Google SafeSearch Changes Hit the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and More

For now, Google is the best search engine. Try a few complex searches on Google, Bing, and "insert your so-called safe alternative search engine", and compare the success/fails. Google wins.

Bing, with all the $ behind it, sucks. It is the default engine my company uses, but I never find what I'm looking for. And I'm talking non-adult or controversial search strings.
I've tried some of those "private" search engines, and they are worse than Bing.

Example
My gal is a nurse at some rural satellite clinics. Their company network uses Bing by default too. She was trying to find a user-guide on an older medical device and told me she spent a couple hours on Bing trying to find it.
I said "don't use Bing, use Google", and so she entered the same search string on Google, and the very first link on results page was what she was looking for.

I could create a search engine called Sherlock and sell it as The Best Private Eye of the Web, but it would suck if compared to Google on results.

Can anyone recommend any good alternative browsers that will work with macs? I am seriously thinking about
coming away from the mainstream browsers, especially now that I have found this awesome community with its fantastic insider knowledge. I don't want the powers that be to know I now Know that they know what I know if you know what I mean.

reply to post by primus2012


That's the worst thing about all monopolies: they do something the best, then they prosper to the point when they are just able to buy or impede any other company that outperforms them.

Or more likely their success is due to initially being funded by someone else, buying off everything useful to them and then, of course, doing something better than anyone. In case of google, their sponsors are well known three letter agencies.

Hi Captain Abstract, I wonder if you can recommend any browsers away from the big 3?

reply to post by tearuone


Hi tearuone, well, I tried Firefox, but am a hardcore Opera fan, and I would never touch IE or Chrome with a stick.
While Firefox might be great with all the plugins, Opera has almost everything I need right from the box. The built-in mail and RSS client, to name the best feature. It has a large and helpful community as well. And it works on Macs too.

P.S. There are various settings concerning privacy, but they are no different from those in Firefox, in general. Like turning the cookies off, turning geolocation off, menu options to delete the temporary junk created by webpages on your hard drive, to clear the history and so on.. There are also plugins to block ads and intrusive facebook stuff. These are basic things that require understanding and careful usage, and won't contribute much to your online security and privacy. If your goal is high-grade anonymity and privacy, consider Tor browser or even better, a special linux-based operating system that runs from a cd or flash drive and includes Tor, it's called Tails.

Thank you Cap'n. I shall give opera a try. Anything to get away from the idea that Google is following me around wherever I go. I can't even understand half of the agreements they ask me to consent too.

Thanks for the warning guys am gonna stay away from google now! Am going to use the duckduckgo search engine now .

Originally posted by CaptainAbstract
reply to post by primus2012

 

That's the worst thing about all monopolies: they do something the best, then they prosper to the point when they are just able to buy or impede any other company that outperforms them.

Or more likely their success is due to initially being funded by someone else, buying off everything useful to them and then, of course, doing something better than anyone. In case of google, their sponsors are well known three letter agencies.

edit on 29-1-2013 by CaptainAbstract because: (no reason given)

They aren't a monopoly (which would imply they are the only search engine). They simply have the best product.

reply to post by primus2012


Can't disagree with you.

Well, at least they are perceived as monopoly. And I will stay with my opinion regarding how they manage to have the best product...

The same about Adobe, for example. They are not the only one who offers graphic/video editors, but their products are considered de-facto standard in the industry. This is very close to being a monopoly, given that many possible competitors were merged by Adobe.

It might seem fair, but to me it doesn't. The whole money-rule-the-world thing doesn't seem fair at all.

reply to post by CaptainAbstract


Especially when it's not real money according to the Constitution. I really am enjoying Bing and it'll get better more more user input. I've always been interested in the 'underdog'. Competition is good. I don't like how Google honors some holidays but Christian ones it turned a blind eye to.

I'm pretty sure the whole point of the article is that Google is making it impossible to turn safesearch off completely, thus blocking certain things from ever showing up regardless of your settings. So yeah, it's not quite like China's system yet, but it's getting close.

EDIT: I strongly suggest you read the article.

You got it right!
The setting cannot be turned off.
It is set to "Moderate" with an option to set the filter one step higher to show no "Explicit Results" and the standard option to "Lock SafeSearch".

If people cannot see where this is going then i do not understand why they even post on sites like ATS

This has nothing to do with the search of porn via Google.
However, the search term "porn" is the easiest way to look behind the curtain when checking out the capabilities and output of results using a Search-Engine like Google is.
Google also made it harder now to search for "Similar" pictures.
What was once 1 mouse click away is now pretty well hidden behind an optional menu and has become an clicking adventure of at least 4-5 clicks.

This is rubbish to me!!

I am not sure anymore about what and how much is filtered now.
I am not sure anymore about how i should enter my search terms properly to get the most amount of results.

Yes... i must admit that i got used of all its fine capabilities Google provided me with all these years...
I also must admit that i never could be sure of this Search-Engine as the only way to get all the information available... (maybe checking out others?)

Still Google is the only one which is spitting out the largest amount of results for any search term.

But... this time they've gone to far!!!!

Originally posted by primus2012
For now, Google is the best search engine. Try a few complex searches on Google, Bing, and "insert your so-called safe alternative search engine", and compare the success/fails. Google wins.

I'll definitely agree with you here when it comes to the main search function. But with pictures/videos, not so much.

reply to post by banandar123


what kind of idiot would use google image search for boobs?
they do need to keep it child friendly you know.
Its like going to seseame streets search engine and typing in vagina.

common sense people... .you can google (hot porn) and get web results.. but i like the fact you cant google image hot porn.
CHILD FRIENDLY!

Some people are just way over the top with inciting fear!

Is google forcing you to use their product?
Is google phoning you at 3am telling you your a bad boy for looking at booby images?
Are the feds knocking on your door because you googled adam lanza?
What freedoms are they taking away exactly?

calm down people! :*(

Well not sure why people are searching for porn on Google, Imean it is not like porn is hard to find on the internet.


Regardless I tried a test. I went to Google images and tried to search boobs. All images were pretty tame. I tried again this time with vagina. Some images came back with explicit images. This was with my safe search turned off in both searches.

A few other test reveled you can find some images on Google. To be honest I am not bothered by not being able to search for porn on Google. If I want to do that or search for other stuff I can just use other search engines. For just everyday searching though Google works just fine.


Using Google to search for porn is as odd as paying for it any more.

Raist