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=%25s&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.
DDG
“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.
