Already getting sick of seeing ‘AI’ results at the top of a search when all you want is a link to a site?
I just discovered this article showing a way to not see it (although it doesn’t disable it altogether).
TLDR:
- In Chrome open settings menu, choose Search engine on left menu and scroll down to site search
- Click Add button and choose a name (eg Old Google, Google Web or whatever)
- Add a shortcut word (eg web, og, or whatever)
- Add this URL string: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
- Save that, and now if you search for something and use the shortcut word you set you’ll just get proper results, no ‘AI’ shown
- Or, if you don’t want to have to add a shortcut word, you just make that search your default (use the 3 dot menu next to the name you set) and all searches will show that way, no shortcut word needed.
EDIT - meant to add that there are detailed instructions for Edge, Firefox and Safari in the article if you don’t use Chrome
Hope that helps someone - I really don’t like all that extra nonsense when I just want a link to a site that I know exists!
[Obligatory - “or don’t use Chrome/Google…”, I know - but people do, so this might be useful]
As you said there are people who don’t want to switch from Chrome and Google, but at this point if you’re talking about a ten step fix-it plan, is really does make more sense to just use Firefox and DDG. Or searx, I’m pretty sure that’s still fewer steps.
“Hey wanna use our AI chat?!”
“Hey, like these autogenerated result-blobs instead of your actual results?”
“Hey, we thought you hate finding the place you were looking for, so we use Apple Maps to ensure you’re getting fucking nowhere, ever!”
I wish DDG was usable. All it is, is a good showcase that Google isn’t as bad as they could be.
Pfttt… at least with DDG you can turn any of that stuff off with a button in a UI rather than having to make a new bookmark or fuck around with your browsers search engine.
You can even turn the ads off if you want.
Also, Apple Maps is totally fine, it’s not overloaded with ads like Google Maps is and it basically always finds the place I search for.
Okay this is the one thing I’d readily disagree on.
Beyond its absolutely inability to find non-US results (there’s a steak house next to me, I can enter that exact name including capitalization + the name of the city I live in, and it’ll instead find a different-named steak house in a US city names like my non-US one instead), not being able to click places on the map to select them is just laughable.
Nevermind how it’s navigation is ridiculous, at least over here. It just travels shortest path, no respect for traffic lights or anything.
It’s a very good showcase of how superior Google Maps actually is, as a maps application. And how much openstreetmap has left everything else in the dust, too.
I guess YMMV, I just tried a few places around me (UK) and it found them all. You can also defiantly tap on a place to select it.
Did you try it recently or a while ago? I know it was pretty woeful when it came out but it’s improved a whole lot over the years.
I’ve never noticed anything of what you describe. Perhaps they get filtered by uBlock. And isn’t the default Bing Maps for DDG?
Sadly not. I wish. Or maybe it’s per-country? Here in Germany it’s all Apple. Apple Maps, Apple Weather, etc. And they’re all equally terrible and seem to be extremely US-centric in their results.
Yeah. I went to duck duck go a while ago.
Their default maps is terrible, but web search works fine.
For some reason the only videos they link on the video tab is YouTube tho, which sucks and you’re better off just searching YouTube instead at that point.
I take the point - but it doesn’t make sense if you still prefer Chrome/Google to those overall and just want to change one aspect of it. This is just a way to improve the experience for people who are mostly happy with what they use and not interested in changing from it. It’s great that we as users have that choice, that’s how it should be.
but youre asking for something thats effectively cosmetic filtering, a feature that google pushing Manifeat V3, for example removed ublock for having as a user feature. while its good to have a choice, you need to understand when you’re effectively fighting against yourself by asking for a feature that was intentionally removed, and you could get back, had you werent deadset with siding with the company that killed the feature.
I’m not asking for anything. This isn’t a support request. I found something I find useful and wanted to share it. That’s all.