Search engine

Google’s Search Engine Will Now Warn You When It Doesn’t Have a Reliable Answer

A new prompt warns users to take search results with a grain of salt when they look up 'rapidly evolving' topics.

Microsoft Blames ‘Human Error’ Amid Suspicion It Censored Bing Results for Tiananmen Square ‘Tank Man’

It’s June 4, the 32nd anniversary of the infamous 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when Chinese troops crushed a pro-democracy protest movement by opening fire on and slaughtering hundreds of demonstrators in Beijing. The Chinese government doesn’t like talking about it, and it doesn’t like when others talk about it, either. It’s near the top of…

We’re Archiving Yahoo Answers So You’ll Always Know How Babby Is Formed

When the internet was mourning the impending shutdown of Yahoo Answers, announced earlier this week, there was a sentiment that you saw over and over again: that shutting the site down was akin to the library of Alexandria burning down. Honestly, that’s not too much of an exaggeration. When the service rolled out in the…

Brave Is Launching a Privacy-First Search Engine to Take On Google

Just a few months after rolling out what can probably be called the first privacy-preserving news reader, the folks at Brave are taking a stab at creating their own search engine to complement their namesake browser. Brave Search, which the company announced on Wednesday, is poised to become the “privacy-preserving alternative” to, say, Google search,…

Microsoft Wants U.S. to Adopt Internet Rules From Australia That Google Hates

Microsoft would like the U.S. government to adopt media rules that would force big tech companies to share profits with newspapers when they link to news content, according to a new blog post by Microsoft president Brad Smith. And the entire concept is controversial, to say the least. The profit-sharing idea, which has been proposed…

Your iPhone’s Adult Content Filter Blocks Anything ‘Asian’

Enabling Apple’s “Limit Adult Websites” filter in the iOS Screen Time setting will block users from seeing any Google search results for “Asian” in any browser on their iPhone. That’s not great, folks. The content-filtering feature is designed for parents to control what their children see when they browse the web. But the terms that…

Google’s Making Its Search Results a Bit Easier to Understand

If you’re also the type of person that’s wary about clicking on dubious links in your search results, then here’s a bit of good news: Google’s revamping its native search engine to give us more information about the results we see before we take those risky clicks. Nearly all English-language search results will get a…

New Firefox Defaults to Google, Ends Friendship With Yahoo [UPDATED]

Mozilla’s new Firefox Quantum browser launched on Wednesday, and there’s a lot to like about it. One change you might notice right away is that it now defaults to the Google search engine instead of Yahoo. Mozilla is framing this as doing the right thing for its users, but in reality, it may just be…

A Map of Every Device in the World That’s Connected to the Internet

Where is the internet? This map might explain it better than any statistics could ever hope to: The red hot spots show where the most devices that can access the internet are located. This map was made on August 2 by John Matherly, the founder of Shodan, a search engine for internet-connected devices. Matherly, who…

And here it is: the first Mega indexer and search engine. That didn’t take long.

Facebook’s Now Hiding Public Pages From Google’s Prying Eyes

As The Register learned, in part of an ongoing effort to turn Facebook into its own, closed little ecosystem, Zuck’s empire has closed off public events to, well, the public. Account-holding stalkers only, please. Once easily-accessible events listed as “public,” in addition to any other public pages, now require users to login before granting them…

Dogpile’s Autocomplete Suggestions Are Bonkers

Before Google there were many search engines worth trying out on the Internet. Technically, many of them still exist. What, you haven’t visited Dogpile recently? Well maybe you should, if only to see what its puny algorithm thinks you’re searching for. Punch “Am I,” “does,” or “can you” into the search box and Dogpile serves…

What if Google had launched in the 80s?

What if Google had launched in the 1980s and used a command line interface? Google BBS answers that question, letting you play with Google they way you might have during the Reagan administration. Based on this retrofuturistic video, web design and development firm masswerk created a working Google command line interface. Don’t worry, it’s not…

Google Now “Fully Blocked” In China [UPDATE: It Was A Status Error]

Google, the brave search engine company who refused to censor search results in China, seems to be finding itself entirely unwelcome in the country: Apparently Google is now fully blocked in China. Update: False alarm due to a Google issue. https://gizmodo.com/google-refuses-to-continue-censoring-results-in-china-5446712 It is worth noting that “Google defines “fully blocked” as 67 percent to 100…

How Google Actually Works, In Case You Were Still Wondering

Thirteen years after the Google.com domain launched, and you still don’t know how it works? Err, that’s ok—as this infographic shows, there’s a huge process going on behind its homepage every time you search for lolcats. [PPCBlog]

Google Search Will Cease to Exist in China By Friday?

As a result of Google standing up to cafeteria-manager China, demanding they serve pie every day of the week, China’s expected to revoke their Internet Content Provider license, meaning in 24-48 hours the Chinese people can’t access Google. https://gizmodo.com/google-refuses-to-continue-censoring-results-in-china-5446712 For the last three months, Google’s been redirecting the Chinese from Google.cn to Google.com.hk, their Hong…

Microsoft Bing To Replace Google As Default Search Engine On iPhone?

Uh oh. There’s talk that Microsoft Bing will be replacing Google as the default search engine on the iPhone. There’s certainly no confirmation, but this speculation does fit with prior reports of talks between Apple and Microsoft. Update: Maybe not? There are apparently also some sources who are saying that Apple and Microsoft are simply…

Yahoo Bitch Slaps Google In $85 Million Ad Campaign

Click to viewSpending $75-$85 million on marketing isn’t easy, but it’s definitely worth it in the case of Yahoo’s “It’s You” campaign. After all, the video highlighting it is a blatant attack on Google. Oh yes, the gloves are off again. [WSJ]

Mysterious Issue Temporarily Blocked Nearly All China-Based Google Searches

Earlier nearly all Google searches originating from China were blocked by China’s Great Firewall. Google initially said the problem wasn’t China’s fault, but rather a technical problem on the search engine‘s part. Now they’re not so certain. Updated: Wait-a-minute, China! Initially Google had this to say about the blocked searches, according to the WSJ: The…

Microsoft’s ‘Page Hunt’ Online Game Helps Improve Bing

How good of a web surfer are you? Put your skills to the test with Microsoft’s Page Hunt online game. Besides a nerdy sort of satisfaction, your queries will help improve the Bing search engine. The game, named Page Hunt, presents users with a random Web page and then asks them to input the search…