11 ms·

>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. I posted the solution below, which I found a few days ago. The script will work with greasemonkey and tampermonkey, it wil

>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. I posted the solution below, which I found a few days ago. The script will work with greasemonkey and tampermonkey, it will provide you with results similar to the ones before the change. If you also use uMatrix, there will be no ads. https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google

idclip 7y ago
F (4 later setup)
catalogia 7y ago
> "the solution" That's a solution, but not a particularly great one since it requires too much from the user to see mass adoption.
- userbinator 7y ago
  That still requires somewhat less from the user than my solution: a filtering proxy. On the other hand, the latter enables a far more customised browsing experience and one that isn't restricted to a single browser on a single computer. ...which brings me to another great point this illustrates: if you want to customise your experience, if you want to be able to control how you see the Web, then you need to make an effort, and the amount you exert is essentially proportional to how much you can change. Yet the majority of users have shown that they are willing to take whatever Google throws at them with little opposition. I find that a little sad and ironic in this era of "everyone can code" propaganda (I've seen even Google advertises something like that on its homepage); or perhaps the latter is just an attempt to increase the population of intelligent yet docile and obedient corporate drones... I know developers --- web developers --- who really hated the changes yet made no effort to fix it themselves, despite almost certainly having the skills to.
  - hiram112 7y ago
    What kind of filtering proxy are you using?
    - userbinator 7y ago
      Proxomitron.
      - tripzilch 7y ago
        wow does that ... still exist? is it maintained? (I thought the creator stopped 15+ years ago?) does the user interface still look weird and green? :)
        hiram112 7y ago
        Haha I just took a look, expecting a cool Github project page. Nope - its green, and hasn't been updated since June... of 2003. I have no idea how it is able to be effective against the modern web, considering in 2003 the biggest issue was annoying pop-up Flash ads which no longer exist. Maybe there are updated plugins or something.
        userbinator 7y ago
        The creator died 16 years ago... but the (rather small) community has made a lot of patches and continues to work on filters. Given that it's basically the equivalent of running all the sites you visit through sed, with a syntax that's more suited for filtering HTML than plaintext, the strength lies in its flexibility and generality. Yes, the UI is still skinnable, and the default skin is rather... psychedelic.
        tripzilch 7y ago
        Ohhhh, right! I remember when that happened, forgot ... Amazing that the software is still in use. And that it's still useful given the temporary nature of these filters. Its syntax was pretty neat; writing your own cosmetic filters was pretty easy. And I suppose that the community wrote some code to auto convert public block lists maybe? There's something to be said about the adblocker being a filtering proxy, it can really get anything before it hits the browser. Do you know how it compares to Privoxy nowadays? Way back then it was the open source but harder to configure alternative, that didn't quite work as well as Proxomitron. But maybe Privoxy continued development and got better, I don't know what direction that project took. Oh and I personally always really liked the default skin :D
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
bsanr2 7y ago
I'm confused. Isn't AMP mostly an issue on mobile devices? Can you use this on a phone?
- terminaljunkid 7y ago
  If using Mobile Firefox (not FF Preview or FF Focus), then greasemonkey is available as add on.
  - wtmt 7y ago
    This is available only on Android though. On iOS, Firefox Focus (or any Firefox or other browser) is tied to Apple's restrictions. So there's no scope for browser extensions as we generally think of it.
    - toastal 7y ago
      And Mozilla is about to roll out Firefox Preview soo with all add-ons but uBlock Origin disabled until they can fix up and test the add-on ecosystem on the new browser. Unfortunately there's more add-ons for privacy/security/ethics than uBlock (Decentraleyes, tracking token strippers, et. al) which will include add-ons that redirect to the original source from AMP.
SquishyPanda23 7y ago
> I posted the solution below, Sorry to be "that guy" but for me the solution is to use DuckDuckGo. It's not perfect, but neither is trying to play arms race with Google's JavaScript.
- apl002 7y ago
  I use DDG as much as I can but when I need to find something very specific, or find a solution to a bug Ive encountered, it takes 2x as long on DDG vs Google
  - Terretta 7y ago
    On DDG, type: !s your search terms
    - AlexCoventry 7y ago
      In case anyone else is wondering, this sends your query to startpage, which appears to query google for you anonymously.
      - apl002 7y ago
        wtf...thats cool...I'll start trying that
  - SquishyPanda23 7y ago
    Just to be clear, I still use !g pretty frequently. But psychologically it's rather different. If you find the Google search page to be visually aversive then your goal is to get in and get out quickly. That's a bit harder if Google is your default search.
  - ehnto 7y ago
    I find Google ignoring my attempts to be more specific more often. Just as a contrived example a search like "R33 RB25DET Motorsport ECU" typically got me specific links relating to the exact car, engine and topic. But the past 5 years or so it seems like it is weighting the more common word and more general terms. Often excluding the target topic altogether and just giving general motorsport results. Perhaps it's a consequence of every SEO specialist and their dogbot hammering general search terms and gumming up the machine with cruft.
cmbailey 7y ago
Thank you. Solved it for us, at least on desktop.

idclip 7y ago

F (4 later setup)

catalogia 7y ago

> "the solution" That's a solution, but not a particularly great one since it requires too much from the user to see mass adoption.

userbinator 7y ago
That still requires somewhat less from the user than my solution: a filtering proxy. On the other hand, the latter enables a far more customised browsing experience and one that isn't restricted to a single browser on a single computer. ...which brings me to another great point this illustrates: if you want to customise your experience, if you want to be able to control how you see the Web, then you need to make an effort, and the amount you exert is essentially proportional to how much you can change. Yet the majority of users have shown that they are willing to take whatever Google throws at them with little opposition. I find that a little sad and ironic in this era of "everyone can code" propaganda (I've seen even Google advertises something like that on its homepage); or perhaps the latter is just an attempt to increase the population of intelligent yet docile and obedient corporate drones... I know developers --- web developers --- who really hated the changes yet made no effort to fix it themselves, despite almost certainly having the skills to.
- hiram112 7y ago
  What kind of filtering proxy are you using?
  - userbinator 7y ago
    Proxomitron.
    - tripzilch 7y ago
      wow does that ... still exist? is it maintained? (I thought the creator stopped 15+ years ago?) does the user interface still look weird and green? :)
      - hiram112 7y ago
        Haha I just took a look, expecting a cool Github project page. Nope - its green, and hasn't been updated since June... of 2003. I have no idea how it is able to be effective against the modern web, considering in 2003 the biggest issue was annoying pop-up Flash ads which no longer exist. Maybe there are updated plugins or something.
      - userbinator 7y ago
        The creator died 16 years ago... but the (rather small) community has made a lot of patches and continues to work on filters. Given that it's basically the equivalent of running all the sites you visit through sed, with a syntax that's more suited for filtering HTML than plaintext, the strength lies in its flexibility and generality. Yes, the UI is still skinnable, and the default skin is rather... psychedelic.
        tripzilch 7y ago
        Ohhhh, right! I remember when that happened, forgot ... Amazing that the software is still in use. And that it's still useful given the temporary nature of these filters. Its syntax was pretty neat; writing your own cosmetic filters was pretty easy. And I suppose that the community wrote some code to auto convert public block lists maybe? There's something to be said about the adblocker being a filtering proxy, it can really get anything before it hits the browser. Do you know how it compares to Privoxy nowadays? Way back then it was the open source but harder to configure alternative, that didn't quite work as well as Proxomitron. But maybe Privoxy continued development and got better, I don't know what direction that project took. Oh and I personally always really liked the default skin :D
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

bsanr2 7y ago

I'm confused. Isn't AMP mostly an issue on mobile devices? Can you use this on a phone?

terminaljunkid 7y ago
If using Mobile Firefox (not FF Preview or FF Focus), then greasemonkey is available as add on.
- wtmt 7y ago
  This is available only on Android though. On iOS, Firefox Focus (or any Firefox or other browser) is tied to Apple's restrictions. So there's no scope for browser extensions as we generally think of it.
  - toastal 7y ago
    And Mozilla is about to roll out Firefox Preview soo with all add-ons but uBlock Origin disabled until they can fix up and test the add-on ecosystem on the new browser. Unfortunately there's more add-ons for privacy/security/ethics than uBlock (Decentraleyes, tracking token strippers, et. al) which will include add-ons that redirect to the original source from AMP.

SquishyPanda23 7y ago

> I posted the solution below, Sorry to be "that guy" but for me the solution is to use DuckDuckGo. It's not perfect, but neither is trying to play arms race with Google's JavaScript.

apl002 7y ago
I use DDG as much as I can but when I need to find something very specific, or find a solution to a bug Ive encountered, it takes 2x as long on DDG vs Google
- Terretta 7y ago
  On DDG, type: !s your search terms
  - AlexCoventry 7y ago
    In case anyone else is wondering, this sends your query to startpage, which appears to query google for you anonymously.
    - apl002 7y ago
      wtf...thats cool...I'll start trying that
- SquishyPanda23 7y ago
  Just to be clear, I still use !g pretty frequently. But psychologically it's rather different. If you find the Google search page to be visually aversive then your goal is to get in and get out quickly. That's a bit harder if Google is your default search.
- ehnto 7y ago
  I find Google ignoring my attempts to be more specific more often. Just as a contrived example a search like "R33 RB25DET Motorsport ECU" typically got me specific links relating to the exact car, engine and topic. But the past 5 years or so it seems like it is weighting the more common word and more general terms. Often excluding the target topic altogether and just giving general motorsport results. Perhaps it's a consequence of every SEO specialist and their dogbot hammering general search terms and gumming up the machine with cruft.

cmbailey 7y ago

Thank you. Solved it for us, at least on desktop.