Ariadne Conill 🐰
the worst thing about the so-called "AI revolution" is that google and duckduckgo are just increasingly useless now
Mar 28 at 2:03pmWeb
Show threadLaurent Bercot2d ago

@ariadne They've been useless for a while, Google's websearch has been incrementally (and intentionally) made worse since 2015.

It's just blatantly obvious now.

Show thread@pndc2d ago
@ariadne The uBlacklist extension (https://github.com/iorate/ublacklist) does at least let you nuke the worst of the slopsites and other bullshit sites (Tripadvisor, Quora, etc) from your search results and makes things a little bit better.
GitHub - iorate/ublacklist: Blocks specific sites from appearing in Google search results

Blocks specific sites from appearing in Google search results - iorate/ublacklist

GitHub
Show threadRodrigo Ghedin2d ago
@pndc @ariadne it's been a few months that DuckDuckGo has this feature built-in https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/how-to-block-sites-from-appearing-in-search-results
How To Block Sites From Appearing in DuckDuckGo Search Results - DuckDuckGo Help Pages

Want to know more about a DuckDuckGo product or feature? Find answers to frequently asked questions and more at DuckDuckGo Help.

Show thread@pndc2d ago
@manualdousuario @ariadne "You can add up to five domains to your block list". That won't even scratch the surface. I have ~400 domains in my ever-growing blocklist.
Show threadRodrigo Ghedin2d ago
@pndc @ariadne ouch! Haven't reach that part. Yeah, I agree, it's useless
Show threadSierra2d ago

@ariadne idk if you’re aware, they don’t exactly advertise it, but for increasingly lightweight DDG:

https://noai.duckduckgo.com

https://html.duckduckgo.com

https://lite.duckduckgo.com

DuckDuckGo - Protection. Privacy. Peace of mind.

The Internet privacy company that empowers you to seamlessly take control of your personal information online, without any tradeoffs.

DuckDuckGo
Show threadAlbert Cardona2d ago

@ariadne

As of the last year I search Wikipedia more and more. Also the internet archive directly.

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧2d ago

@ariadne i can definitely name a few worse things but it's definitely up there

if i haven't had my queue chock full of stuff i'd make a reputation driven search engine

Show threadMoses Izumi2d ago
@ariadne
Around 2023 I started using Startpage, because it's just Google Search without the targeted junk.
Today I'm considering moving away from Startpage, because of Google blatantly gimping their normal results to push auto-generated summaries.
- searxng has good image search, but the text engine tends to feed me random results
- marginalia has a (healthy) bias toward personal and noncommercial websites

Guess I'll have to study @Seirdy 's writeup on search engines more often.
https://seirdy.one/posts/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-indexes/
A look at search engines with their own indexes

A cursory review of all the non-metasearch, indexing search engines I have been able to find.

Seirdy’s Home
Show threadMoses Izumi2d ago
@ariadne @Seirdy
For what it's worth, I've used @marginalia 's mirror of Wikipedia more than their search engine.
Show threadlhp2d ago
@ariadne I think that it's now basically impossible to have a slop-free system is arguably worse, but this is definitely up there. Recently wanted to look something up for which didn't yet know the exact terms, all I found were AI generated SEO spam articles about using AI to increase SEO.