Led astray by Google?

[NewDisciple]

Since the Google Chrome browser was released I have noticed some unusual behavior when searching with Google on Firefox. I can type in the exact name of the site I want to go to (not the url) and Google gives me everything but. The feeling is, being taken for a ride. Lately I have had to hunt down the appropriate url to get to the site I want. Fortunately I have saved a good number of them. Has anyone else noticed this? Hope I'm not the only one. Maybe my inmagination is running wild.

[davidryder]

Chrome is a very barbaric stage - there is still a lot of work to be done. There is nothing you can't do in FF that you can do in Chrome with plugins.

[myusername]

Chrome is a very barbaric stage - there is still a lot of work to be done. There is nothing you can't do in FF that you can do in Chrome with plugins.

or with a dev and a hand gun :lolflag:

[hansdown]

Hi NewDisciple.

I get the same thing with the basic google search.

[Tatty]

I dont think google would dare to start messing with its search results in this way.

Google's entire fortunes have come from fast and accurate search (and selling appropriate ads for them), and although tye have many arms and wings of the business, the vast majority of their income is still from search.

There are still other search engines and I think google is very aware that any degradation of their search results could quickly turn into a mass migration of google users elsewhere.

In short, I think the one thing we can feel confident about from google is accurate search results.

[hansdown]

I dont think google would dare to start messing with its search results in this way.

Google's entire fortunes have come from fast and accurate search (and selling appropriate ads for them), and although tye have many arms and wings of the business, the vast majority of their income is still from search.

There are still other search engines and I think google is very aware that any degradation of their search results could quickly turn into a mass migration of google users elsewhere.

In short, I think the one thing we can feel confident about from google is accurate search results.

o.k.

[karellen]

or with a dev and a hand gun :lolflag:

:lolflag: poor little guy

[NewDisciple]

With that being said, I'm sure that Google would like the masses to adopt their browser and the best way to do that (even if it is not true) is to make other browsers less useful or less attractive. I don't know, but it sure seems like a lot of empire building is going on over at Google HQ. Isn't this the way that company in Redmond, Washington got so big?

[Johnsie]

I don't think google needs to do anything like that to get people to stop using Firefox. Firefox is very bloated and quite buggy. If someone created a decent broswer with plugins I'd drop Firefox like a shot. Chrome may well be the browser to do that if they release a decent plugin system.

[NewDisciple]

Now for an example. I was changing and setting up bookmarks. I typed youtube into the search bar. Normally this would have taken me to a search results page with youtube being the first item. This is the one that says broadcast yourself. Not this time however. What I got was a list of blogs that mentioned youtube. After going through four pages of results and never once encountering the youtube website I quit. Had to go through some of my old bookmarks to find it. Try it. See what your results are.

[andras artois]

Works fine for me :s I type in youtube or youtube.com I get the youtube site as first result, same with other sites like myspace etc :/ sure you haven't played with your google settings or something?

[NewDisciple]

No settings changed so I don't know what to say about that. Anyway I switched from Google to cuil http://www.cuil.com/ and it goes exactly to what I'm looking for and seems to me at least to be faster than Google.

[Dr Small]

No settings changed so I don't know what to say about that. Anyway I switched from Google to cuil http://www.cuil.com/ and it goes exactly to what I'm looking for and seems to me at least to be faster than Google.
Try IXquick. It's ever better :)

[DJ_Barney]

Being led astray :-\" ?

Well, I only recently found out that the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation make MILLIONS off adeal with Google to do with the search box in FF ...


In 2005, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation had a combined revenue of US$52.9 million, with approximately 95 percent derived from search engine royalties.[128][129] In 2006, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation had a combined revenue of US$66.9 million, with approximately 90 percent derived from search engine royalties.[128][130]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox#Relationship_with_Google

This is all casually talked about in Mitchell Bakers' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker) blog

http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2007/10/22/beyond-sustainability/

Maybe I should have looked harder, but where does it say when I download FF that I'm making a corporate entity a s**t load $$$'s ?

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that Google have financed some open source development of FF. Now their own browser arrives magically "fixing" all the problems that FF has. FF is now "bloated" and "outdated". Back to the days of the Microsoft / Mozilla browser wars ?

I'm also VERY uncomfortable with the passion and enthusiasm of young people (well, and old !) for open source development and REAL community (not something connected up it's a***s to huge corporate interests) ... I'm uncomfortable with the way those good intentions are being manipulated by the likes of Google and Mozilla.

Why is FF even in Ubuntu with it's supposed strict legal approach ?

Frankly I feel like it's all rather pathetic at the moment. It seems like a company just has to say "do no evil" and everyone believes them. Have we been all SO brainwashed by the advertising industry ?

Are we all goin to roll over and allow them to tickle our soft spots ... AGAIN :lolflag: ?

[forrestcupp]

Well, I tried Chrome when it came out. It has a nice interface, but it's far from being on par with FF. There is absolutely no plugin architecture. The only possibility for ad blocking is a javascript bookmarklet that works after the page is already loaded.

And seeing how Google makes most of their revenue from advertising, a browser from Google just doesn't seem like the right choice for me. Neither does an OS.

[Dr Small]

and seeing how google makes most of their revenue from advertising, a browser from google just doesn't seem like the right choice for me. Neither does an os.

+1

[NewDisciple]

Dr Small thanks for the tip on IXquick. Neat search engine.

DJ_Barney your comments have merit. Thanks! I'm glad you brought up FireFox. The only reason that I have always used it is because of their addons. However...I'm really tired of the extensions being behind the browser, if they are updated at all. Secondly, the addon website itself is crap. Terrible labeling and structure. Why should we have to view hundreds of uncompatible addons? Why are addons duplicated? Did I say something about poor labeling? Lastly the search function is almost clueless.
Instead of spitting out a new & improved browser, why not fix the available parts that brought people to FireFox in the first place?

[forrestcupp]

Those are some valid points about the Firefox add ons. But I think about all of them are 3rd party. So it's not really Mozilla's fault that they're behind the browser updates.

They could do some work to the web site, though.