[HN Gopher] Choose whether Search can show you personal results ...
___________________________________________________________________
Choose whether Search can show you personal results based on your
Google Account
Author : franze
Score : 186 points
Date : 2021-07-24 08:02 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.google.com)
| londons_explore wrote:
| Isn't there a simpler solution to this... Just don't sign in!
| chmike wrote:
| I wish I could toggle that switch per requests.
|
| In some case I want result relative to my location, or other
| info, and in other circumstances I want generic results. In some
| case I want result sorted by most recent first, and others I
| don't care or want the oldest info. In some case I want results
| in my mother language and others I want English results as well.
| Etc. etc.
|
| My feeling is that google provides far too few search adjustment
| knobs and is spoon feeding me with what google thinks that would
| be relevant for me.
|
| The strange thing is that all major search engine are just
| copying google's behavior on this aspect.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I mean, this must be a clear benefit to Google, they've removed
| almost all the abilities to target one's search and just about
| the only thing left appears to be using quotes ("") and that is
| only used as a weak signal for what is put in the SERPs.
|
| There used to be a variable "pws=0" or something that gave non-
| geographic, non-personalised results.
| ryanianian wrote:
| Quotes stopped working ages ago in my experience. Very often
| I'll search for a thing in quotes only to follow the top few
| results where the quoted term appears nowhere using ctrl+f.
| We are totally subjected to what they think we want. DDG has
| started doing this too especially if there aren't that many
| results.
| yrro wrote:
| I expect some genius realized that a zero result page
| results in the user trying another search engine. But
| gaslighting their users with subtly incorrect results
| tricks the user into continuing to refine their query...
| reportgunner wrote:
| Google doesn't really care what you want or need.
| ArnoVW wrote:
| My solution for this: open an incognito session. So
| ctrl+shift+N instead of ctrl+N (or RMB and select from menu)
| [deleted]
| sefrost wrote:
| The cookie banner has made this very annoying, especially on
| mobile devices where you have to scroll to dismiss it.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Thank you!!!!!
| [deleted]
| xvector wrote:
| The best solution, IMO, is using Firefox with First-Party
| Isolation enabled, Multi-Account Containers, and Cookie Auto-
| Delete.
|
| This way you can whitelist sites per-container for persistence,
| while starting with a clean slate everywhere else on the web.
|
| Adding a VPN makes fingerprinting just a bit harder, when
| combined with Firefox's anti-fingerprinting settings.
| amelius wrote:
| It would be great if Firefox allowed us to create "fake" e-mail
| addresses too, so we can subscribe to different services
| without giving away our identities.
| evolve2k wrote:
| I'm guessing your alluding to duckduckgo's recent
| announcement around private email addresses.
|
| https://www.spreadprivacy.com/introducing-email-
| protection-b...
| mataniko wrote:
| They do, It's called Firefox Relay.
| https://relay.firefox.com/
| amelius wrote:
| Wouldn't it be possible for companies to simply reject
| e-mail addresses that end with "@relay.firefox.com"?
|
| EDIT: Ok, it is answered in the FAQ:
|
| > Why won't a site accept my [?]Relay[?] alias?
|
| > Some sites may not accept an email address that includes
| a subdomain (i.e., the "relay" portion of
| @relay.firefox.com) and others have stopped accepting all
| addresses except those from Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo
| accounts. As [?]Firefox Relay[?] grows in popularity and
| issues more aliases, our service might be placed on a
| blocklist. If you are not able to use a [?]Relay[?] alias,
| please let us know.
| skinkestek wrote:
| anyone here knows if Firefox VPN income is still routed
| through Mozilla Corporation (the makers of Firefox) or if
| it goes directly to Mozilla Foundation and becomes useless
| for browser development?
|
| (Because my main reason for using Firefox VPN would be to
| support browser development.)
| gniv wrote:
| Note that the page says "personal results", not "personalized
| results". Even though the submitter chose that title, reading the
| page carefully I don't see mention of customizing the main search
| results based on my activity. It's about some specific types of
| results: autocomplete predictions, results from private data and
| recommendations.
| elif wrote:
| I wish there were a way to turn off personal results based upon
| country. It feels like google isolates us even further
| culturally.
|
| When I'm in Japan I can search for japanese things easily, but
| when i'm in america it keeps giving me american-based websites
| with japanese stuff. I've legit used a VPN just for searching.
| tomcooks wrote:
| That switch has been there for a while, no?
|
| Mine was already off, for all it matters
| throwslackforce wrote:
| It seems like a statement in today's announcement...
|
| > Personal results in Search include... Personal answers based on
| info in your Google Account, like "my flights" from Gmail
|
| ...makes some aggressively ambiguous wording in a previous
| announcement [0] apparent...
|
| > Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads
| personalization after this change.
|
| So I guess anyone who assumed that "Consumer Gmail content will
| not be used or scanned for any ads personalization" meant that
| your Gmail was not being scanned at all was mistaken, since
| today's setting implies that it was still being scanned for
| Search personalization?
|
| [0] https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-
| in...
| mgraczyk wrote:
| There is a search bar in Gmail that can be used to search the
| content of your emails. I think most technical people who have
| used Gmail realize that it wouldn't be possible for that
| feature to work without something, somewhere reading your
| emails to index them.
| crashbunny wrote:
| I vaguely remember years ago reading something about google
| saying they won't scan gmail because they might unwittingly
| break some law that is meant to protects kids on the internet.
| Maybe if they knew your age and you were of age they scanned...
| jvolkman wrote:
| Were there people that thought the latter? Certainly there's
| still an expectation that things like spam filtering work,
| which require scanning.
| [deleted]
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "Personalised results" should be something users turn on if they
| want to try it, not something they have to turn off.
|
| User control is not Google's main priority. Money first. Defaults
| matter.
|
| One of their current CEO's main projects before he became CEO was
| convincing vendors to pre-install a Google search bar. This is
| not something that can be "turned off". Most users do not change
| settings, let alone even know they exist.
|
| Because of this reality, its defaults that really matter, not
| options. The defaults chosen define the intent of the company.
| kmlx wrote:
| personalized results are the only reason i, and many others
| like me, use google. if ddg offered them, i would use ddg.
| tirpen wrote:
| That's amusing.
|
| Personalized results are the reason I _stopped_ using Google
| and switched to DDG, this option might actually make me give
| Google another try.
| bserge wrote:
| I used to think the same, but it only results in you going
| deeper into your own well as Google keeps pushing more of the
| same shit instead of getting something new/fresh. It also
| happens on YouTube.
| realusername wrote:
| YouTube could be so great, there's tons of great content
| out there waiting to be seen, it's just impossible to find,
| the recommendations are complete garbage.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| So true. "YouTube search" is not where the money is; it's
| "recommendations" and "viral videos" that advertising
| requires. That is the company's priority. If YouTube
| represents state-of-the-art in "personalisation", that's
| a very low bar for "improvement" over manual search.
| Absolute garbage. It reminds me of paid placement in the
| Alta Vista era because "recommended" results are
| interpersed with the legitimate search results.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| I would think the reason people use DDG is because DDG _does
| not_ "personalise" results. In other words, people choose DDG
| because DDG's defaults are in this respect unlike Google's.
| mrweasel wrote:
| What is it you get from personalized? I've used DDG for 6
| years now, and I don't really understand what I'm missing out
| on.
|
| We're at a point where if DDG can't find something, then
| neither can Google.
| sollewitt wrote:
| DDG is just white-labelled Bing. Go to bing.com, they'll do
| personalized results.
| manmal wrote:
| DDG does not forward user data (IP etc) to bing AFAIK. I
| see it as a reverse proxy to bing.
| ColinHayhurst wrote:
| What do Bing syndicates say/not say/write?
|
| Ecosia: https://info.ecosia.org/privacy
|
| - IP address (obfuscated), user agent string, search
| term, and some settings like your country and language
| setting.
|
| - Additionally, by default Ecosia sets a Bing-specific
| "Client ID" parameter to improve the quality of your
| search results. If your browser has "Do Not Track"
| enabled, we disable the "Client ID" automatically.
|
| Qwant: https://about.qwant.com/en/legal/confidentialite/
|
| - The first three bytes of your IP address;
|
| - A salted hash generated from: your IP address, your
| User Agent and a salt that changes at least every 3
| months.
|
| Neeva https://neeva.com/privacy
|
| - I heard that they pass first 3 octets of IP (as I have
| heard from others seeking syndication with Microsoft) -
| edit: CEO Sridhar explains that in this podcast (40
| minutes in) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/recode-
| decode-sridhar-...
|
| DDG https://duckduckgo.com/privacy
|
| - Not declared but say "What search engines generally do
| when they anonymize data is get rid of part of your IP
| address or turn it into something that doesn't look
| exactly like an IP address."
|
| Self-disclosure: CEO of Mojeek search engine
| mimsee wrote:
| So in essence this is for the people who are in denial, right?
| Toggling the button doesn't effect what or how Google collects
| your data, only that you can't see it. "Yes I use Google, let
| Google collect my info, but under no circumstance do I want to
| see that info." Like what?
|
| If you don't want Google scanning your emails, don't use Gmail.
| Don't want Google seeing all your queries, don't send them to
| Google in the first place. Use Duckduckgo or some other service.
| amelius wrote:
| Maybe these people don't want others to see their search
| history when they look over their shoulders?
| DrLindemann wrote:
| This are indeed separate effects of surveillance. For most
| people surveillance does not affect them, if they are not
| consciously aware of it all the time. They might know it, or
| remember it, from time to time. But they fade it out.
|
| It is like the backrest of your chair. You just recognize it,
| if you focus on it. Most of the time, you don't. So the
| question is, do you sense it all the time, just not being aware
| of it?
|
| But after all, just because Google will not turn the collected
| data against you at the moment, it does not mean, they won't in
| the future. Or some of their contractors. Or some third party
| instrumenting google. Or some regulator ...
| spansoa wrote:
| > Use Duckduckgo or some other service
|
| DDG is not a silver bullet. I use it, but only when combining
| it with a VPN or sometimes Tor for ultra private searches. DDG
| is a US company and the US doesn't have a good track record for
| spying and human rights. DDG's servers are all Amazon based too
| meaning the data is probably tapped and being spied upon.
| There's no way of knowing, so combine DDG with an anonymous
| proxy if you can.
| saurik wrote:
| I would have guessed this is for people who want to do a
| "neutral" search query without it being affected by where you
| are located or your past searches; I am not sure why you would
| jump to privacy? I guess the options feel a bit like privacy
| options, looking at it more carefully... but I would still see
| wanting to turn this off just to avoid ending up in situations
| where your history pollutes your screen (such as in demos).
| qwertox wrote:
| This can be better archived by using a second, clean browser
| profile.
| tirpen wrote:
| There's no way it's easier to use a second browser profile
| every time you want to search and get useable results than
| just toggling this toggle once.
| peakaboo wrote:
| Google records where you are and stores your every search
| result, and you are not sure how it relates to privacy.
| austhrow743 wrote:
| Clearly they mean how this setting relates to privacy.
| peakaboo wrote:
| You are correct of course. I'm just really tired of
| seeing Google act like we have options when it comes to
| privacy.
| mimsee wrote:
| I'm talking about privacy because it's easy for people to not
| realise that this is not a privacy setting. I don't know if
| disabling the personal results toggle even puts you in to a
| "neutral" mode of Google since it clearly states at the
| bottom that:
|
| "Some Search results may require additional settings, like
| Web & App Activity or Location History".
|
| Reading more about Web & Web app activity explains it as
| follows:
|
| "If Web & App Activity is turned on, your searches and
| activity from other Google services are saved in your Google
| Account, so you may get more personalized experiences, like
| faster searches and more helpful app and content
| recommendations."[1]
|
| [1]: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/54068?hl=en
|
| Edit: reworded from personalized results to personal results
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I think it's silly that people feel this is related to
| privacy. No, no one is under any illusion that this reduces
| google's knowledge of you. But rah rah, bang the privacy
| drum! Privacy is the only possible reason! The dummies need
| to be informed that google and privacy don't get along!
|
| Bah, I'm getting cranky tonight. I'll log off. Good luck
| with the privacy fight. I mean that genuinely; I don't
| think anyone really cares, beyond posting a few comments on
| message boards. Duckduckgo is a nice alternative, but how
| many programmers actually use it to find answers to
| programming questions? And even if a few do, I really don't
| get what the privacy crap is all about here.
|
| Google added a feature that we can use to do neutral
| searches. That's awesome, and they deserve praise for it.
| But nooooo, the privacy is the ultimate altar.
| the_other wrote:
| > Duckduckgo is a nice alternative, but how many
| programmers actually use it to find answers to
| programming questions?
|
| At least one. I've been using DDG exclusively for two or
| three years now. If I'm really stuck, I go straight to
| StackOverflow.
| Gabrys1 wrote:
| Same here. Whenever the results (software related or not)
| are bad, I try Google search instead, but I can't
| remember the last time the results from Google were any
| better (ergo, there's no point in using Google search for
| me anymore)
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| Yeah this is a tired argument from the early days of ddg.
| Back in the day it was really bad for programming but
| these days it's on par with Google at worst and usually
| better. I've used ddg almost exclusively since 2012/2013.
| erdo wrote:
| Yep same, maybe 4 years just using ddg. About once or
| twice a year I'll try a Google search if I'm really
| getting nowhere (sometimes helps, sometimes doesn't)
| larusso wrote:
| Also count me in. I switched 4 or 5 years ago and never
| had much issues finding answers to my programming
| questions.
| feanaro wrote:
| Your comment is kind of boring in its dismissiveness, but
| you acknowledged you're getting cranky so I'll take that
| as the explanation. In any case, there are those that
| care (I'm one of them) and we would appreciate if you
| could refrain from cheap dismissals.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Yeah! I just needed some sleep. I'll try to be a little
| more self aware in the future.
|
| Nonetheless, the thrust of it is something I feel at my
| core; "Google did a good thing" here, but "you won't
| acknowledge any good thing." Personally, I find that
| lame, especially with privacy arguments that seem very
| much like strawmen.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| For the last few years, DDG has been good enough for
| coding questions and for general use. In fact, it's been
| better for general use than Google for a while now.
| NateEag wrote:
| I've been using DDG primarily for about two years now.
|
| It mostly works well enough.
|
| Since I use Vimium, when it doesn't, redoing the search
| on Google is just a few keystrokes:
|
| gi<Control-a>!g Enter
|
| That's 'gi' for 'focus text input', Control-a for
| beginning of line, add the DDG "google this" shortcut,
| press return.
|
| It's in my spinal cord, and I don't need it that often
| anyway.
| tidbeck wrote:
| Vimium (for Firefox at least) supports custom search
| engines so you can do:
|
| og<space> my-search<enter>
|
| 'o' for open and 'g<space>' to select Google as search
| engine.
| [deleted]
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| I have everything that Google allows me to turn off, turned
| off. And I rarely search (via Google) when logged in with
| my Google account, and I still see filtered/tailored
| results based on my IP location and my interests. I also
| run uBlock Origin, and Cookie AutoDelete, so Google are
| going to great lengths here to keep on tracking me.
|
| It's now at a stage where if you don't want to be tracked,
| you should just stop using the Internet.
| crashbunny wrote:
| are you unique?
|
| https://www.amiunique.org/fp
|
| I am.I wonder if there's a plugin to change values to the
| most common ones, or change them randomly everyday.
| marricks wrote:
| I have an iPhone and don't use the Gmail app. For a year
| or two I got a pathetic email from google saying "email
| is better with the gmail app!" Pretty sure google was sad
| I don't have any of their apps on my phone
|
| Point of the story is saying they already won in getting
| all your data is really what let's them win.
|
| If you use a VPN, which are getting more common, and stay
| away from using too many Google/Facebook products you'll
| do pretty well.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Ironically, the problem may be that you're logged out of
| your Google account. The privacy settings are saved to
| your account.
|
| I, like you, have turned everything off. I use Startpage
| for search, but on Youtube, I find I still get
| personalized recommendations _if and only if_ I
| accidentally log out. If I 'm logged in, I get a
| depersonalized Youtube page.
|
| (Yes this is problematic and I'm not suggesting anything,
| just explaining.)
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| I have YouTube search and watch history turned off. Yet
| if I watch a video that someone sent me a link to, I will
| still get that exact video or others related to it in my
| recommendations afterwards. Normally, only videos that I
| explicitly save (by upvoting or subscribing to a channel)
| should alter my recommendations, but clearly Google is
| still saving something.
| Beaver117 wrote:
| Actually, YouTube tracks your likes/dislikes data in a
| different way and it needs some obscure method to disable
| the privacy option. I don't remember the link though
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| What do you mean? I _want_ Google to remember my |likes
| and subscriptions, so they can give me recommendations
| that actually reflect my preferences. I just don 't want
| them to track which videos I watch or search for.
| Beaver117 wrote:
| You can pause those in the settings under watch and
| search history. My problem is after I like a video or
| two, YouTube starts recommending me the same video over
| and over again. Or very similar videos. I'd rather have
| just a clean-slate experience.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| I have turned off search amd watch history; see my
| previous comments.
|
| If it starts recommending the same videos to me I press
| the Not Interestes button.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Huh. Since it sounds like you do vote on videos and
| subscribe to channels, is it possible Google is actually
| just making (correct) predictions based on that?
|
| I'm just surprised because it really does work for me.
| But, I make a point of never
| voting/subscribing/commenting/queuing/etc. And the
| difference between when I'm logged out and logged in is
| very stark.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| The videos I'm thinking of that someone sent to me are
| way outside of what I would normally watch, so seeing
| that exact video in recommendations and other videos from
| the same channel immediately afterwards on the home page
| can't be a coincidence. But most of the time what I watch
| doesn't affect recommendations, only the odd time.
|
| In addition to curating what I want to see with
| upvotes/subscriptions, I also use the "Not interested"
| and "Don't recommend channel" buttons heavily. For some
| reason YouTube _always_ recommends those stupid
| "meditation music" videos, even though I have never
| watched one and I always block those channels. Honestly,
| YouTube's recommendation engine is shite; even when I
| tell them _exactly what I like_ , it still recommends
| absolute tripe, and most of what I discover comes from
| external (personal) recommendations.
| chupasaurus wrote:
| I think they cache everything which was recommended for
| some time, haven't tested the exact period.
| sen wrote:
| I block all Google and Facebook domains at a router
| level, and haven't really had many issues. I'm sure
| there's sites that don't work with those blocked but for
| whatever reason they're not sites I visit. I get cloud
| flare captchas occasionally but barely enough to be
| annoying.
|
| I also use a VPN 95% of the time, only turning it off for
| Netflix occasionally.
| tgragnato wrote:
| It is the most practical solution to make sure there are
| no leaks to G.
|
| The most annoying thing is that reCAPTCHA stop working:
| more website administrator should consider migrating to
| hCaptcha.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| No, it's enough to turn off Javascript. Virtually all
| tracking code is in Javascript.
| zbentley wrote:
| Absolutely not.
|
| GP was concerned about:
|
| > filtered/tailored results based on my IP location and
| my interests
|
| IP location is typically computed server side, based on
| the originating IP of requests. Your interests are
| recorded server side, based on what requests were made.
|
| "Tracking" in JavaScript is a big problem, and disabling
| JS does help prevent _third party_ tools from knowing
| about you, but the discussion here is about first-party
| tracking: tracking being by Google, whose site you 're
| using.
| np_tedious wrote:
| I could see wanting this as a toggle on a particular search
| more than an account-wide setting
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| This.
| brundolf wrote:
| On top of that: personalized search is the only thing I _miss_
| from when I used Google services. It 's the only case I can
| point to where data collection actually benefitted the product
| in some small way. If I'm going to give them my data anyway,
| there's no way I'm turning that off.
|
| I think most likely this is a sham "privacy" feature that
| Google is shipping solely for PR reasons
| mrAnon218 wrote:
| Honestly DDG is not much better than google, hosted in Amazon
| and got caught selling data from their users, in the matter of
| search engines we're pm screwed, the ones that are really
| private like YacY, SearX and MetaGer don't provide results as
| good as google simply because they don't track the user.
|
| About not using Google, well they're even crawling data from
| Telegram Groups, they're everywhere pretty hard to escape.
| PetahNZ wrote:
| If only DDG was any good at local results.
| mimsee wrote:
| Yeah, I guess. I wonder if there was a private way for DDG to
| implement that.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| It works pretty well for me to just include <name of town>
| in my search query if I want local results.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| That fails without personalization. Take the example of
| Dublin. My IP is in Europe, but DDG returns a bunch of
| results about Dublin, Ohio when I look for "Dublin
| McDonald's" before eventually linking McDonald's Ireland.
| Imagine how bad it'd be in Dublin or Pittsburgh, CA or
| worse, large cities that share a name like San Jose or
| Ontario.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Try "Dublin ie McDonald's".
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| That still doesn't resolve the ambiguity of Ontario,
| which is in both California (CA) and Canada (CA).
| Moreover, the search is getting a bit unwieldy.
|
| The point wasn't to illustrate that there's no way to
| produce the information without personalization, it's to
| illustrate that search queries can become much more
| relevant and straightforward with it in particular,
| common scenarios.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >That still doesn't resolve the ambiguity of Ontario,
| which is in both California (CA) and Canada (CA).
| Moreover, the search is getting a bit unwieldy
|
| "ON" or "CAN." And adding 2-4 letters is hardly unwieldy.
| mda wrote:
| Well, maybe Bing team is reading the complaints and improve
| stuff a little for ddg users.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I don't particularly care if Google tracks me, but I don't want
| to be put in a filter bubble!
| yosito wrote:
| Considering that Google tracks you because you are the
| product they are selling, or rather, one sheep in the flock
| they are selling, removing the filter bubble from your search
| results seems like just a small, superficial fraction of the
| bubble Google has you in.
| anchpop wrote:
| For me, I may be the product Google is selling, but they
| convince me to use Search anyway because it's much better
| than the competition (yes I've tried DDG). And I can't see
| any way that being tracked negatively affects my life, so
| it's a trade I'm happy to make
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I wrote more here about why personalized results and
| recommendations really bother me:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27668373
|
| But if Google has the information and doesn't do anything
| with it... I guess I just don't care? Why should I care?
| I'm open to being convinced on this.
| ptero wrote:
| Google doesn't do anything with your information _for
| this particular search_ shown to you. It can still be
| used to skew your other interactions with Google, it 's
| partners and anyone else with whom Google decides to
| share the data it has on you.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Google is renting my eyeballs by paying me with a great
| search engine. What's the actual harm in that.
| mimsee wrote:
| Does disabling this setting put you in a "neutral" mode of
| Google or just hide the [Your flight to AMS] boxes it grabs
| from your Gmail?
| froh wrote:
| google doesn't "scan emails for ads", since ca 2017.
|
| https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en
|
| duckduckgo is powered by bing search, no?
| sharikone wrote:
| It can be also for people who plan on occasionally sharing
| their PC. It could be a bit embarrassing to let your
| friend/family member fo a search and get tailored results
| listmaking wrote:
| Those are different settings:
|
| - the settings for what data about your Google activity is
| retained are at https://myaccount.google.com/data-and-
| personalization -- in particular, "Web & App Activity" at
| https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity (for new accounts, it
| defaults to all activity being deleted after 18 months).
|
| - the setting for whether your Google activity is used for ad
| targeting is at https://adssettings.google.com (the checkbox
| under "Advanced", if you're signed in).
|
| - For non-Google activity, the setting for turning off Google
| ad cookies on random ad-carrying websites is to block third-
| party cookies in your browser. For Chrome, it is at
| chrome://settings/cookies
| valleyjo wrote:
| If you pay for google workspace do they still scan your emails?
| froh wrote:
| they don't scan your emails for ads.
|
| https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en
| jackson1442 wrote:
| I know Google will occasionally bring literal personal
| information into your search results- for example if I search
| "directions home" it will show my home address in the search
| results. If you're frequently using Search in a location where
| you don't want these things to appear on your screen, I can
| definitely see it being useful. I know it's brought up contact
| information and random crap from emails up in Search before for
| me.
| Lio wrote:
| Haha yeah, this is me and I am indeed ridiculous. :D
|
| I try my hardest not to use Google products because I don't
| like tracking. Occasionally though I'm forced to use things
| like YouTube as it's the only source for certain information.
|
| I turn off the personalised ads not because I think it stops
| them tracking me but because of the vague hope that if I still
| see the ads and they don't need to be personalised then just
| maybe Google would see the subservience as an unnecessary
| overhead.
|
| ...which is still just wishful thinking on my part.
|
| For the record I would happily accept personalised adverts
| based on context if they would just packing in the forced
| tracking.
| blueflow wrote:
| I need such an feature because google always seems to prefer
| the information that i already know. Sometimes i'm looking for
| websites i don't know yet because the information is rare...
|
| Sucks that it needs an Google Account (which is no option for
| me), but i can have a similar effect by using duckduckgo.
| szundi wrote:
| It would be so wonderful to see ex-Google employees founding a
| new search engine company that is almost as good as Google. Next
| day they go bankrupt as there is no money inflow without selling
| our data, but that would be at least one nice day.
|
| Someone please invent something that solves this awful problem.
| listmaking wrote:
| https://neeva.com/ ("Get 3 months free, then just $4.95 per
| month.")
|
| (Haven't tried it so I don't know how good it is.)
|
| (They have many posts under https://neeva.com/learn that seem
| to be anti-Google in slant while being well-informed, as they
| come from people very familiar with the ad industry and
| Google's ad business.)
| badkitty99 wrote:
| They ruined (a lot of) the internet when they started showing
| different search results for different users. Pretty abusive of
| their monopoly
| guscost wrote:
| Is there a toggle for "don't scrub content we have deemed
| 'misinformation' from search results"?
| Wolfenstein98k wrote:
| To be honest, I'm using Google because it usually works so well.
| Hiding the option, without stopping the underlying tracking and
| data collection, is just denial.
| spinax wrote:
| Ctrl+F shows nobody has mentioned searx yet, so let me - you can
| have your cake and eat it, too. searx uses modest resources (2G
| disk/2G RAM, cloud server friendly) and gives you all the results
| from all the search engines without being tracked in your end-
| user browser.
|
| Here are some existing public instances to get started (visit
| Preferences! You can choose your own search engines!) and there
| are many, many more not listed on this page out there:
|
| https://searx.space/
|
| Give searx a try - what I like most is that it sees the same top
| result from 2 sources (say, Google and DDG) and places them as a
| single entry as first, but _then_ offers a link that neither one
| of those had (say, Mojeek) as the second result. It actually
| helps you find _more_ content by spreading out your searches to
| many engines at the same time and giving the best results
| grouped.
| stoicjumbotron wrote:
| Thanks a lot for this. Will definitely give this a go as I'm
| using Google for my programming related searches and DDG for
| normal searches. Will see if this satisfies my needs or not.
| ammar_x wrote:
| This is a great tool, thanks for telling us about it (actually
| I discovered that I've bookmarked the searx page before and
| forgot about it:))
| amelius wrote:
| I guess this is possible only because Google allows/tolerates
| it? What would happen if a significant amount of people start
| using it?
| mimsee wrote:
| Wow. This seems very cool. I wonder if there's a possiblity to
| add Stackoverflow as a search engine directly to searx.
| yewenjie wrote:
| I have a whoogle and a searx instance running based on the
| official docker images. With my subjective tests Searx seems to
| be slower and buggy though. I am curious to know how can I
| optimize the speed as much as much possible.
| spinax wrote:
| Whoogle is a Google anonymizer and stripper-of-chaff, searx
| is a content aggregator on top of that same concept. While
| similar in the first context, searx provides a secondary
| layer of interacting with many search engines for well
| rounded content. Nothing wrong with whoogle, just not an
| exact 1-to-1 comparison. (cannot speak to your issues with
| speed and bugs, I suggest opening an issue on their Github
| and explaining your problems or a dedicated user forum maybe
| reddit?)
| graton wrote:
| FYI:
|
| https://searx.me/ appears to be the link to the project and
| information on how to host your own setup.
| teitoklien wrote:
| If the only person using the searx instance is you/me (aka self
| hosted) then now we are getting tracked by every search engine
| coletonodonnell wrote:
| I run my own searx instance and it's amazing. One issue I am
| facing is with images not loading in the Images section
| sometimes, but other than it's perfect and I recommend it.
| spinax wrote:
| Just to share for readers, what are your personal
| RAM/CPU/disk usage measurements? The instance I use is shared
| with a small group so my numbers above may be skewed.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Does this mean I get the search results quality from from 2009
| back or is search botched on a more fundamental level?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Depends on what you miss from 2009.
| maiodude wrote:
| I find it ridiculous how pathethically people "fight" for their
| privacy when they type their complaints on a smartphone. Just
| stop bitching
| osmarks wrote:
| You're assuming things unreasonably, and in any case _more_
| privacy is good even if it 's not total.
| gerash wrote:
| It's meant for when you have a flight ticket in your Gmail or a
| restaurant reservation then if you search the name of the
| restaurant or flights on Google it'll display a link to your
| email among the search results. I think it's a brilliant feature
| and hope they expand it to many other receipts type things in
| Gmail
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| For those of us who aren't constantly logged into Google, the
| link is simply to a login page.
| jefftk wrote:
| The page is one where you can change a Google account setting
| for "whether Search can show you personal results based on info
| in your Google Account"
| busymom0 wrote:
| For the last 2 years, I have been having a much hard time
| searching on Google. Couple quick example:
|
| 1. The date filter no longer seems to work. For example, if I
| search for "reddit dating app" and set the date filter to be
| "Past week" or "Past month", it still shows me results from few
| years ago.
|
| 2. Using quotes for exact matches often doesn't work for me
| either.
|
| Is this happening for others too?
| MaxikCZ wrote:
| Yes and yes. Its getting ridiculous..
| Apotheos wrote:
| I believe the first example is specifically a reddit problem,
| due to something they did with their date data.
|
| I always search reddit for reviews and at some point, even
| though the result says "5 days ago" on Google, the result is
| actually years old when clicking through to reddit.
| busymom0 wrote:
| I remember having similar issues with more than Reddit. If I
| remember right, I had similar problems with Quora as well as
| StackOverflow. I specifically remember this working fine for
| me and then suddenly it broke for multiple sites. This was
| maybe 2 years ago though.
| reportgunner wrote:
| I stopped using google mainly for these two issues about a
| couple years ago and honestly, I completely forgot that these
| issues can be a thing.
| fooblat wrote:
| I want a setting for "Search for what I actually typed in the
| search bar" instead of trying to guess what I meant. I was
| advised to use advanced search syntax and operators but when I do
| I get a captcha challenge on every other search.
| omaranto wrote:
| I didn't even know google searches could lead to captcha
| challenges, I've never ever gotten one.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| If I open a new private FF window on my phone while on mobile
| data and google something, I usually get a captcha. It's
| kinda ridiculous.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Because your search isn't tied to previous activity by a
| human, you trigger the "bot-like search scraping detected"
| filter.
| Santosh83 wrote:
| It is clever tactic by privacy invasive industries to give us
| theoretically all the knobs to configure privacy but make them so
| confusing, so many, and scattered in so many places and with so
| many caveats, that within a rounding error, everyone is going to
| quickly get fatigued, confused and leave the settings as is,
| which in most cases is opt-out.
| visarga wrote:
| software solution - meta config tool
| staticassertion wrote:
| This isn't exactly news.
| zzzeek wrote:
| I actually find the "personal" results useful so when I search
| for something like "python bug" I get things about issues with
| Python, not insects and snakes in the wilderness.
| aflag wrote:
| Finding issues with Python is the default result for that
| query, regardless of your user preferences. Finding things
| about insects and snakes in the wilderness would actually be an
| example of personal results giving you what you want. Computer
| related stuff tend to have a stronger online presence than
| other subjects for obvious reasons.
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