There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

mildlyinfuriating

This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Showroom7561 , in Redirect to prevent back button

YouTube does this. Infuriating well beyond mild.

Thcdenton ,

The got some kind of resource leak too. I just close my browser sometimes lol

hddsx , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

Is softonic actually malware or an unreliable repository that may contain malware? I’ve never actually clicked in lol

renzev OP ,

I unknowingly downloaded some software from there when I was a kid, and, from what I remember, it came bundled with some sort of update manager or something. Even if it’s not outright malware, I would wager most people who are looking to download logitech’s utility don’t want some irrelevant third-party garbage on their system. So AT BEST it’s crapware / bloatware

DarkThoughts ,

They had some issues with their downloader in the past but that thing has been canned a long time ago. It's not a great site but it isn't malware.

flicker ,

That’s the beauty of the internet. There’s always a competitor. I don’t have to use someone who had a bad reputation at one point but is fine now. I can just use someone else.

iAmTheTot ,

The latter.

xpinchx ,

My elderly dad fell for something similar trying to call HP support, he googled the number and the top result was some bullshit. They had him set up remote access and compromised all his data. Old man had to reset everything.

He called me saying what happened, I had him shut down and unplug. I recovered what I could but he lost a lot of data.

This shit should be illegal. Like, I’m sure it is technically but there shouldnt be unofficial sponsored results above legitimate sources.

hddsx ,

Yeah… I get that you pay for ads, but ads should never masquerade themselves as legitimate content.

Crashumbc ,

In a perfect world, they’d be legally/financially responsible for any ads they serve up like that.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

It’s just a mirror for software that is or was free. Though it’s been around for years, and hasn’t been relevant or needed by most people for a long time now so it very well could contain viruses and shit these days.

ayyy ,

Yes it is.

scrubbles , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

Oh my god that’s amazing. Instructions on how to do what you’re literally doing, dead internet theory is so correct. Instructions for robots by robots

FlihpFlorp ,

On robots.net too

renzev OP , (edited )

Unpopular opinion: dead internet is not only real, but GOOD. Once robots get good enough to autonomously sign up for websites and make convincing posts, this will force us humans to go actually outside, make friends, form deep social relationship, and build lasting, resilient communities. Meanwhile on the internet, websites that are willing to allow AI content for money will eventually die out due to lack of actual users. The only remaining websites will be run by individuals and organizations with non-profit motives, and a strict human-only policy with verification based on word-of-mouth / invite system.

scrubbles ,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

The economy was always bots buying from other bots…

nomous ,

High-frequency trading has entered the chat.

feedum_sneedson ,

What chat?

nomous ,

On most chat platforms when a person joins the channel/room/whatever a notice will be sent to all users indicating the user entered the chat. It comes from old IRC servers.

www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Has enter…

makyo ,

I’m extremely wary and nervous about how disruptive LLMs can/will be but one relief is just getting an answer directly for things instead of wading through page after page of SEO optimized BS. Just really nice when you can get a quick answer and get back to the things you want to be doing.

I suppose the AI overlords will screw that up somehow too but IMO it’s at a brief moment of usefulness.

RisingSwell ,

If the answer is even correct. Friend tried to use it to see what laptops with 4k screens cost and all 3 options were in fact, not 4k at all because the AI is dog shit :)

makyo ,

No that’s very true, I had it look up leather repair shops not too long ago and it listed six completely fictional shops with fully fleshed out trip-advisor style blurbs for each one. It was hilariously convincing and a complete waste of my time. But it does seem like that happens less and less lately.

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

Thing is, you never have any clue whether the AI is telling you something even remotely true unless you go behind it and trawl through six pages of shitty SEO-optimized bullshit anyway. So you can either take its word at face value and potentially be completely wrong, or else just do the research yourself anyway and ignore the AI answer.

Personally, I choose the second. I find it to be less frustrating if I just assume the AI is wrong.

tux7350 ,

This is kinda how I’ve come to look at it. You cannot ask questions of fact to a machine that works in probabilities.

skulblaka ,
@skulblaka@sh.itjust.works avatar

Well said, I like that.

chicken ,

this will force us humans to go actually outside, make friends, form deep social relationship, and build lasting, resilient communities

There is no chance it goes that way, how is talking to people outside even an option for someone used to just being on the internet? Even if the content gets worse, the basic mechanisms to keep people scrolling still function, while the physical and social infrastructure necessary for in person community building is nonexistent.

Matriks404 ,

Enshittified internet and software made me no longer obsessed with technology, and instead I focused on other hobbies. And it also made my socialize more.

childOfMagenta ,

I’m a geek, always around computers, gaming, tinkering, etc.

Once I moved for work, to Spain, didn’t know the language. My laptop broke, like, when opening it, the plastic was fatigued and the screen just bent.

I was broke, expensive training… Couldn’t replace it before a few months.

So I went to the bar of the inn I was starting at. And just, tried to pick up some words.

Long story short, after a while I knew everyone in town, had many friends, and after work, laptop or not, I would go to the bar. I got fluent in Spanish too.

Happiest time of my life. I don’t think my mental health has ever been as good as back then.

JackbyDev ,

Boooo, this is just diet accelerationism! Let me have genuine online connections in addition to my IRL ones.

lordnikon , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

I would give startpage.com a shot i find it works even better than duckduckgo

renzev OP ,

Thanks for the tip! I use startpage already, it’s pretty good. From what I understand, it uses Google’s search index under the hood.

There’s also Brave search which (claims to be) privacy friendly and (claims to) have their own independent search index, so you could give that a try as well. I wouldn’t say it’s better that startpage or google tho

sturlabragason ,

I’ve been using Brave search for a while as a daily driver. It’s usually pretty decent, but I fall back to google when looking for commercial stuff like local stores and products.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

and (claims to) have their own independent search index

AFAIK their index is very small, so they use Bing to supplement it. Most search engines and voice assistants that aren’t Google use Bing in some way, since it’s the largest search index that has an official public API that anyone can use.

Wizard_Pope ,
@Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world avatar

Damn I’d love to use it but it does not have my country as an option to select region so pretty much useless to me sadly. Stuck to DDG abd google/bing it seems.

OpenStars , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable
@OpenStars@discuss.online avatar

💸 Microsoft 🤑 got 💰 paid 🫰 so… they managed to come out ahead of this whole ordeal just fine.

The rest of us can go suck a bag of dicks for all they care.

QuestionMark , in Redirect to prevent back button

I think there was an extension named Skip Redirect that solved this issue…

mynamesnotrick , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable
conciselyverbose ,

That’s disgusting.

tal ,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

As someone who uses dark mode on everything and Dark Reader, using that looks like staring into a headlamp. I wonder if Bing actually has native dark mode support if the browser requests it with prefers-color-scheme?

goes to look

Nope. Need Dark Reader.

mynamesnotrick ,

Yeah, I use dark reader too. I opened this up in “private” mode as to have non modified page to display.

RmDebArc_5 , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable
@RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works avatar

If you are interested maybe look at this post I made comparing search engines

LucidNightmare , (edited )

Thank you so much for this! I did not know Kagi was doing that, and I was about to cave in and start trying it out!

chemical_cutthroat , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world avatar

I mean… you went to Bing to search for a program. That’s something that a new or inexperienced user would do, and Bing tried to help. It gave a direct link to the software (a link which I just tested to be working and safe on a virtual machine), it instructed how to do it using the official website, and then as a third option, it gave a link to the website.

I know that a lot of people will automatically assume a site like Softonic is loaded with malware (and I don’t have the time to refute all of those claims) but the download they provided of the software was just a mirror of the official download and came with no added malware, spyware, or adware. Use at your own risk, but OP is pretty clearly fearmongering in an attempt to get people to give them internet points.

conciselyverbose ,

This is absurd.

Typing “Logitech unifying software download” in the address bar is massively less effort than navigating their shitshow of a site. It’s not a sign of inexperience in any way.

Allowing an ad with any third party download is an insane policy, and it is not a legitimate practice at all to use an unreliable third party with a well deserved bad reputation to download software in place of the manufacturer.

MentalEdge , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

I’ve been using my own searxng instance for a few months now and my god I’m never going back.

jasep ,

Which one? Something paid or self hosted?

MentalEdge , (edited )
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Self-hosted. That’s not a typo, it’s what it’s called. Searxng.

Here’s a list of puplic instances to try or use.

jasep ,

Cool, thanks! Something I’ve been meaning to try out.

brian , (edited )

not a typo

puplic

This amuses me

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Which search engines do you use with it? Google? Bing? Something else?

MentalEdge ,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

All of them.

It shows you which ones “agree” on a given entry, so you can tune it to your tastes.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

According to the docs, SearxNG supports 209 search engines, and 85 are enabled by default (docs.searxng.org/user/configured_engines.html). I guess you mean you’re using those defaults?

Does it work well out-of-the-box? I’ve been meaning to test it myself!

MentalEdge , (edited )
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

No, I did change it, IIRC I enabled a lot of the ones that weren’t by default.

I haven’t felt the need to use anything else in months, so I’d say it’s very much fit for purpose.

You can always check out one of the instances available for free use to see how it performs.

Veedem , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable
@Veedem@lemmy.world avatar

It’s amazing how bad that is.

friend_of_satan , (edited ) in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

No joke, I hesitated to even click on the thumbnail. That’s what this bullshit modern internet has conditioned me to do.

Andromxda , in Redirect to prevent back button
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Firefox should really implement a feature that hides this bullshit from the previous sites menu

SouthFresh , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable
@SouthFresh@lemmy.ml avatar

Bing does not allow for exclusion of specific phrases by using hyphens and quotes. You can put them in your query, but they will be ignored.

Searching for: Topic -TopicSimilar

Is identical to: Topic

Aatube , in M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable

paid ActivityPub updooterer wen

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines