6 ms·

I remember I used to do filetype searches for mp3, mp4, flac, etc... and get all sorts of good stuff. I would find ftp servers with thousands of songs and just

by shiado 8y ago

I remember I used to do filetype searches for mp3, mp4, flac, etc... and get all sorts of good stuff. I would find ftp servers with thousands of songs and just download anything interesting. I feel like the Google search algorithm peaked many years ago and has gradually been neutered by all sorts of special interest groups who have no doubt harassed Google with legal threats. Google probably doesn't want to censor results the way they have been forced to. Even pdf filetype searches got ruined too because Elsevier and JSTOR probably harassed Google as well. The recent change to Google images where they removed links to images made me switch to Bing.

iaml 8y ago
It would be funny to see bing finally reach google search quality not because it got better, but because google got worse.
- visarga 8y ago
  I use Bing whenever I want to find "pirate" sites.
- andrewmcwatters 8y ago
  This is already frequently true depending on what you're looking for.
  - dalbasal 8y ago
    They probably do this the way Google usually does, some sort of probability of similarity. They don't know for sure if a picture is pornographic, or a piece of audio is fair use. Once they reach acceptable accuracy, in their calculus....
    - KMag 8y ago
      A lot of stuff falls into grey areas both for AI classification and human opinion. Let's not forget that humans disagree widely over what's pornographic and what's fair use. Let's not pretend there's a canonical oracle of pornography or (apart from court rulings) what's fair use. It stinks when their AI is clearly wrong or when you disagree with their AI, but it's hard to fault them for setting some accuracy goal when they're trying to hit a fuzzy target anyway. Maybe your complaint is really that their appeals process is too opaque or difficult. There I agree, but I don't fault them for stopping short of perfect on their AI classifiers.
- hiccuphippo 8y ago
  It is already better for video search. I don't remember Google video search being that good.
- clarry 8y ago
  I just used Google Image search and in frustration switched to DDG because I have no idea how to get direct links to the images that Google presents. I don't think it was always this hard? Or maybe I've grown dumber. EDIT: Evidently you can right-click and view image. I thought that wouldn't get me to the original image since the image as presented in search is smaller in resolution than what Google says the image really is. Either way, in DDG the image actually links to the damn image and not to the site where the image supposedly maybe appears on.
  - RestlessMind 8y ago
    You know what DDG is doing is illegal, right? Google Images used to link to direct images as well. But then there were lawsuit threats and a settlement with Getty, which forced them to stop linking directly. If DDG / Bing become big enough, they too will be forced to stop their practice.
    - skellera 8y ago
      It's not illegal. They were sued then Getty dropped the suit when Google agreed to partner with them and remove the links. https://9to5google.com/2018/02/09/google-images-features-getty-deal/ https://9to5google.com/2018/02/09/google-images-features-get...
    - clarry 8y ago
      Lawsuit threats don't make something illegal. The case with linking is far from settled. Legal or not, I don't care though. But I do look forward to highly anonymized p2p networks with useful services and software we can rely on by the time the lawmakers have made the internet useless.
    - herewegoagain90 8y ago
      Interesting! These makes me remember the documentary/movie “Bananas!” which was about the criminal behaviour of the fruit- and vegetable company Dole. During the making the Americans involved in the making got so scared of being sued their house from them that they left the project. The swedes never cared about the threats from Dole. This also made the news on Sweden that even parliament members backed the project and said that Doles threats where so unethical. Having said that, I think Goggle is just hiding behind the lawsuit threats.
- burnt-toast 8y ago
  I've noticed a steep drop in the quality of results I receive from Google without the extensive use of search operators. Especially for politicized topics, I feel like I'm constantly fighting the search engine for access to a more diverse and useful spread of results. This has become such an issue that I've moved over to searx.me (meta-search engine) for the majority of my searches. While there are some edge cases where I have to move over to google (mostly image search), I feel like the results I receive from it are broadly superior to the ones I'm receiving from Google alone.
- prepend 8y ago
  It’s even more funny since google got worse intentionally. It’s one thing to go IBM and just get slowly bad through attrition and attenuation. A whole different level of curiousity to cuck yourself. I hope they wise up and improve as I actually would rather have 2-3 highly competitive search companies rather than just 1.
on_and_off 8y ago
you do know images links are still there ? you just need to click on them.
- colordrops 8y ago
  That takes you to the site, not the image.
  - jrace 8y ago
    RT click on the image, choose "open image in new tab"
    - ghostly_s 8y ago
      That is, by definition, not a link.
      - Stratoscope 8y ago
        Sure, by definition. But that's a distinction without much of a difference. They removed the image link, but they didn't disable a fairly obvious and trivial way to go directly to the source image, just like the link used to do.
    - becomingknown 8y ago
      That opens the thumbnail of the image, not the image itself.
      - Stratoscope 8y ago
        You must be right-clicking the thumbnail in the image search list. Instead, first left-click the thumbnail to open the larger image preview. Then right-click the large preview image and select "open image in new tab". You will get the full image. If anyone has an example where this doesn't work, I'd be curious to see it. It works every time for me.
stcredzero 8y ago
Google probably doesn't want to censor results the way they have been forced to. From what I've seen, there is a large contingent of Google who doesn't want to provide unfettered access to information. Rather, this contingent wants to socially engineer everyone for the better using their power.
- trendia 8y ago
  Source? Wouldn't these people need to be specifically from the search team, and not Google in general (which would have almost no control over search)
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Google keeps on demoting sites in search for doing certain things. In the past, this has largely been good. This stance against piracy and the stance that YouTube has taken against the principles of free speech mark a trajectory I find disturbing.
    - pdelbarba 8y ago
      I see it as a concerning second phase to citizens united. Give corporations virtually unlimited influence and watch as they also find ways of capping everyone else's influence. Google sticks you into your (their) filter bubble and Facebook performs the social equivalent to gerrymandering on their platform. WCGW?
    - stingraycharles 8y ago
      Going from “their stance against piracy” to “socially engineer everyone for better using their power” is quite a leap and strikes me as overly dramatic / FUD.
      - kodablah 8y ago
        It was very clear that one was about what a contingent in the company believes and another is about what the company does. It strikes me as quite the leap and overly dramatic to compare specific quotes about different things just because they're in the same thread.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
I still do this and yeah, it's harder to find interesting stuff. I mostly do it now just for curiosity's sake.
dyeje 8y ago
I wonder if there's a secret, vanilla Google endpoint out there without all the special interest filtering.
- njarboe 8y ago
  I wonder if people working at Google get a different google search from the rest of us. Seems likely.
  - CoryG89 8y ago
    Maybe, but it couldn't be widespread, or I would definitely think it would leak eventually.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      Possibly. But aren't everyone's google searches already customized when you are logged in to Google. If people at google don't have special options, then how would they know they get a special (ie. better) type of search. I wonder how many people have access and understand the full search source code at google (less all the machine learning stuff)? In older versions of google, one could quote a full error message of almost any type that came up on your computer and get a very good page describing that that error meant. Now that is not the case. Maybe the internet has degraded and this is no longer possible, but I would imagine it would really help out google coders if they had a system of searching the web for error messages that worked (and quite a competitive advantage if it only worked for them).
      - skellera 8y ago
        > I wonder how many people have access and understand the full search source code at google (less all the machine learning stuff)? Not many, it's probably the highest guarded secret in the company as far as products go.
  - jankeymeulen 8y ago
    No, doesn't seem different to me. Of course, when logged in with the corp Google account / on the corp network you can see some debugging info and there will be likely some experiments running, but pretty much the same.
kace91 8y ago
a little off topic, but [here's a link to a chrome extension to get the image links back](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/view-image/jpcmhcelnjdmblfmjabdeclccemkghjk?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/view-image/jpcmhce...).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
scottmcdot 8y ago
Is it that these results no longer show up or that we need to go to something like page 15 to see them?

by shiado 8y ago

iaml 8y ago

It would be funny to see bing finally reach google search quality not because it got better, but because google got worse.

visarga 8y ago
I use Bing whenever I want to find "pirate" sites.
andrewmcwatters 8y ago
This is already frequently true depending on what you're looking for.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  They probably do this the way Google usually does, some sort of probability of similarity. They don't know for sure if a picture is pornographic, or a piece of audio is fair use. Once they reach acceptable accuracy, in their calculus....
  - KMag 8y ago
    A lot of stuff falls into grey areas both for AI classification and human opinion. Let's not forget that humans disagree widely over what's pornographic and what's fair use. Let's not pretend there's a canonical oracle of pornography or (apart from court rulings) what's fair use. It stinks when their AI is clearly wrong or when you disagree with their AI, but it's hard to fault them for setting some accuracy goal when they're trying to hit a fuzzy target anyway. Maybe your complaint is really that their appeals process is too opaque or difficult. There I agree, but I don't fault them for stopping short of perfect on their AI classifiers.
hiccuphippo 8y ago
It is already better for video search. I don't remember Google video search being that good.
clarry 8y ago
I just used Google Image search and in frustration switched to DDG because I have no idea how to get direct links to the images that Google presents. I don't think it was always this hard? Or maybe I've grown dumber. EDIT: Evidently you can right-click and view image. I thought that wouldn't get me to the original image since the image as presented in search is smaller in resolution than what Google says the image really is. Either way, in DDG the image actually links to the damn image and not to the site where the image supposedly maybe appears on.
- RestlessMind 8y ago
  You know what DDG is doing is illegal, right? Google Images used to link to direct images as well. But then there were lawsuit threats and a settlement with Getty, which forced them to stop linking directly. If DDG / Bing become big enough, they too will be forced to stop their practice.
  - skellera 8y ago
    It's not illegal. They were sued then Getty dropped the suit when Google agreed to partner with them and remove the links. https://9to5google.com/2018/02/09/google-images-features-getty-deal/ https://9to5google.com/2018/02/09/google-images-features-get...
  - clarry 8y ago
    Lawsuit threats don't make something illegal. The case with linking is far from settled. Legal or not, I don't care though. But I do look forward to highly anonymized p2p networks with useful services and software we can rely on by the time the lawmakers have made the internet useless.
  - herewegoagain90 8y ago
    Interesting! These makes me remember the documentary/movie “Bananas!” which was about the criminal behaviour of the fruit- and vegetable company Dole. During the making the Americans involved in the making got so scared of being sued their house from them that they left the project. The swedes never cared about the threats from Dole. This also made the news on Sweden that even parliament members backed the project and said that Doles threats where so unethical. Having said that, I think Goggle is just hiding behind the lawsuit threats.
burnt-toast 8y ago
I've noticed a steep drop in the quality of results I receive from Google without the extensive use of search operators. Especially for politicized topics, I feel like I'm constantly fighting the search engine for access to a more diverse and useful spread of results. This has become such an issue that I've moved over to searx.me (meta-search engine) for the majority of my searches. While there are some edge cases where I have to move over to google (mostly image search), I feel like the results I receive from it are broadly superior to the ones I'm receiving from Google alone.
prepend 8y ago
It’s even more funny since google got worse intentionally. It’s one thing to go IBM and just get slowly bad through attrition and attenuation. A whole different level of curiousity to cuck yourself. I hope they wise up and improve as I actually would rather have 2-3 highly competitive search companies rather than just 1.

on_and_off 8y ago

you do know images links are still there ? you just need to click on them.

colordrops 8y ago
That takes you to the site, not the image.
- jrace 8y ago
  RT click on the image, choose "open image in new tab"
  - ghostly_s 8y ago
    That is, by definition, not a link.
    - Stratoscope 8y ago
      Sure, by definition. But that's a distinction without much of a difference. They removed the image link, but they didn't disable a fairly obvious and trivial way to go directly to the source image, just like the link used to do.
  - becomingknown 8y ago
    That opens the thumbnail of the image, not the image itself.
    - Stratoscope 8y ago
      You must be right-clicking the thumbnail in the image search list. Instead, first left-click the thumbnail to open the larger image preview. Then right-click the large preview image and select "open image in new tab". You will get the full image. If anyone has an example where this doesn't work, I'd be curious to see it. It works every time for me.

stcredzero 8y ago

Google probably doesn't want to censor results the way they have been forced to. From what I've seen, there is a large contingent of Google who doesn't want to provide unfettered access to information. Rather, this contingent wants to socially engineer everyone for the better using their power.

trendia 8y ago
Source? Wouldn't these people need to be specifically from the search team, and not Google in general (which would have almost no control over search)
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Google keeps on demoting sites in search for doing certain things. In the past, this has largely been good. This stance against piracy and the stance that YouTube has taken against the principles of free speech mark a trajectory I find disturbing.
  - pdelbarba 8y ago
    I see it as a concerning second phase to citizens united. Give corporations virtually unlimited influence and watch as they also find ways of capping everyone else's influence. Google sticks you into your (their) filter bubble and Facebook performs the social equivalent to gerrymandering on their platform. WCGW?
  - stingraycharles 8y ago
    Going from “their stance against piracy” to “socially engineer everyone for better using their power” is quite a leap and strikes me as overly dramatic / FUD.
    - kodablah 8y ago
      It was very clear that one was about what a contingent in the company believes and another is about what the company does. It strikes me as quite the leap and overly dramatic to compare specific quotes about different things just because they're in the same thread.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

I still do this and yeah, it's harder to find interesting stuff. I mostly do it now just for curiosity's sake.

dyeje 8y ago

I wonder if there's a secret, vanilla Google endpoint out there without all the special interest filtering.

njarboe 8y ago
I wonder if people working at Google get a different google search from the rest of us. Seems likely.
- CoryG89 8y ago
  Maybe, but it couldn't be widespread, or I would definitely think it would leak eventually.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    Possibly. But aren't everyone's google searches already customized when you are logged in to Google. If people at google don't have special options, then how would they know they get a special (ie. better) type of search. I wonder how many people have access and understand the full search source code at google (less all the machine learning stuff)? In older versions of google, one could quote a full error message of almost any type that came up on your computer and get a very good page describing that that error meant. Now that is not the case. Maybe the internet has degraded and this is no longer possible, but I would imagine it would really help out google coders if they had a system of searching the web for error messages that worked (and quite a competitive advantage if it only worked for them).
    - skellera 8y ago
      > I wonder how many people have access and understand the full search source code at google (less all the machine learning stuff)? Not many, it's probably the highest guarded secret in the company as far as products go.
- jankeymeulen 8y ago
  No, doesn't seem different to me. Of course, when logged in with the corp Google account / on the corp network you can see some debugging info and there will be likely some experiments running, but pretty much the same.

kace91 8y ago

a little off topic, but [here's a link to a chrome extension to get the image links back](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/view-image/jpcmhcelnjdmblfmjabdeclccemkghjk?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/view-image/jpcmhce...).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

scottmcdot 8y ago

Is it that these results no longer show up or that we need to go to something like page 15 to see them?