You noticed how google search became unusably shit a few years ago
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@gsuberland @MisterMaker @osman @seq @morgunkorn @kagihq DDG? … I guess this is one conversation where no one can say “let me google that for you”
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@msbellows @mark @ocean As luck would have it, our internet search player is compatible with both Google and Bing, also a myriad of other “formats” that would not contain AI.
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You noticed how google search became unusably shit a few years ago?
Turns out that was on purpose -
@ocean@raru.re
if anyone else wanted to read the rest of the artaicle, the screenshot is from the following article:
https://journalrecord.com/2025/02/20/is-google-making-search-worse-to-sell-more-ads/ -
@ocean TF2 Heavy Voice "Not big surprise!"
@ocean also confirmed true...
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You noticed how google search became unusably shit a few years ago?
Turns out that was on purpose@ocean We already knew, but a reminder is always welcome:
https://www.wheresyoured.at/requiem-for-raghavan/
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/ -
@ocean Search "ten blue links" and follow the instructions for making your default browser google-web. The udf=14? tag improves results significantly. Check my syntax on that...
Unfortunately udm=14 appears to be getting stripped out of URL after search, and I'm getting the local product purchase results.
Google warned a couple months ago it was going to enshitify, I mean, "AI enhance," the web results.. I guess it's here.
https://tedium.co/2025/03/14/udm14-search-hack-google-ai-testing/
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@TerrorBite @aetios @ocean I've already found a new one & it has quickly become my favorite. My current conspiracy theory is that everything will be ok.
@jackemled @TerrorBite @aetios @ocean Call me a conspirator.
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You noticed how google search became unusably shit a few years ago?
Turns out that was on purpose@ocean that is just evil
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You noticed how google search became unusably shit a few years ago?
Turns out that was on purpose@ocean so google turning into a giant ad listicle wasnt just in my head. well i quit using it anyway so fuck you sundar pajeeti -
@WandererUber @m0xEE @ocean I don't think I've ever encountered a machine-assisted translation system, but I distinctly recall thinking I hit the jackpot after jacking the early translation software that I do believe debuted during the latter nineties. I know that this was one of the rare occasions where I absolutely did not procrastinate for a second. and immediately started IMing (on the great AOL Superhighway built by the Great Steven Case, PBUH) as many people I could in the great nations of France and Germany. Although the responses ran the gamut from utter revulsion to a few who died laughing at their keyboards, they were universal in politely asking to please stop this madness - whatever I may have thought I was saying in German or French was anything but, and this software could only be useful if my intent were to convince the native speakers that the the Tower of Babel really did fall directly on top of my head.
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@jeff They weren't always.
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@jeff Thereabouts.
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@ocean If that is not enshittification as defined by @pluralistic...
@wonka @ocean @pluralistic And in fact @pluralistic has an excellent series about this at: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-understood/episode/16142603-introducing-understood-who-broke-the-internet (or what I'm sure will be excellent - I've only listened to the first so far)
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@WandererUber @m0xEE @ocean I don't think I've ever encountered a machine-assisted translation system, but I distinctly recall thinking I hit the jackpot after jacking the early translation software that I do believe debuted during the latter nineties. I know that this was one of the rare occasions where I absolutely did not procrastinate for a second. and immediately started IMing (on the great AOL Superhighway built by the Great Steven Case, PBUH) as many people I could in the great nations of France and Germany. Although the responses ran the gamut from utter revulsion to a few who died laughing at their keyboards, they were universal in politely asking to please stop this madness - whatever I may have thought I was saying in German or French was anything but, and this software could only be useful if my intent were to convince the native speakers that the the Tower of Babel really did fall directly on top of my head.@bigmattoidchimpin@annihilation.social @WandererUber@poa.st @ocean@raru.re
Ha-ha-ha-ha! Yeah, that's exactly why I called it machine-assisted translation — it wasn't a translation per se, more like a rough draft to work with. If you were doing translation commercially it could save you some time, but you still had to speak both languages to work with it. Software like that often included tools for proofreading and additional dictionaries you could plug in as it couldn't even detect the context — the field the text is from and you had to give it a few kicks in the back to get better results: that's a medical text, that's an engineering article, etc. Using wrong dictionaries could give you really funny results
The technology later got adopted in a more mainstream way, but the results were… yeah, like that 🤭
When I use Google Translate via SimplyTranslate today I get thrown back to those days: like WTF is this?!!! This word obviously has different meaning in this context! I'm using it to translate posts in foreign languages on Fedi and it's still somewhat usable for that, but in its current form I sure won't be using it to write comments in foreign languages. I'm just not confident about the results AT ALL
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@Cyrillic@lab.nyanide.com @ocean@raru.re
Noticed that too! I'm keeping no cookies — they are getting cleaned up as soon as I close the tab, Google should know nothing about the region. The IP addresses I'm using are detected either as US or as Polish in all the GeoIP databases, and yet Español… where did THAT come from?
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@lispi314@udongein.xyz @prisixia@mk.absturztau.be @ocean@raru.re @cwg1231@defcon.social have you guys heard about books?
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@lispi314@udongein.xyz @prisixia@mk.absturztau.be @ocean@raru.re @cwg1231@defcon.social have you guys heard about books?
@Stellar @prisixia @cwg1231 @ocean Inconvenient things to duplicate, it was an actual job for a reason.
Difficult to access remotely as well. Rather problematic with a pandemic (to say nothing of unrelated logistical hurdles). It wouldn't be so bad if institutional ageism didn't make so many libraries age-gate postal loaning & returns behind being elderly or disabled with papers to prove it (accessibility challenges? What's that?
), when they provide it at all.
All the things I name have solutions yes, but they also are not applied for reasons unknown to me.
