Is Google dead (or dying)?

[littleberry]

About a year ago Google switched to a new format which made it unusable to me and many others. Many goooglers have been making posts since then as to which google webpages still used the old format, but, one by one they have all now been switched to the new format. I can't find a single webpage IN THE WORLD now that still uses the old format. Is google dead for good now? The old format gave you a complete thread history on the left, and let you navigate easily through different posts, allowing you to expand the thread portion at will. This new format squeezes you in, doesn't reveal the whole thread, and makes it practically unusable. Tom's forums are MUCH better than google. So, is there any other alternative to using google? Are any of the participants in this forum dissappointed in google's forcing the new format worldwide (as I am)? One of the things I am seeking now is a GOOD forum to discuss inkjet printers. I use TOMS for most PC hardware, AVSFORUM for TV's and display things, and I wonder if there is a central forum anywhere for general discussions about inkjet printers. Since the new google format is worhtless as far as finding anything, does anyone here have a better cite?
Is there any alternative to google anywhere? Thankyou, littleberry

 

[the_Prisoner]

I prefer Google over other search engines. I used to use Ask Jevees, Yahoo! and etc. I find Google is easy to use and I own stock in the company so I'm biased. It is around 287.00 per stock so I don't think it is dying.

At one point they didnt think Amazon would even survive. I think it took about 4 years before they made a profit. A company I worked for was their first supplier and I have some inside info about Amazon.

I guess at least in terms of inkjet printers you need to search
more. I know that doesnt really help you in terms finding a specific forum but I have some obscure hobbies and with some effort I did find some websites.

Have fun, the Prisoner

I'm not a number, I'm a free man! 😡

 

[Jake_Barnes]

Good Tech/Hardware Forum = <A HREF="http/forums.anandtech.com/" target="_new">AnandTech</A> ...


<b>"The Edge - there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." Hunter S. Thompson, </b><b><i>Hell's Angels, 1965</i></b>

 

[riser]

Um, I've been using google since around late 98, maybe early 99.

I vaguely remember what you're mentioning.. but I think the Similiar Pages option is close to what you're looking for though, but not exactly it.

It's still by far the best search engine out there.. but now it's collecting so much more information, finding what you want might mean going past the first 2-3 pages of the search.

You're honestly the first person I've ever hear complain about this and I still find google to be the most useful tool on the internet by far.

 

[bjpatrick]

Dude, Google just rocks! I love the article in Eweek referencing Microsoft's quest to possess the top rated search engine. Ha! Good luck to MS or anyone else that wants to challenge Google.

 

[riser]

Technically.. it's not hard to do what google's doing.. everyone knows how they do it now..

The problem Microsoft is facing is now how to do what google's doing, but how to do it better.. what else can Microsoft do that google doesn't?

I personally like the simplicity of Google.. I used to use northernlight.com because it was just a search, but google became a lot better for my searches.

Microsoft will need to keep a very simple page that doesn't have a lot of information on it.. that can pull cached pages, or maybe the last 2-3 pages since it was changed, along with similiar pages, plus maybe find obscure websites that have information on them but aren't as popular.

It's going to be really hard to out-do google, since they've been doing it 7 years now. Microsoft will try, but they already have enough bad blood out there.

 

[fishmahn]

I have no opinions on google, but for printers...

There's a yahoo groups group named Printer Repair. Don't know if that's what you're looking for in a group, but its a good place for repair & troubleshooting info on all printers. If it's not what you're looking for, maybe they'll be able to point you to a better site.

Mike.

<font color=blue>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside the dog its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>

 

[riser]

<A HREF="http/www.fixyourownprinter.com" target="_new">http/www.fixyourownprinter.com</A>

 

[littleberry]

I think I confused my own post. There are really TWO search engines associated with GOOGLE - one is www.google.com, which I never use, and the other is www.deja.com, which resolves into http/groups.google.com, which is the one I was referring to. The old www.deja.com, which went off the air a few year sgo, and was picked up by google, is a massive database of posts made to various "groups", and it is an extremely valuable resource for finding what others have had to say about almost any subject. If you typed in www.deja.com, you got jumped over to http/groups.google.com, and the OLD format was about as good a format for finding various posts in various groups for any subject you were intetested in. A few months ago, google changed the format for the old www.deja.com, to something similar to what they use for google proper, which is almost unusable to me. For the last few months, you could find one or more websites around the world that still used the old format for their www.deja.com "mirror". The last one was http/groups.google.com.de (or something like that), and it would give you the old format. A few days ago, it got changed to the new format, and I can no longer find any mirror anywhere that still uses the old format. I have never actually used google proper (www.google.com), so, maybe I will find it can fill the void. But for those who used www.deja.com, the new format is so unusable that it is no longer a viable way to find out anything. I guess folks here on THW haven't used the old www.deja.com search engine, or you would know what I am talking about. In fact, the way I found out about THW in the first place was from reading about it from a search I did using www.deja.com a few years ago. I really do miss that search engine. As a comparison, the new format for www.newegg.com is also difficult for me to use, but, at least they offer the OPTION to use tha old format (called "classic"), and, I just wished the folks at google would do the same.
I wnnt to fixyourownprinter, but they haven't gotten anything yet for the cannon ip5000. Anyway, I don't want to fix it, I was just wanting to get with a group of experienced ip5000 users to see what ideas are floating around - the old deja would be the perfect way to find out about it. littleberry

 

[riser]

When I do a search on groups for "cannon ip5000 support" I find plenty of threads and information on it.. but it's still in beta and hasn't been finalized. Everything I see if that they're working on creating a better interface for it.

It's technology, things change, you adapt. You adapt, things change to you.
I don't see it very hard to use, actually it seems quite easy to do. Now, if you want the ease of just clicking and having it pop up on the screen, that's fine and all. I always just do a ctrl-n or right click-new window.


I'm guessing this is what you're looking for:

<A HREF="http/text.dslreports.com/nsearch" target="_new">http/text.dslreports.com/nsearch </A>

if so, I found that using google.com

 

[littleberry]

This webpage explains what I am talking about:

http/blinkynet.net/comp/gggui.html

Unfortunately, as thie webpage reports, you can no longer enjoy the experience of using the old interface, so I can't point you to an example. I am suprised that no one on THG seems to be aware of the old google groups format, nor the earlier deja. I am not opposed to change - of course not- that would be plain and stubbornly stupid. But to change to a new interface FOR NO GOOD REASON, is also stupid. If any of you readers can remember the days before computers, the way you did research in the library was to learn to use the "reader's guide to periodical literature". The rules and methods you learned had been in practive for decades (maybe centuries, for all I know), and there was never any reason to completely overhaul the system because it worked wonderfully in an age before computers. After PC's became so widespread and the web made information so readily avialable, the reader's guide lost its value, and this change to PC"s is certainly a great advance. But to keep on changing the interface and the format that folks learn to use serves no purpose to but to give web programmers something to do. If anyone remembers the old format, please advise as to ANY (even ONE) advantage of this new "donwgraded" interface. Yes, I CAN use the new interface, of course, but it is so much trouble compared to what we had before that I can't help but lament and wonder WHY DID THEY DO IT? Littleberry

 

[riser]

I'm thinking that most people were able to find threads just as easily using Google.. I don't see the benefit of the deja interface considering it only finds threads, something google can do. Maybe the layout isn't as nice, but google is very accurate with whatever information you want.

I've never had a problem finding threads using google.. but then, I don't have the usenet experience you're talking about..

and I think it was also called the Dewey Decimal System in the library.. which is still alive in most libraries, but on a computer system instead of index cards. It's faster.. some great things will eventually die out to greater things.. or faster, not necessarily greater, things.

 

[the_Prisoner]

I forgot about deja.com. Copernic is great to search many search engines.

the Prisoner

I'm not a number, I'm a free man! 😡

 

[Todd_a]

I use Web Crawler as it combines Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and a few others and compiles them together. I tend to get the best search results with it.

Goggle does have a lot of advanced search options that many comlain are too powerfull. I just can not beleive you can not do similar with these. Otherwise I do not see the point in them dropping anything. That is not Google's way. They want everything. in their engine.

Heck I see Google as being the biggest threat to Windows. Sooner or later Google will develope an OS around either Linux or BSD and make it good. They will then add so many cool features and servaces and link it all to their Google engines and give it away. They make the money back on all the other stuff. Think of the things they can do with G-Mail, instant messaging, photo printing, online starage (and like on line recovery of your computer data), search tools, TV, DVD, news, and music on demand, word processing, photo and video editting, heck even games on demand.... Broadband speeds are supposed to grow pretty fast over the next few year. Heck they might even make a PC/council to put this all into and sell it through Walmart or something. Google made $350M in proffits last quarter and they do not look to be slowing down much in the near future. I see this happening about the time Windows Vista comes out at the end of next year. I started think this about a year ago and the more Google grows, the more I see this happening.

 

[the_Prisoner]

You are right,Web crawler is also good to search through many search engine sites.

the Prisoner

I'm not a number, I'm a free man! 😡

 

[rasselas21]

I agree with ???? on this one... let's review: "The old format gave you a complete thread history on the left, and let you navigate easily through different posts, allowing you to expand the thread portion at will." This is NOT for google.com, but groups.google.com. Simply put, the new-user interface offers none of the things mentioned above. To say that google rocks and rules may be a valid point, but does that mean groups.google.com is also the best groups search engine? And furthermore, does that mean that roups.google.com's new interface is better than it's old one? It might find more information more accurately and faster than before... but does that mean it's interface is improved? No.

LittleBerry is asking, what is a group-search engine that offers a format/interface that was similar to groups.google.com's old style (ie, like www.dega.com's style). Anybody?

In regards to google.com (proper) being the best, I find it defecient in several areas. (of course this is probably biased by my viewpoint). For example, you search for "css :not" and you get results like "css not the best". I'm asking about ":not" rather than "not" but google doesn't allow meaningful symbols. Google also tries to intelligently give you results that it thinks you meant... like doing a search for "ky" will give you kentucky, but maybe not jelly. That's fine sometimes, but sometimes it's frustrating. Third, you can no longer (at least easily) search for partial matches, like "cat*" for either caterwaul or catapault or just plain cat. Google might have made some advances on automatically allowing either cat OR cats (with an s now... so plural), but it's no means exhaustive... like, searching for squat doesn't give you squat squattish (short, or next to england), and certainly won't give you saSQUATch.

This is to say nothing of google's stance in world affairs or such, only its search capabilities. And that's only some of the problems with google proper... and some of these problems mentioned or DEGREDATIONS of what google actually USED to be able to do. Question: why? It's also the same question LittleBerry asks.

PS - I believe google's answer was that it slowed searches down to do complex RegExp searches [of course it would, but just for those kinds of searches, which people don't have to perform unless they're willing to wait]... and they wanted to be the fastest around (ie, though powerful, it affected their image negatively). And why degrade the groups.google.interface? Because it was too complex for many? That it cluttered the screen too much? That it cost too much money/time to maintain? It would probably be the last, as otherwise, why not offer it at least as an alternative. But... too much money for a company that makes 50+ billion a year?

On the plus side... google does usually offer simple, clean interfaces, lists MANY sites (but any search-site that had so many submitted sites could claim the same), is fairly accurate and somewhat weeds out spam, comes in google-bar form, etc.