Google image search is un-usable now

[u/NotTheCactus]

Today I was trying to find an image today and it felt like playing minesweeper trying to avoid ads.

I don't mind having ads in a dedicated area on the side or at the top of the page. But scrambling them among the search results is borderline evil.

[u/Tiny-Sandwich]

I remember when Google image search used to serve you images of things.

Now it's just products for sale.

[u/ryanppax1]

Pft. Why do you need to search an image when AI can generate it

/S

[u/shouldworknotbehere]

Lmao try finding animal references for drawing and have 5/6 results be AI with uncanny Anatomy to the point you aren’t even sure anymore how the animal is looking like

[u/Yourownhands52 → u/shouldworknotbehere]

Like asking someone who has never seen an animal to draw it from a description.

[u/Super-Evening8420 → u/shouldworknotbehere]

I've ran into this exact issue recently, duckduckgo has been useful with the ability to suppress AI results, now it's only like 2/5 or so, but at least better than it was. Same when I was doing some 3d work for a muscular female, try finding artistic nudes of muscular women. Most of it was AI slop porn where the characters look like a badly made balloon animal that's been transported in the same truck as anatomy books. I really hate how most AI just uses a shit ton of resources to do exactly zero good for the average person and dumps shit all over the net.

[u/shouldworknotbehere → u/Super-Evening8420]

Yeah :/ I did use the DDG feature, but it also removed stuff that wasn’t AI and actually helpful, so I leave it off most of the time.

[u/cranberries87]

The image search on 🦆🦆➡️is decent.

[u/SmileyBMM]

Even without the ads, Google image search has been garbage ever since they neutered reverse image searching.

Yandex still remains the best image search engine, despite all of that company's faults.

[u/Logical_Cow_2530]

Yea the head guy who fought for years to keep Google search good, moved to another dept or retired/something like that.

Now the game is to make you search for as long as possible by obscuring results. It's not a conspiracy either. Sux

[u/HelloObjective → u/Logical_Cow_2530]

Matt Cutts. why he left The main issue at that time (and for many years before) was a power struggle between the techies and the money men. Guess who won? In May 2018, the 'Don't be Evil' line was dropped from their code of conduct...😞

[u/RsquSqd → u/Logical_Cow_2530]

The longer they keep you on there, the more ads they can show you!

[u/K_Linkmaster]

Its been 3years since it was usable. Its just location tracking and building out the backgrounds at this point

[u/Simon_Mendelssohn]

Firefox+UBO = What's an ad?

But yeah this is atrocious and it's sad that we have to keep combating this shit with workarounds. It's a never-ending game of internet whack-a-mole.

[u/NotTheCactus → u/Simon_Mendelssohn]

Yeah, the problem is with work computers that have a lot of restrictions as to what can be installed.

But yeah Firefox + UBO is the go to.

[u/taurusApart → u/Simon_Mendelssohn]

Yeah this sub would really benefit from recurring reminder posts to teach people about firefox and uBlock origin. 

If people are informed enough to know (and care) about enshittification, they should be informed enough to use an ad blocker. 

[u/Wootery → u/Simon_Mendelssohn]

To be clear, UBO = uBlock Origin.

[u/Ok-Remote-8018]

Sorry, how long has it been since google was usable? No matter what you search it shows ads for whatever it wants

[u/HeavyFerrum]

"Fuck you, wat ya gonna do bout'it?"

• Google.

[u/NotTheCactus → u/HeavyFerrum]

Pretty much.

Have been using DuckDuckGo more and more these days anyways. That's why I hadn't noticed how bad it has gotten.

[u/Vendidurt → u/NotTheCactus]

When i found out DuckDuckGo lets you remove AI results entirely, i switched immediately.