Returning to old style Google search

[Hotwired]

Been getting more cheesed off about Google presenting related suggestions, hallucinations about what I really meant and maximum effort to push a sale from the companies paying for advertising.

Turns out you can still ask for and get old fashioned keyword searches minus all that crap.

Maybe that's not for everyone or even to be used always but I do like a good keyword and searching for exact phrases and getting a list of results for what I said, how I said it.

Under tools you can select verbatim results and get the old style search.

With some fiddling you can get it to be your default too.

 

[Maundie]

I doubt I'll use it but I do get frustrated when searching for something and it recommends something totally unrelated so thanks for the heads up

 

[Participant]

When the first 5 results are 'sponsored'. Grrr.

 

[adidan]

First result 'AI' generated vomit usually.

Thanks for the tip OP.

 

[Hotwired]

Actually asking for verbatim search doesn't get you the completely stripped back search. You still get "People also ask" and videos and short videos and "People also search for" stuffed in the results.

The advert swarm is gone though which might be enough.

This is what mine looks like right now: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cheese+cracker&udm=14&tbs=li:1

I've put this address as the search engine to use for searches (in firefox but probably same anywhere): https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%s&udm=14&tbs=li:1 and all the modern features are gone.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Is there a good alternative to Google?

 

[slinxy]

just add "-ai" to all searches, I just need a way of adding it automatically

 

[Jim99]

Is there a good alternative to Google?

I know a couple of people who've moved over 100% to DuckDuckGo, though more because they want to ditch Google than because they think it's a superior product

 

[Diddums]

cheesed off

Don't think this went unnoticed young man.

 

[alex24]

Yeah I use DuckDuckGo and it’s certainly missing a lot of the irritations of google, however it doesn’t seem to have as large an index so unfortunately I have to use Google from time to time for more obscure searches.

I am considering using an AI to replace some of this - most of the coding queries now go that way as well as things at work (we have our own implementation of various models). My only concern, similar to google, is privacy. LLMs and associated tools give more direct responses.

 

[jpaul]

get the result on the left logged in , right if logged out / 'anonymous' (chrome/windows)

 

[Azza]

Google sucks massive donkey balls

This isn't the first time I've noticed the huge decline in the quality of Google results, but this is absolutely the most egregious example I've come across. I needed to look up what ISO culture codes iOS supports (because a client wants to add 'US Vietnamese' to their app, and I suspected it...

forums.overclockers.co.uk

 

[SexyGreyFox]

First result 'AI' generated vomit usually.

Thanks for the tip OP.

For me the AI replies are superb with the type of questions I ask.

 

[adidan]

For me the AI replies are superb with the type of questions I ask.

Ah true, but I was thinking more of the times I ask a question that has a factual answer

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Earlier this year I bought a digital mixing desk of a fellow OCUK'er and AI has been so useful compared to the old method.
eg "behringer x32 how to put reverb on a channel"
The replies are bang on and I reckon I've asked it at least 100 questions because the desk is so complicated.
Of course You Tube tutorials are also amazing which are suggested by the AI.
It was only the other day I noticed the AI Mode on Google.