Technology @lemmy.world psychothumbs @lemmy.world 4 wk. ago

Google Search’s “udm=14” trick lets you kill AI search for good

arstechnica.com Google Search’s “udm=14” trick lets you kill AI search for good

The power of URL parameters lets you unofficially turn off Google’s AI Overview.

58 comments

Using a search engine that isn't saturated with ads and AI trash also solves this problem.
- I stopped using Whoogle (Privacy engine using Google search) because of the bad search results. Google's fault of course.
  
  Trying SearxNG now.
  
  SXNG has been great for me. Submitted a PR to add more quick-answers, too.
  
  Same with startpage because google indexing becoming horrible.
  But I have some cons. with searxng, earch quality becomes horrible when adding too much sources, and I decided to go with ddg.
- Got any recommendations?
  
  DuckDuckGo
  
  Startpage if you like Google, DuckDuckGo if you like Bing.
  
  Kagi
  
  Searx.space
  
  I started paying for Kagi. Works like Google in 2019. Fast, useful and customizable. One of the best features is hiding results from shit sites like Reddit, which blocks me for using a VPN. $10 well spent just to have that option.
- Which other trustworthy search engines are there? And I don't mean some different frontend or a meta search engine like ddg, sp, kagi, searx(ng), etc... that mostly just use googles, bings or even yandex and beidu results?
  
  Ages ago I configured and hosted yacy for myself, but that was a different time... Are there any real alternatives? With mayor internet companies like cloudflare, social media sites and many others restricting the access to the net and information, searching becomes more and more impossible if you aren't a huge corporation...
  
  FYI kagi does its own indexing, it’s not just a frontend
  
  The two criteria I suggested were "not saturated with ads and AI trash" (technically just the latter would satisfy OP's problem), and DDG meets both of those with no problem. Its AI "assistant" and its ads can both be trivially disabled. I use DuckDuckGo because I love its frontend and because it gives me fewer problems than Google did. I've only ever used alternative search engines that piggyback off the major ones (as you listed: DDG, Startpage, and SearX), so someone else would have to answer that for you.
  
  Searx is fancy about it though, It queries everybody and gives you the results that came back from multiple places. This effectively eliminates ads, AI, and unless they all missed it, spam.
Lets you turn it off for good...until Google removes that feature
- Imagine Google killing the searching feature.
  
  Yeah imagine.
  
  You talk as if it is yet to happen.
Google search engine is much worse than it used to be and seems to be getting worse.

udm=14 doesn't seem to improve Google search results by a significant margin.

Bing and DuckDuckGo seem to perform better than Google at present.

Google itself is failing. I'm not going to speculate why.

uBlacklist is my current extension for removing spam results.
- There's been a two pronged assault on it over the years.
  
  Mostly from websites doing anything to spam up the results via SEO and mass produced articles about product recommendations, that are little more than the top 10 selling items of that type on Amazon along with affiliate links.
  
  But also from within as Google morphed from a search company to an advertising company. Especially once they reached peak saturation and that all important growth must continue. I just don't think the capitalism machine works for these tech corporations once they reach the size of Google. How do you even grow from there? Enshittification and eating yourself is the only possible outcome.
- https://www.techspot.com/news/102765-who-prabhakar-raghavan-why-accused-killing-google-search.html
  
  Lol they put the guy who ran Yahoo into the ground in charge of Google search.
To add it to Firefox search, open about:config and add a boolean value browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh set to true. This will allow you to manually add search engines. Then open the search settings and click add. Set the URL to https://www.google.com/search?udm=14&q=%s, give it a name and click "Add Engine".
- I still like the idea of not using google search as my defacto standard, however once a month I may do an actual google search and this is a nice backup.
  
  Thank you for your work
- Tried this and it returns as site not found
- Thank you! I've been looking for a way to to do that (for a different use case). Works like a charm!
Lots of talk about which search engine to use; surprisingly little talk about extensions.

Block or Highlight Search Engine Results is my personal recommendation. Whichever SE you use, when you see a result that's AI slop or a garbage website like Forbes, just add bullshit.com to the filter, set to hide, and you'll never see that trash in a search result ever again.

Be diligent about it for a good week or so, and your search result quality will absolutely explode, whether your using Google, DDG, or several others.
As in, forever for good, or the "Microsoft" "for good" user settings paradigm?
It would be great if it did anything for SEO, but alas.
Good old six month old articles getting reposted, yup, yup, yup.
Anyone know how to add it to mobile Chrome?

Edit: go to the udm14 site, then open settings/search engine, it'll be in there. I'm not sure if you have to do a search through the site first for it to show up.
- There is an addon for Firefox mobile
Am I the only one questioning the spelling of “tyre“?
- not everyone speaks ameican english
  
  And it's probably India which has the most English speakers in the world (counting it as native, second or third language)
  
  Is it just me or is this response the wrong response? I would have expected:
  
  not everyone speaks bri'ish english
  
  (that missing "r" in "ameican" inspires the use of the "improper" option here). It's American English that uses "tire", after all, and the rest of the Anglosphere that has "tyre".
- Today you learned a new aspect of the British English dialect. Congrats!
  
  They'll be boggled by hiccough and gaol.
- Deus Vult!

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