
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
"-Kardashian" just to be on the safe side.
Table-ized A.I.
"The cutting edge technology that provides me free access to humanity's collected knowledge sometimes impudently brings me slightly different results than I demanded." I think we have reached the apex of first world problems.
I cannot vouch for its security or anything, but it's been helpful: http://symbolhound.com/
I bet you could craft a local, static HTML page which would present you with a search box into which you could type your search. You could then wrap each term in quotes and send the whole thing off to google.
You could also make a second text entry box when you want the entire string to be quoted.
Yes, you can always add quotes manually, but that's tedious.
I wonder if Firefox has an extension which provides a 'literal google' search option?
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
GoodGopher.com
I like the idea. But I fear the implementation. The introduction video on the home page makes me think they should have called it agentmulder.com...
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
But, I didn't get cars or uncles, as the upper-poster complained....I did learn something new: furuncles. I had those. I got better. Now, I KNOW what those things were. Thanks Google, thanks upper-poster, thanks to the Internet.
Back when Google was new, I avoided it for the longest time because I'd spent so long with Atavista and friends curating my searches with "+this", "-that" and other modifiers, but Google didn't support them well.
Turns out, Google didn't support them because it didn't need to. It would return the right results by phrasing the query naturally, not like some bastardised SQL incantation.
Give in to querying like a human and you might find Google works much better for you. There are a lot of very smart people that understand how people look for data, including the long tail. Trying to second guess them is a path to failure.
This is a perfect example of the flawed interface design philosophy many tech giants fall prey to, and it boils down to "we know what you want better than you do".
To their credit, companies like Google and Microsoft and Facebook put their best minds behind these problems and come up with technically ingenious solutions. That's part of the problem. It must be correct and it must be better, because we worked so hard on it using proven methods. But people who know what they want find these products difficult to use, difficult to control, and even vaguely insulting.
The Facebook news feed is a triumph in machine learning, as is/was Microsoft's ribbon interface in UI, and Google's search in contextualized search... They're based on solid research, mass user polling, hard big data, and ambitious technical goals of competent engineers. Yet, they can't get it right because they continue to look at the problem and ignoring the people, often condescendingly so.
It takes understanding for users to have clear intentions. As others have said, if the user doesn't know anything about what they are searching for, Google does a good job of educating their guesses. And to their credit, these companies are successfully serving the inept majority. But anyone who continues to use their products inevitably will have clearer intentions, because with use, we naturally get smarter. That is why the more we use these tools, the more we have reasons to hate them. The more we find things we wish to do with these tools, the more we find they are less accommodating.
The technical solution is rather simple. Interfaces are intention driven, and if they're not driven by the intentions of the user, they are driven by the intentions of the developers. Hence, each feature can be tested for the intentions they serve, and those that serve the user must be added and made more prominent. An existing example in facebook is the "don't show me posts from ___" feature. But other's that don't exist would be listing entries in strict chronological order, or listing entries unfiltered. They could be simple checkboxes and implementation would be simple (boring almost).
The technical solution is far easier than what really needs to happen, and that is a change in attitude and philosophy of the people building these products. They need to be more embracing and less insistent on user behavior. They need to stop thinking they know better. They need to stop judging their own solutions by their technical prowess. People who know what they want need to be able to choose, and for the most part, intentions are simple. Simple intentions garner simple select-able features. If this is too boring, maybe they need to stop using users as guinea pigs, quit their insanely high paying job, and go back to academia where they could do some really interesting work.
I gave up on Google when they pushed ads up front in a fashion that makes you think they are actual results. DuckDuckGo is interesting but not enough customization for me. Actually I like Bing and I kind of fell into using Bing from buying a cheap notebook with Windows 8.1 Bing OS. It has Bing search as the only default choice on the notebook. Of course you can change it to whatever you want, but surprising I ended up just sticking with Bing.
Ever considered that it might be DNS fuckery messing with your search query?
http://symbolhound.com/
These two developments have completely hijacked relevant searches for me. SEO was bad enough but seriously, it's time for a new search provider out there.
GoodGopher.com
I just read the about page. You're suggesting a search engine by a tin foil hat wearing anti-vaxxer that promotes "alternative" medicine? No wonder you're anonymous.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
For several years now, Google has taken to ignoring all of the punctuation in my query to "give me more results," when I added them to get me less results and avoid wasting time wading through page after page of irrelevancy. Yes, I know that I can force Google to Do It My Way, but only after the fact and in any event, I shouldn't have to. Google knows how to give me exactly what I asked for so why doesn't it Just Do The Right Thing. Google may not be doing evil, but it's forgotten that if you don't please your users they won't come back and there won't be any ad revenue. Personally, I've switched to startpage.com, not so much for privacy issues but because it returns the kind of results I want, not what gives them the most advertisements.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Stick a hot rod into the megacorps and all the gobbermint censors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YaCy
The megacorp might still have the bigger index, though.
You could run your own cluster, if you have a large internet connection and some servers at your disposal.
Average Slashdotter: Knows precisely what is being searched for, knows it's a bit obscure, knows how to spell, and knows that queries for such a thing are going to require the human to adapt to the technology - if required or possible, might be willing/able to provide an actual SQL query. More likely to run some form of ad blocker, and even if they don't, is much more likely to distinguish an ad for a search result, and not click on it.
Average User: Can't tell Google from Trivoli (or whatever flavor-of-the-week ad-serving Google clone is going around), can't tell an address bar from a search bar, can't tell a sponsored result from an organic listing, can't pass a seventh grade spelling test, asks Google questions as if it is a human and will provide human answers, and is probably looking for the same thing everyone else is looking for.
You're Google, and you're trying to make money. Who do you optimize for?
It's a pretty sucky time to be a techie. *toddles off to IRC and Usenet*
Idiots.
Really annoying idiots.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
Wolfram Alpha
The same is said to be the case with clippy. The prototype version rarely appeared and when it did it was almost always correct and helpful. The shipping version was this animated character always sitting on the screen, raising the eyebrows in a distracting fashion, and obnoxiously autocorrecting a[i] into a[I].
Wow, you're right. They've co opted the + to search Google+ pages. WTF? From the page you linked to: "[+ symbol usage:] Search for Google+ pages or blood types Examples: +Chrome or AB+"
Actually, you're wrong.
Seriously, I felt like I had more control, and quicker successes, back in the days when Netscape was a major contender in the browser wars.
My +'s and -'s were honored more than now, and my search experiences were better than they are today. If I got results I didn't want, I could add a - to get something better. Nowadays it seems my directions are ignored due to engine attempts to out-think me about what I really meant, assuming that is different than what I said.
The days of the super-literal wasn't just good-sounding on paper: it was better, and I would love to have the option to bring those back.
Unfortunately, the engines that have spidered a sufficient amount of the web all seem to have devolved into this attempt to devalue any literal hints that I could provide.
Once upon a time, you could perform this kind of search
[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!
context
Do you know how to search correctly? If you aren't using the correct search modifiers then you'll likely end up getting what you aren't looking for from time to time.
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en
My filter.json API requests to stream.twitter.com still seem to do a plain search (except punctuation). Up until last month, http://twitter.com/search was extremely useful for plain search, but I think they changed it (either to give far fewer results, or to make its own guess of what I actually want).
1) Go to Settings / Search / Manage Search Engines
2) Under custom search engines, create a new one called X, with keyword (second column) X, with URL https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=li:1
3) Click Done. Now, back in your search bar, type X, press tab, and now it will search on the X search engine you just made, which will send all queries to encrypted.google.com with verbatim mode on.
4) You can optionally set this to your default search engine in Chrome.
Note you can change "X" to whatever you want.
Try this
Absolutely agree. I used to do searches like the example below all the time and get the result as first. Now it seems it's trying to outsmart me and not getting it right.
Search (without quotes):
we found the young girl you mean human perfect to me
This is verbatim taken out of part of an audio I heard. Google doesn't get it at all. The correct result should be:
http://www.badmovies.org/othermovies/lifeforce/
All the words, VERY close together and IN THE SAME ORDER.
"Searching for exact strings is an option with Google"
No it isn't. Google will never respect an exact string match, not even when you choose "verbatim". A search for ".sdd.sf" using the "verbatim" option will include results without the first ".", as well as the typical unrelated extra results listed next to the top result. I only use this example because it was the last search I performed.
They ALWAYS try to "help" you. You can't even stop them from localizing your search anymore. At best, you can specify a country.
Absolutely agree with this. Something changed and it wasn't long ago.
Before a search like the one below used to return the result in first place. Now it seems like it's trying to outsmart me and not getting it right.
Search (without quotes):
we found the young girl you mean human perfect to me
This is part of a quote I heard in an audio file.
The correct result should be:
http://www.badmovies.org/othermovies/lifeforce/
This contains all the words, VERY close together and IN THE SAME ORDER.
I'm glad other people are finally realizing this.
Google sucks at nearly everything they do. Their most successful things are acquisitions and even then, leave it up to Google to turn these services into shit.
I like this one: http://sequoiam.com/
Dead simple, just works...
I know this will come across as being a Google fanboy, but I've been really impressed with Google recently, completely counter to the poster's question. We work in the same industry, but that doesn't mean a whole lot as there is no mention of what langue(s) they work with, so maybe it's something obscure that even Google isn't good at returning search results for. For me? I think it's great and I use it to do exactly what's described. It would take a lot of cycles to compute the exact amount of time Google saves me these days (compared to doing the same job in 2000, for example) doing exactly what it does today for queries I assume must be similar to the posters.
Some background. I'm a US tech worker. I worked in software development for a major US corporation starting in college and continued as my first full time "grown up" job until 2007 when I couldn't ignore the itch to get involved in the US's War on Terror; I joined the US Army as an infantryman, enlisted. I had very supportive colleagues who said "technology will always be there" but with the quick pace at which the sector moves I knew there was no real way to keep up. Fast forward to 2013 when I had done my time and was getting geared back up to re-enter the tech sector, I had a real fear that I wouldn't be able to get up to speed or keep up. Honestly, Google has helped immeasurably. Using Google, it's been way easier to get up to speed and stay up to speed than it was when I was starting out, and my mind was much sharper back then I think (age alone, setting aside the impacts of a few years at war and around my share of large explosions). I'm not sure I could have jumped back in, at least nearly as quickly, if it weren't for the present state of "search" and the advancements at Google. Plus, their services rock pretty hard.
I'm impressed when they search through the world of straight crap (unintentional) and the world of the intentionally misleading to deliver to me results I actually find useful. I don't think I'd get as useful a result from a search engine that returned results based on page content and meta data alone. Maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't found Google lacking and because I had to get up to speed I'd wager I've used it more heavily than most in the last couple years.
Or was it actually called V.E.R.O.N.I.C.A.? There's also gopher...
Google sanitizes your input in the search bar. This is to avoid various hacks that people have used against them over the years.
You are attacking a person's search engine based on something that has nothing to do with their search engine.
From the site's front page:
Submit your site to the world's first search engine that filters out corporate propaganda and government disinfo!
With your help, we are building the internet's largest search engine for those searching for information and news on liberty, natural healing, central banks, food freedom, advanced science and a multitude of other topics no longer allowed in NSA-controlled search engines.
Try Sequoiam - just does search and no annoying ads or directions to bars and crap...
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
wget -O - http://./* | grep -i
Problem is, Google and Bing are set up to produce optimum results for the 98% of users that have little to no idea of how to frame a search query; have only fair-to-middling spelling, grammar; and are looking for topics for which the first page or two, at most, of results will get them where they want to go. They are not designed for serious, scholarly, in-depth, obscure, complex or nitpicking search queries. Like many things in life, they are dumbed down to serve the masses.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
iZSearch is a general purpose search engine that finds and returns relevant web sites, images, videos and realtime results.
By default, iZSearch shows only minimal ads at the bottom of the search results page. iZSearch does not sell data about you to third parties, including advertisers and data brokers.
Search It Easy with iZSearch! http://izsearch.com/
I don't know about being logged in, but my home page has Verbatim Google search rather than raw Google (and Verbatim set in my search prefs--which requires being logged in, for when I don't access it from my own page form). Quotes help too of course for specific purposes, and -uselessresultterm as well. I do wish for original Alta Vista back though.
Verbatim FTW.
It gets you *almost* back to the pre-Google+ days, when they took away the "+" sign as a search modifier.
The complaints about punctuation are relatively bogus, as that's not stored. It was never stored, even in Altavista.
On substitution of search terms, they always, if the give you substitute results based on a spelling correction, they give you the option of searching for what you asked for exactly, or you can force the issue up front with quotes.
I also miss Altavista, but you had to be something of a lexicographer (i.e. you effectively "think like a search engine" and do your own categorizations, rather than relying on the search engine) to get better results out of it than the average person, who is a relatively poor classifier, gets out of Google doing their classifying for them.
used to be clusty.
at least you get clustered results
work in progress
(Posting as AC because I have moderated)
Default behavior is fine as is, we just want a setting where *absolutely with no games* if you go into "advanced/super-advanced/black-box" mode, what you type as a precise query really comes back as is.
The problem is even some of those things right now are bleeding into the default suggested settings because it's more fun (lucrative?) to fill a page than find exactly three matches.
Something not quite similar was discussed in Scott Adam's
column. I like the idea of simply adding a "I'm Feeling Unlucky" button
to change the algorithm once you have given up on what is being
given by default.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/119279182711/death-by-seo
Since I clear my cache, cookies and everything when i exit firefox. I get the Make google your home page at the top of my screen ALL THE TIME!!!!! google already is my home page.
I hate it and it annoys me.
Stop it!!! google.
You can envelop multiple portions of your search parameters with quotation marks, remove polluted popular results. E.g. window -microsoft "suspended frames"
i.e. when searching for code-related stuff, use code.google.com
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
great suggestion
mfwright@batnet.com
https://framabee.org/
I don't see anti-vax or anything about foil (tin, aluminum, etc.) on the front page.
does not suggest a damn thing.
They are actually limiting your adwords selection too, so that you can't advertise using a combination of keywords that is too unpopular. It's crazy, but it means that if you can pick a niche search in the long tail that your product works for, you can't advertise to those people directly.
Yes, it's getting very annoying these days, because a lot of times it just comes with different results as I'm expecting.. And what's even worse, if I use the same keywords as a co-worker, he always get's the right results, I always get some garbage which doesn't help me at all...
There propably is a way to direct it, but they should make it much easier...
http://yacy.net/
Create a bookmarklet whose content is this:
javascript:location="https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q="+prompt("Search item - separate words with plus signs")+"&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tbs=li:1";
When you want to search for something, click on the bookmarklet. When the small prompt window appears, enter the search word(s). Separate multiple words with plus signs (ex: happy+days). At the top of the resulting Google web page, in the "All results / Verbatim" menu, you'll see that "Verbatim" is selected.
You might have to adjust the bookmarklet to work in your browser. In your web browser, do a Google search, and check to see what "https://www.google.com/search?..." url is created. Adjust the bookmarklet to fit the url that you got.
Why do you feel the urge to think for yourself? Are you a malcontent? A dissident? A radical? Are you (gasp!) a terrorist?
It's this stupid "semantic" search of theirs. Crikey, all the time I've wasted parsing results and performing refined searches trying to filter out inaccurate results...
I miss the simpler Google of yesteryear, it just worked.
Now? Not so much.
if you are searching for code (eg function names and how to use them), then use a code search engine. Since google shut down theirs you can try https://code.openhub.net/ https://codesearch.debian.net/ ( !co and !dsource respectively on duckduckgo https://duckduckgo.com/bang )
None are great, but my current search order is:
1) Duckduckgo
2) Bing
3) Google
If I get down to Google though, I've pretty much lost all hope.
Is there money to be made by maintaining the usefulness of their core product....? Is there money to be made by staying in business?
Companies who act like Google does, generally don't stay in business for long.
Google is circling the drain.
I contantly try other search engines, but that all seem to fall way short.
I think a lot of it is censorship.
This is /. , and you don't know about aternatiuve search engines such as ixquick, or duckkduckgo? They don't do autocomplete, or try to "guide" your searches.. particularly ixquick..where I can couch my searches precisely as I want them to behave.. yet no mention...
You have to think about searches a little differently than on Google, but I've been using it for about five years, and it's gotten noticeably better over that time (or I have adapted).
Like Startpage, it doesn't track you.
wg
Google should really start providing a search context or search persona system that allows you as the user to explicitly specify what sort of results you're looking for (e.g. programmer, chemistry student, hipster trash) as well as a plain no filter bubble option. I'm also encountering issues such as those pointed out by OP.
There is no such thing as an ad hominem attack. It is a fallacy.
Slightly off-topic: I'd also like a way of getting news through Google that WASN'T based on preferences. Too much stuff is returned from partisan news sites, which is fine, but I want to hear all sides and see who has the most cogent arguments. The "echo chamber" effect ends up feeding divisiveness.
So I have to rephrase my query to suit Google? Why? Oh, you answered it - I'm not one of the 80%.
OK. Anyone know of a good search engine?
This is why we don't like you. You just read what he said, you even acknowledge it. Try this:
Anyone know of a good search engine?
Please point out to us where in your reply did you contribute something regarding the search capabilities, accuracy, or operational technologies employed in the GoodGopher engine. As is typical of hypocrites like you, you told us all what to do without doing it your damned self. Could you go ahead and drop us a link to the blog you've created to bitch about things you don't agree with? Wait? You don't have one? Kindly pike off, berk!
Check http://www.nagaiah.com/
https://duckduckgo.com/ They don't track you or sell your data and do a pretty good job.
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
wolframalpha.com is a good resource
"It is fixed. " No it's nothing. Nothing at Google is ever fixed. "Google spends a lot of effort on optimizing search and has very sophisticated and effective metrics for tracking what works well and what doesn't. " If it's so sophisticated, then why do they keep breaking my shit? "The thing is that you don't search like 99.99% of people search, and so the feedback loop optimizes away from you and towards others." Free clue: power users like me are what drive adoption of things. If your search sucks for me, then fuck you; every computer I use, and build for others, will default to some other search engine. "Another poster above mentioned that it's better when signed in... I don't know if that's actually true, but Google does do some degree of search personalization, so it makes sense. " If I have to sign in to make your piece of shit work the way it's supposed to, I'm never visiting the site at all. Ever. "What works better these days, I find, is just to type a plain English question." And what happens when one's request can't really be turned into a question, simpleton? "I think a lot of the complaints about the change in search engine is from people who are still trying to use modern search engines they way they used them in 2000. Don't. " I can't wait until your piece of shit company sinks below the waves. You seem determined to make that happen.