this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2026
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‘I miss old Google’: readers tell us how they search the internet in the age of AI (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 day ago by Corvidae@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Google has put artificial intelligence at the front and center of its search bar. The most-visited site on the internet still shows the same list of links to users, but they have to scroll past a summarized response from an AI chatbot, a feature Google calls AI Overviews. The change to what was once the gateway to the rest of the internet has been profound, and the browsing habits of billions of people are shifting.

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[–] TheRiskiestBiscuit@reddthat.com 47 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Google was really awesome at a point in time. You could throw it the most obscure query using natural language with in-text Boolean operators and the number one result would direct you to an html-only geocities page that hadn’t been updated since 1999 with the EXACT answer you needed and citations from 3-4 actual, physical books to back up that answer. IMHO, those were peak times for the internet as an information resource; approximately 1998-2008.

Now every page just seems to be a bloated, poorly-coded monument to engagement baiting, subscription model services, and ad revenue generation. It’s genuinely sad to have watched the degradation over the years…

[–] kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 8 points 21 hours ago

100%, it’s weird to feel like my information access has gone back down to 90’s levels. Half the time you’re better off going to the library and flippin pages!

[–] isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 14 hours ago

Are there any search engines out there that operate just on a whitelist model? A content-agnostic white list-based engine that manually categories sites via human reviewers, and filters only for SEO spam and AI slop?