• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    I remember interviewing at Google years ago (if you’re keeping score, it was 2012/2013 just before their stock hiccupped and my onboarding was killed as I was only a 97% fit), and the guy was religious about page load times. “We cut 200 lines of code if it’ll give us a millisecond of page load speed”, that kind of thing.

    How they’ve fallen.

    • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      well they don’t need to fight for new users anymore. Everyone uses it already, and children are basically indoctrinated to it: all schools have that as search engine, often they even use google classroom and drive and whatnot on the classes. if they have chromebooks, the chrome browser automatically starts after login even if you don’t want to use it, and you can’t unpin it from the taskbar either

      • john89@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        We really are ruled by corporations.

        I guess this is why it was so important to neuter the government and public institutions. Can’t have regular people with control over their own lives.

          • bokherif@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Honestly nothing is good anymore. Every search engine brings up the same SEO optimized dogshit articles. I sometimes use Arc browser but that’s not really that different than asking ChatGPT.

            • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 days ago

              Recently I don’t feel that way after using Kagi. Sure, there’s still some junk, but somehow I’m finding what I’m looking for a lot easier. That search in forums toggle is magical.

            • john89@lemmy.ca
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              3 days ago

              Yeah. Really sucks how you need to know what you’re looking for in order to get any use out of a search engine these days.

              For example, if you want to find a “free online video chatroom”, you’re not going to find it by typing those words into google. You need to know, specifically, that there is a free chatroom called https://stumblechat.com/ and type that into google in order to see it.

              The world is fucked.

            • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
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              3 days ago

              It’s so obnoxious. I hate researching a topic only to be fed results leading to useless AI spam. The entire thing is clogged up like this. Searching on the internet absolutely sucks, now.

          • MrTolkinghoen@lemmy.zip
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            3 days ago

            Duckduckgo is bing. They route their searches there afaik. It’s just a privacy layer, like startpage is a privacy layer on Google.

            • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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              3 days ago

              Duckduckgo also has bangs, which I consider an essential feature.

              Although I use SearXNG instead, since their equivalent is a lot more customisable (although less bangs out of the box).

              • soupuos@sopuli.xyz
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                3 days ago

                FWIW you can kinda replicate bangs using Firefox using bookmark “keywords” (I think that’s what they’re called). They basically allow you to create a bang for any site using any trigger characters.

                • ripcord@lemmy.world
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                  3 days ago

                  Yeah, I use those constantly. For web searching, Wikipedia, work ticket lookups, etc.

              • FryHyde@lemmy.zip
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                3 days ago

                Are there any that have a top knot or fauxhawk though? Asking for a friend.

              • MrTolkinghoen@lemmy.zip
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                3 days ago

                Yep. I was using ddg but just spun up 2 sear instances for myself. (One on vpn one off)

                What are your favorite searxng customizations / bangs?

                • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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                  2 days ago

                  What are your favorite searxng customizations / bangs?

                  Nothing hugely advanced. I added the NixOS wiki to !software_wikis and I also redirect the old wiki to the new wiki (since the former blocks VPNs). I also use the redirect functionality to redirect twitter/reddit etc links to FOSS frontends.

                  I’ve also added a bunch of stackexchange sites with their own keywords.

                  I’ll add you can also use duckduckgo bangs by using !! e.g. !!protondb.

            • Realitaetsverlust@lemmy.zip
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              3 days ago

              I don’t think that’s true. They are using the index of bing, but the search results are not. At least that’s what I heard, no idea if it’s factual or not.

  • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Doing this to combat bots like they aren’t also using bots to scrape data from the internet is interesting.

    I wonder how this affects modified/custom search engines (like udm14).

      • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I know, but I have it set as a custom search engine and what I’m saying is, if someone were to use it in chrome would it still require them to enable java. I think that answer is that it would. I don’t use chrome so I’m not gonna test it.

  • Soulifix@kbin.melroy.org
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    5 days ago

    If I have to go back to using Excite, I will.

    Like, I’m tired of Google Search, it’s always been shit. I’m tired of it’s AI Generalization, tired of it’s garbage results, tired of the stupid section of questions asked by ‘people’ with these low-hanging fruit and softball but dumb questions there is to be asked.

    • tkr@jlai.lu
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      5 days ago

      yt-dlp direct to > peertube. Never google/yt again, i would prefer books instead cooperate with them

  • palordrolap@fedia.io
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    5 days ago

    If the British civil service, even operating under previous administrations, can put together a multi-functioning government domain that runs reasonably well without JavaScript, there’s no reason Google can’t continue to do the same with a ducking web search.

    The former works better with JavaScript, that’s true, but it works OK without and that’s the point.

    Then again, the civil service were ordered to do it largely out of spite because the government didn’t want to give the plebs any excuse for not being able to use the site.

    I’m not sure how to get Google to lose the need for scripting in the same way.

    • Vent@lemm.ee
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      5 days ago

      I think this isn’t a case of if Google can, but rather of why they should. Do enough people really use the modern web without JavaScript to justify spending the resources to test and maintain functionality without JS? And they probably don’t want to let the few people that don’t have JS to open support tickets or write articles about how google.com is broken. Easier to just block it on purpose than to let it decay.

      It makes more sense that a government website would support it, since they can’t let even a single person fall through the cracks, and changing laws/regulations is more difficult than making a company decision.

        • SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee
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          3 days ago

          All I know is that when I disabled java in Firefox:config

          It loaded the gpt.com page or whatever it is and you can type but never submit anything.

          • Rin@lemm.ee
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            3 days ago

            Java isn’t JavaScript in the same way that Ham isn’t a Hamster.

            • john89@lemmy.ca
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              3 days ago

              Java isn’t Javascript, but that ham analogy is dumb as fuck and I feel bad for anyone who internalizes it after hearing it from someone else.

              • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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                3 days ago

                How is it dumb? Ham and hamsters are two totally different things but sound similar. Java and JavaScript are two totally different things but sound similar. It’s a way to immediately explain to a non technical person in a way they can grok.

                • john89@lemmy.ca
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                  3 days ago

                  It’s dumb because it can’t be reliably extrapolated to other instances.

                  It’s perfectly reasonable for someone to think Java and JavaScript are related. It’s not reasonable for people to think ham and hamsters are related.

                  This is a result of badly naming something because the ECMAscript creator wanted to ride the coattails of the ‘hot new thing’ at the time, which was Java.

                  For example, people shouldn’t immediately doubt whether Godot and GodotScipt are related because Java and Javascript are not. Your hamster analogy falls apart here because it only describes an exception, not a rule.

      • john89@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        No reason that it should, other than businesses collectively lowering everyone’s standards.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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    4 days ago

    the widely used programming language to make web pages interactive

    I hope we aren’t talking forms and input fields, right?

  • Vent@lemm.ee
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    5 days ago

    Honestly, JS is such a core part of the web, I’m surprised it took this long.

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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      5 days ago

      There is no need for any JS to simply POST a query to a web server, and receive an HTML response. This is to force tracking, ad, and AI bullshit on people.

      • Vent@lemm.ee
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        5 days ago

        Google is a lot more than just the one google.com page. And even if it were, JS adds some nice features like predective text / suggested searches.

        Tracking, ads, and AI can be done without JS. They may be slightly less granular in the same way as the user experience will be slightly worse, but disabling JS won’t stop it.

        I’d bet the biggest reason Google decided to do this is so that they don’t have to support a version of the site that virtually nobody uses.

        Imo, the most compelling reason for non-JS versons of typically JS-driven sites is to support lower power devices. But it’s 2025 and even a 10 year old phone you found in a dumpster behind a decaying Radio Shack can run modern websites without issue.

        Even the article is grasping at straws for why this might be bad. “It might make accessibility more difficult or add security issues”. One of the most valuable companies in the world, with some of the best engineers in the world, is going to have problems adding aria attributes and updating dependencies? Give me a break.

        If you want to block tracking, ads, and “AI”, there are plenty of ways to do that without disabling literally all JS. If you want to construct your google search request without the rest of the stuff on google.com, use your browser’s search bar.

        I’m as anti-google/tracking/etc as the next guy, and I’ve been using DDG almost exclusively for years, but I’m not going to pretend like asking companies to make HTML/CSS-only versions of their sites is a reasonable request in the modern web environment. It can be really fun and cool to build a site without JS, but there aren’t many scenarios where it’s actually beneficial.

        The replies in this thread are just plain ignorant. Basically every website uses JS heavily and disabling all JS with something like noscript is just a plain bad time.

        Even in your comment, every sentence is wrong. Google searches are done with GET requests, and there are plenty of reasons to force JS other than tracking, ads, and ai.

        • limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 days ago

          A lot of people turn off js to avoid tracking, or for performance, or they are calling the search in scripts, or they are doing illegal deals in their browser. There are dozens of reasons to do this.

          I’m USA based and this will impact future protests : not just the search but all google services must be avoided in the future.

          This will also break tens of thousands of scripts

        • tkr@jlai.lu
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          5 days ago

          but I’m not going to pretend like asking companies to make HTML/CSS-only versions of their sites is a reasonable request i

          believe me, its over a reasonable request, it’s a duty, a respect for technology : javascript towards to enshitification, pure html/css is heaven while JS became now pure evil.

        • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
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          3 days ago

          I remember using NoScript extension ages ago for what I believe was at least a year. Occasionally sites had problems with loading certain elements even if I allowed 1st party scripts by default. It was way too often when I had to allow domains of various 3rd party scripts when I finally realized this workflow just sucks and benefit is so miniscule that I just got rid of it. Only blocking extension I am using right now is uBlock.

          I know it does not matter, but it pains to see that perfectly normal comments like yours that add to conversation get downvoted just because some people do not agree with its narrative.

        • TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz
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          4 days ago

          These days, the “suggested searches” are ads in the shape of searches of companies or products, many of which nobody ever heard of. Gone are the days of the genuine “other people searched for this.” It was only a matter of time, I guess.

        • tkr@jlai.lu
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          5 days ago

          But it’s 2025 and even a 10 year old phone you found in a dumpster behind a decaying Radio Shack can run modern websites without issue.

          since google is pure evil, i use dillo daily.

        • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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          5 days ago

          But it’s 2025 and even a 10 year old phone you found in a dumpster behind a decaying Radio Shack can run modern websites without issue.

          What about a server without a GUI where your only interface is a terminal using the Lynx browser? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done that.

          The background world of the Internet infrastructure nobody ever sees or thinks about still very much looks like the 1980s.

          • Vent@lemm.ee
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            5 days ago

            You’ve seriously been in situations where you had no access to the internet except through a terminal, and you had to do a google search? No phone or other computer that you’re remoting in from?

            Even so, there are terminal-based browsers that support javascript like brow.sh or links (not lynx).

            I doubt the nothing-but-terminal users comprise a significant enough portion of Google’s userbase to justify the extra costs to test and maintain non-JS functionality.

            • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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              5 days ago

              Yes, I have. Searching for mirrors to get an installation package of some sort or ISOs to set up virtual machines and downloading it directly to the server, for example. Don’t need USB, don’t need another PC or phone, just do it all on the same server you’re working on.

              • Vent@lemm.ee
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                5 days ago

                Interesting that that is the workflow that works best for you. I’ve personally always found it a much better experience to do my searching/browsing off of the server and wget whatever I need to download. If that’s truly your situation, then you may just need to use another browser that supports JS or use a different search engine. I prefer DDG anyway, lol. Not a huge deal.

                • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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                  5 days ago

                  I grew up on DOS. I am equally as comfortable doing practically everything in a terminal as I am in a graphical environment. I’m sure I’m not alone among other IT folks.

                  I’ve been known to keep text based IRC clients or text based Tetris or some shit open on another virtual terminal for shits and giggles while I’m working an a different one, flipping back and forth between tasks. Just like a user on a multitasking graphical OS would do.

    • heavydust@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      One logo, one input field, one button, nothing requires JS. They could have kept a simple solution for disabled people but they don’t even care about that.

      • Vent@lemm.ee
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        5 days ago

        Search suggestions require JS. Also, why would Google spend the resources supporting the 5 people that block JS when virtually all websites and users rely on JS. This is a nothingburger of a story.

        • Drusas@fedia.io
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          4 days ago

          You are vastly underestimating the popularity of uBlock Origin’s JS blocking feature.

        • tkr@jlai.lu
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          5 days ago

          the 5 people

          i dont think there are only five guys disabling JS on google search, but just by noscript without exceptions, it’s only 200k on firefox… but who would use evil chromium today?