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People are different, I get it, but I don't want a search engine that tries to second guess me all the time. If I'm a programmer and I'm interested in the actu

People are different, I get it, but I don't want a search engine that tries to second guess me all the time. If I'm a programmer and I'm interested in the actual animal, I don't want to have to fight against the product. I'd much rather use my knowledge to craft my queries intelligently so that I get exactly what I want. But then when it comes to technology, I'm a bit of a control freak.

jfoster 4y ago
What you mean is that you don't want a search engine that guesses wrong. If you happen to get a search engine that is correctly giving you the right result every time because it happens to know what you want, I am guessing you will not have a problem with that.
- godshatter 4y ago
  I would have a problem with that, because for a search engine to know me well enough to know what I actually want despite what I typed in it would have to know a lot of information about me I wouldn't trust the company behind it with. I spend most of my browsing time in a browser configured to clear cookies, cache, and history on exit. I'm not sure why most people are okay with companies gathering tons of data about them and trying to use it to manipulate them into buying products they don't actually want or need (among other uses), but I'm not one of them. Now if I could only get a search engine to not ignore query terms because it thinks it knows what I want better than I do, I'd be even happier.
  - huimang 4y ago
    "I'm not sure why most people are okay with companies gathering tons of data about them and trying to use it to manipulate them into buying products they don't actually want or need (among other uses), but I'm not one of them." It takes a ton of work to prevent it and it's more or less futile anyways. It's not so much that people are okay with this, rather it's a part of modern life and it's exhausting trying to mitigate it. And impulsively buying products due to ads is a personal failing.
- titzer 4y ago
  Have you ever told someone to "just Google it?" Well, repeatable results are the underlying expectation broken by over-personalization.
  - jfoster 4y ago
    Results are already different based on your location, so unless you're very near each other, you already don't have that. You mightn't notice it too much because it's only noticeable on queries where it might matter. Could be similar for personalization.
Agentlien 4y ago
Here's another example taken from my experience a few years ago. I once googled "pro tour results" and was, as expected, presented with an info box about the results of the recent Pro Tour in Magic: The Gathering. Some months later I was visiting family for a few weeks and wrote the same query on a family-member's PC. It gave me something about golf which I couldn't care less about. But I got the right results on my phone. I'm sure if I added "golf" to my query on the phone it would have given me info about that tournament instead. While it disturbs me how much I'm being tracked, I'm still happy with the practicality of the implied context being aligned with my interests.

jfoster 4y ago

What you mean is that you don't want a search engine that guesses wrong. If you happen to get a search engine that is correctly giving you the right result every time because it happens to know what you want, I am guessing you will not have a problem with that.

godshatter 4y ago
I would have a problem with that, because for a search engine to know me well enough to know what I actually want despite what I typed in it would have to know a lot of information about me I wouldn't trust the company behind it with. I spend most of my browsing time in a browser configured to clear cookies, cache, and history on exit. I'm not sure why most people are okay with companies gathering tons of data about them and trying to use it to manipulate them into buying products they don't actually want or need (among other uses), but I'm not one of them. Now if I could only get a search engine to not ignore query terms because it thinks it knows what I want better than I do, I'd be even happier.
- huimang 4y ago
  "I'm not sure why most people are okay with companies gathering tons of data about them and trying to use it to manipulate them into buying products they don't actually want or need (among other uses), but I'm not one of them." It takes a ton of work to prevent it and it's more or less futile anyways. It's not so much that people are okay with this, rather it's a part of modern life and it's exhausting trying to mitigate it. And impulsively buying products due to ads is a personal failing.
titzer 4y ago
Have you ever told someone to "just Google it?" Well, repeatable results are the underlying expectation broken by over-personalization.
- jfoster 4y ago
  Results are already different based on your location, so unless you're very near each other, you already don't have that. You mightn't notice it too much because it's only noticeable on queries where it might matter. Could be similar for personalization.

Agentlien 4y ago

Here's another example taken from my experience a few years ago. I once googled "pro tour results" and was, as expected, presented with an info box about the results of the recent Pro Tour in Magic: The Gathering. Some months later I was visiting family for a few weeks and wrote the same query on a family-member's PC. It gave me something about golf which I couldn't care less about. But I got the right results on my phone. I'm sure if I added "golf" to my query on the phone it would have given me info about that tournament instead. While it disturbs me how much I'm being tracked, I'm still happy with the practicality of the implied context being aligned with my interests.